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| Original Title: | Kamouraska |
| ISBN: | 2020314290 (ISBN13: 9782020314299) |
| Edition Language: | French |
| Setting: | Quebec (Québec)(Canada) |
Anne Hébert
Paperback | Pages: 256 pages Rating: 3.63 | 881 Users | 72 Reviews
Narration As Books Kamouraska
A Canadian historical novel, translated from the French, based on a real murder in Quebec in 1840. We have a love triangle. A woman has several children by a physically and verbally abusive husband. He’s a heavy drinker and is constantly threatening to kill himself and her even saying things like “I’m making a noose for two.” The she falls in love with her American doctor and they decide the husband needs to go. Early on in the story we know the husband gets murdered so the mystery that keeps the story going is who did it and how. All through the book we get excerpts from the trial and what happened at the trial. At times is seems like the wife is the murderer, or her maid, or the doctor.
Much of the story is told retrospectively, a long time afterward, and the woman has remarried a much older man who is dying from illness and old age. He refuses to take even tea from his wife, relying on the maid so he won’t be poisoned. She worries about the looming death of a second husband and the scrutiny it will bring to her.
And how’s this advice coming from her mother-in-law: “My son is a good boy. But he will go off on his little flings once in a while…I’m not going to say you should try to get used to it…Simply ignore it. …Don’t forget that, and you’re sure to be happy. No matter how my son mistreats you.” Maybe she should do that quote in cross-stitch and put it up on her kitchen wall.
The entire story is told in good, clear writing in very short sentences. An example:
“Yes, no doubt I am. That’s what it means to out of your mind. To let yourself be carried away by a dream. To give it room, let it grow wild and thick, until it overruns you. To invent a ghastly fear about some wagon wandering through the town. To imagine the driver ringing your doorbell in the middle of the night. To go on dreaming at the risk of life and limb, as if you were acting out your own death. Just to see if you can. Well, don’t delude yourself. Someday reality and its imagined double are going to be one and the same. No difference at all between them. Every premonition, true. Every alibi, gone flat. Every escape blocked off. Doom will lie clinging to my bones. They’ll find me guilty, guilty before the world.”
The main character is the wife so some of the story is told as her re-living testimony from the trial, some she dreams, some is present-day, and at times it is hard to know exactly what is what. But all in all a very good story that held my attention all the way through.
The author (1916-2000) won Canada’s top literary prize, the Governor General's Award, three times, twice for fiction and once for poetry.
Top photo, book cover art, Laurentian Homestead by French Canadian artist Clarence Gagnon (1881-1942),
Leaving Church by Clarence Gagnon from RoyalCanvas.ca
Canadian postage stamp honoring the author from postagestampguide.com
Itemize Of Books Kamouraska
| Title | : | Kamouraska |
| Author | : | Anne Hébert |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 256 pages |
| Published | : | March 2nd 1997 by Editions du Seuil (first published 1970) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Canada. France. Classics. Historical. Historical Fiction. Literature. Canadian Literature |
Rating Of Books Kamouraska
Ratings: 3.63 From 881 Users | 72 ReviewsNotice Of Books Kamouraska
One of my undergraduate professors called Kamouraska a Victorian Horror Melodrama. This was unkind and also ignores the fact that life in French Canada in the nineteenth was in fact in the majority of cases a Victorian horror melodrama.This ghoulish novel tells it like it was.A Canadian historical novel, translated from the French, based on a real murder in Quebec in 1840.We have a love triangle. A woman has several children by a physically and verbally abusive husband. Hes a heavy drinker and is constantly threatening to kill himself and her even saying things like Im making a noose for two. The she falls in love with her American doctor and they decide the husband needs to go. Early on in the story we know the husband gets murdered so the mystery that keeps the
Excellent story told in an interesting collection of images.
Rating:.4.5A French Canadian classic set in 1839 on the banks of the St Lawrence River. The novel jumps back and forth in time so the reader almost becomes an accomplice to the murder and the love affair between the doctor and the wife of the victim.
Gothic Canadiana love story. Love!
A feverish dream of a book. Radiant madness. Wonderful.
A Canadian historical novel, translated from the French, based on a real murder in Quebec in 1840.We have a love triangle. A woman has several children by a physically and verbally abusive husband. Hes a heavy drinker and is constantly threatening to kill himself and her even saying things like Im making a noose for two. The she falls in love with her American doctor and they decide the husband needs to go. Early on in the story we know the husband gets murdered so the mystery that keeps the
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