From convergence to debate
Strange as it may seem, the best way to understand Montreal's literature is to take a history lesson and look at a geography map. The city, which is first and foremost an island, marks its special status as a confluence zone: situated where the St. Lawrence and Ouatouais rivers meet, it belongs to an archipelago that bears an ancestral name, Hochelaga.
This toponymic memory recalls the arrival of a Frenchman, Jacques Cartier, who discovered the eponymous Iroquois village in 1535. Contact with the native population went well, and the explorer took the opportunity to name the mountain that dominates the site mons realis, Mont Royal. History doesn't know it yet, but everything is in the making in this short episode: the insular nature of a future metropolis, the mixing of populations (which will take place more or less peacefully, despite the English), the different languages that don't prevent communication but claim to retain their own identity, and a name that will evolve into the one we're familiar with today: Montreal.
In a word, it's impossible to sum up Montreal literature in a single stream. Confluence will never become unity, and if cosmopolitanism, whether ethnic or linguistic, is sometimes a source of discord, it's also representative of a city that invents itself in the diversity of its neighborhoods. There isn't just one Montreal, there are many Montreals, a world-city that remains a favorite setting for many writers, and perhaps that's the only thing they have in common.
If in literature, plurality is synonymous with richness, as the reader succumbs to the thousand tableaux that unfold before his or her eyes, it's impossible to ignore the divergent forces that have tried to impose themselves, or even the anxiety raised by these concerns, symbolized by a literary expression that has entered common parlance: Two Solitudes. This is the title of a book by Hugh MacLennan, born in Nova Scotia in 1907 and now professor of English at the prestigious McGill University, in which he examines the - admittedly conflicting - relationship between English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians. His talent for giving a local problem a universal scope made him one of the first writers to be recognized abroad, and his prolific body of work was the subject of numerous translations.
Coexistence, if not an equitable and salvific association, seems to be the sad fact, paradoxically contradicted by a Montreal vernacular that twists the two dominant languages, much to the chagrin of Francophones who may have felt threatened - the question is certainly still relevant today - especially as they were already questioning their legitimacy in the face of another country, France.
How do you define a specifically Québécois (or even Canadian) literature? This is the crux of the matter, a debate with many ramifications that would grow in scope in the 20th century, bringing many nuances to the table and taking place, in part, in the city we're interested in. For example, the École littéraire de Montréal, founded in 1895 by poet Jean Charbonneau, critic Louvigny de Montigny (1876-1955) and playwright Germain Beaulieu (1870-1944), was accused of "exoticism" by the champions of regionalism, who deplored the fact that influences were being sought beyond the country's borders. Surprisingly, a young Montrealer, Émile Nelligan, born on December 24, 1879 at 602 rue de la Gauchetière, was honored by both parties, the former acknowledging his importance to the country's literary history, the latter praising his pen, which was shrouded in his admiration for French poets. After his Romance du vin, which he declaimed with fervor at the May 26, 1899 session, his mental illness caught up with him. Institutionalized by his father a few months later, it was within the four walls of a hospital that he ended his life in 1961, inspiration having left him at the same time as freedom had been taken from him.
This was also the swan song of the École littéraire de Montréal, whose activities became sporadic until it ceased altogether in the 1930s, but the city nonetheless remained a privileged stage for a certain avant-garde, for example when the magazine Le Nigog was launched, rekindling the quarrel in 1918, or when Henri Tranquille opened a bookshop in 1937, where the 400 copies of Refus Global would go on sale eleven years later. This manifesto once again stirred up fierce debate, denouncing the prevailing conservatism and costing some of its signatories exile. Nevertheless, the establishment continued its "Quiet Revolution", becoming a rallying point for many writers and mirroring the reforms that finally embraced the country in the 1960s. Without rushing into history, let's not forget that literature in Montreal was not only written in French, as some writers of the first half of the 20th century pointed out.
