Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Tuesday, September 06, 2016

Readalong: Maria Chapdelaine

While we were on vacation, I picked up a slender Image book from a shelf, part of the very random collection of books scattered throughout the lodge. This book was called Maria Chapdelaine, a novel written in 1913 about a girl living in the wilds of French Canada, who has to decide between three suitors and the different lives they promise. The author is Louis Hémon, a Frenchman living in Quebec who drew from his recollections of life in Péribonka, a small town built where the Péribonka River flows into Lac Saint-Jean.

Hemon wrote in French tinged with the Quebec patois. The edition of which I read the first few pages was in English, but the language was simple and clear, and I thought that perhaps I could read it in French. And so I am, with a old library copy from the 20s. When I slant the pages in sunlight, the press of the letters casts shadows across the old rough paper. The book is, in its way, like the story: simple, old, plain.

Maria, as best I can tell past my basic decoding of the text, seems to be a bit shallow, her head turned by a recent sojourn across the lake to the town of Saint-Prime, where the houses are built close together and the forest has been cleared away so that the land is clear, free of the ubiquitous stumps. She regrets that her father has the drive of one who must clear the land, who gets the itch to move once a semblance of civilization takes root. She is a bit vain, but seems at root a good girl who knows that the life her family leads is one that will always involve isolation and grinding hard work. But the right man might promise a better life...

I don't understand every word of the French, but I find if I read a paragraph or a page and work it out from the context, I grasp the story about as well as if I look up every word I don't know.  There are some Quebecois constructions that don't make a lot of sense on a word-by-word basis but are decipherable as part of a paragraph. I am getting a good sense of the vastness of the Canadian forest, the bleakness of the northern winters, the sound of the ice melting on the river, les pionniers dans leur maisons de bois.

For example:

Alors ils se mirent tous à parler une fois de plus del la saison qui s'ourvrait et des travaux qui allaient devenir possibles. Mai amenait une alternance de pluies chaudes and de beaux jours ensoleillés qui triomphait peu à peu du gel accumulé du long hiver. Les souches basses et les racines émergeaient, bien que l'ombre des sapins et des cyprès serrés protégeât la longue agonie des plaques de neige; les chemins se transformaient en fondrières; là où la mousse brune se montrait, elle était toute gonflée d'eau et pareille à une éponge.

Roughly:

Then [the family] started to speak once more of the springtime which had begun, and the work that began to be possible. The month of May alternated between warm rain and beautiful sunny days which won out bit by bit over the accumulated ice of the long winter. The low stumps and (?) emerged, although the shadow of the various trees protected the long agony of the patches of snow; the roads transformed into mudpits; where the old brown foam of snow (la mousse brune, an elegant bit of description) piled up, it was like a sponge full of water.

I did look up gonflée, which I'd guessed as "pockmarked" but actually meant "inflated". Racines I passed over, as well as les sapins et des cypres serrés -- clearly some kind of trees (cypress, obviously, but I don't know serrés unless it's related to serrated, and perhaps sapins is saplings?).

***

I'm going to spend September working through Maria Chapdelaine, and I'd love to have company, in either French or English. (Project Gutenburg has the French online.)

UPDATE: Reader Catholic Bibilophagist notes that Amazon has a free Kindle version of Maria Chapdelaine in English.

13 comments:

bearing said...

I am in. How far are you now?

MrsDarwin said...

Je suis heureux! I'm only partway through Ch. 3, though I'd be through more if I hadn't spent a long time typing French into a blog post about the novel. :)

Also, I don't actually know the plot except that Maria at some point says 100 Aves.

Brandon said...

I'm still working through Chapter 1, which turned out to be a bit longer and more involved than I was expecting. I'm finding, though, that I can usually work my way through it fairly well, although slowly and with having to read paragraphs twice or thrice. Interestingly, I find scenery descriptions much easier to follow than dialogue.

For the paragraph you give, racines (roots) I knew immediately, but souches stumped me (HA!) until I saw your translation. I don't think I've come across that word ever before. Gonflée I couldn't place although I knew I'd seen it before.

mrsdarwin said...

Ha, I only knew souches because I looked it up in Chapter One.

Mary said...

I was thinking that "serrés" was probably a grouping of the trees, based on how it was used. A google search provides "in a row" as a correct definition...
LOVE your description of the physical book and page!

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

I know no French, but Amazon currently has a free Kindle version in English.

https://www.amazon.com/Maria-Chapdelaine-Louis-H%C3%A9mon-ebook/dp/B0082YR7G6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473218606&sr=1-1

The translator is W.H. Blake.

Your description has sufficiently intrigued me to download and begin so that I will know what you are talking about.

MrsDarwin said...

It's a slim book and should go by rather quickly in English; it's only taking me this long because my French is very rusty. Even so, I'm surprised I'm picking up as much as I am, which leads me to believe that it's written in a very clear, simple style.

Melanie Bettinelli said...

The Kindle version is what I have.

The person who initially recommended Maria Chapdelaine to me (a stranger in a weird FB conversation) assured me that it was the Quebecois version of Anne of Green Gables. Which made me think maybe he hadn't actually read Anne when I was a couple chapters into Maria.

MrsDarwin said...

Melanie, what a strange comparison! Was it just because they're both set in Canada?

Melanie Bettinelli said...

That's all I can think of. Both novels set in Canada about young women? So odd. But I think that's why I gave up on MC after a few chapters. Not that it wasn't interesting, just that I picked it up hoping for something very different than what I got.

Unknown said...

It's recorded on LibriVox! And in English. I will take a break from WWII and the Theresa of Avila Trilogy I'm reading and listen to it while ironing.

Unknown said...

Here is the synopsis of it on LibriVox: Maria Chapdelaine is one of the most famous French Canadian novels. It is the love story of Maria C., daughter of a peasant family in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region of Quebec, in the 1900s. It is often seen as an allegory of the French Canadian people describing simple joys and great tragedies, the bonds of family, the importance of faith, and the strength of body and spirit needed to endure the harshness of life in Canada's northern wilderness. (5 hr 3 min)

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

I'm in chapter seven and enjoying it. Except for the mosquitos. Every time the mosquitos show up I have to keep repeating to myself, "It's just a book. It's just a book." Yeah, so let's light a smudge pot in the house. And blackflies. (Shudder!)