Tremblay: ‘Les Belles-sœurs’ and A toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou’ by Michael Cardy (review)

MLR, 101.1, 2006 259 attention to the Journal's poetic qualities. Jones excels in his close readings of the text, which he prioritizes over lengthy accounts of its critical reception, or its place in the Genetian corpus. Thus Jones is able to demonstrate the way Genet's language collapses under its own weight, the phenomenon inspiring many of the contributions to Hanrahan's volume. All this follows what may seem a circuitous consideration of theJournaVs uncertain relationship with autobiography, and of Sartre's biography of Genet. This non-linear trajectory is vital for establishing the refined argument with which Jones's study culminates , which treats the theme of the (non-)identification with the other, taking the firstand last volumes of Genet's complete works as reference-points. Such a short study inevitably has limitations, which, forthis reader, were clustered around the handling of Genet's treatment of selfhood: it was surprising to find the complex motif of sainthood, so central to Genet's reconfiguration of the self, left untreated; arguments on abjection and the indeterminacy of identity deserved fuller development. Only the bibliography can attract real criticism, however. Containing errors and material far from accessible to undergraduate readers (while leaving out some recent and highly useful works), it appears to have been hastily compiled, and, judging by typographical slips and the presence of '[check]' in the (incorrect) entry under Cocteau, not proof-read. Christ Church, Oxford Claire Boyle Tremblay: 'Les Belles-soeurs' and A toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou'. By Michael Cardy. (Critical Guides to French Texts, 136) London: Grant & Cutler. 2004. 84 PP- ?7-95- ISBN 0-7293-0443-4. Michael Cardy's perceptive essay focuses on Tremblay'stwo earliest successes, which together revolutionized Quebec theatre and pioneered the use oijoual?rather than metropolitan French?on stage. Tremblay has written over twenty-five plays, many of which have enjoyed lasting success, and he is now considered Canada's premier playwright and an icon of Quebec literature. This study is both an introduction for readers unfamiliar with his writings and a source of fresh insights for those already well acquainted with the two plays. The book begins with a useful overview of the socio-political climate of the 1950s and 1960s in Quebec, when Tremblay was growing up. Cardy shows how Tremblay's plays, written in the late 1960s and early 1970s, are imbued with the ideas of the times, when the sweeping social and cultural changes known as the Quiet Revolution were transforming the province. Tremblay's own working-class background (he leftschool aftergrade 11 and went to work as a typesetter) accounts forthe convincing accuracy with which he depicts the desperate lives ofthe working poor, but Cardy stresses that Tremblay's plays are not realistic in their structure or technique. Instead, they might best be described as a mix of realism and the fantastic. In the second chapter of this essay Cardy analyses characterization. He demon? strates that, by virtually eliminating plot, Tremblay heightens the power of his char? acters, who depict the alienation and insularity of the 'oppressed and traumatized majority' in Quebec (p. 25). The characters?most of them women?are at once in? dividuals and the entire working class. Cardy is the firstcritic to demonstrate the care with which Tremblay has given individual personalities to even his most minor char? acters in Les Belles-soeurs, and the ways in which one character complements another. The characters' adhesion to the collective values that enslave them is a central theme of both plays. Amidst the negative, narrow-minded individuals in both Les Belles-soeurs and A Toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou, there is one rebellious woman 260 Reviews who determines to break with tradition and live life to the fullest. In both cases the rebel is roundly condemned by the other women, who fail to understand their own need for liberation. Carmen, of A Toipour toujours, ta Marie-Lou, is one of the most celebrated of all Tremblay's characters, a kind of independantiste figure calling for change. The political implications of both plays are undeniable, but, as Cardy rightly comments, 'The political analogy, while obvious, is expressed throughthe character? ization, so that it...

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