Linguistic and literary diversity
Abraham Moses Klein was born in the Ukraine in 1909, but grew up in Montreal, and from Quebec witnessed the Second World War. Undermined by the Nazis' crimes against the Jews, he worked as an editor for the weekly Canadian Jewish Chronicle from 1938 to 1955. His last and most famous collection, The Rocking Chair (1948), explores the theme of community that was so dear to him, but is a little biting in the face of French Canada, whose limitations he recognized. Nonetheless, it won him much praise and the Governor General's Award.
Before sinking into depression and profound silence at the end of his life, he took care to pass on his passion for literature to Irving Layton, also of Jewish and European origin, who had also arrived on the American continent when he was less than a year old, following the departure of his parents from Romania, where he was born in 1912.
After graduating in agriculture and economics out of spite and lack of means, his taste for letters led him to send his first poems to First Statement magazine in 1942. This led to a chance to join the editorial board of a new publication, Northern Review. He quickly established his place in intellectual circles, multiplying his publications. His collections were well received, but it was with Un Tapis rouge pour le soleil (1959) that he was honored with the Governor General's Award. His verve and the freshness of his words, particularly against the bourgeois class, made him one of Canada's most appreciated poets. He died in 2006, at the honorable age of 93, in Montreal.
One of his closest friends never ceased to praise his talent, and although it may seem surprising to mention in this short panorama of Montreal literature a man adored for his music, Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) was nonetheless a writer. Born in Westmount, fatherless at 9, he entered McGill University in 1951. It was there that he met Irving Layton and Louis Dudek. Together with Raymond Souster, they began publishing authors in Contact Press, and Dudek went on to create the avant-garde magazine CIV (for civilization) in 1954, followed by The McGill Poetry Series, which featured Leonard Cohen's first collection, Let Us Compare Mythologies, in 1956. Three years later, The Spice Box of Earth, published by McClelland & Stewart, brought him real recognition at the heart of this new wave of Canadian poets. Léonard Cohen then turned to novels, with The Favorite Game an autobiographical tale of learning. Then came his departure for the United States, his first success as a lyricist with Suzanne and the memorable career that was to follow.
Another man found recognition on the other side of the border, so much so that his Montreal origins were regularly forgotten. Yet it was in Lachine that Saul Bellow (1915-2005) lived until he was 9 years old, willingly attending the street school from which he would pick up a slang that would pepper his later novels. The son of Russian immigrants of modest origins, life was not to preserve him, as he lost his mother while still a teenager. Nevertheless, he entered the University of Chicago, graduating in anthropology in 1937. His first novel, The Dangling Man, had some Canadian overtones, but from 1947 onwards, The Victim inspired him. The Adventures of Augie March won him the National Book Award, followed by Herzog, winner of the International Prize for Literature, Le Don de Humbold, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and many other titles, most of which are available from Folio. The author's colorful, sulphurous, sparkling writing was applauded by the most prestigious of awards, the Nobel Prize for Literature, which he received in 1976.
Mordecai Richler was also born in a working-class neighborhood, Mile End. He used it as the backdrop for his dozen or so novels, the best-known of which is The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which rivals Solomon Gursky or The World According to Barney in humor. Editions du Sous-sol had the great idea of bringing this author back to the fore in France, publishing some of his works in attractive formats. Richler is now part of the stock of every self-respecting bookshop.
Montreal's French-language literature has nothing to be ashamed of here, with names as familiar on our side of the Atlantic as Michel Tremblay and Dany Laferrière. Réjean Ducharme (1941-2017) may have been a little overlooked, but let's face it, he did his utmost to avoid the media. His unclassifiable L'Avalée des avalés, published by Folio, also deserves a mention.
Finally, the comics sector is doing well, as evidenced by the success of publishing houses that export as well as La Pastèque and Pow Pow. For example, the very likeable Michel Rabagliati continues to delight his fans with the adventures of Paul, his double, while Chester Brown continues to stir up controversy when he tackles such crude subjects as prostitution and pornography.
For a few days in May, Rue St-Denis is taken over by the Festival de la BD (FBDM). An event not to be missed.
