A true masterpiece

Mathieu Bock-Côté

Saturday, march 3, 2018 05:00

UPDATE
Saturday, march 3, 2018 05:00

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The French Canadian and his double, Jean Bouthillette, is one of the few true masterpieces of our political literature.

In a language meditative and poetic, the author has sought to understand the collective psychology of the French-Canadians as they became Quebec.

History

But the book, published in 1972, editions of the Hexagon, and it had become found, except in some second-hand booksellers. We thank the éditions du Boréal for this rerelease.

In his book, Bouthillette trying to understand what we might call today the discomfort of the identity of our people. Since the English Conquest, and it has been the victim of a form of depersonalization collective by integrating the scornful look of the conqueror himself. The confederation of 1867. We have rights as individuals but not as a people.

As a result, the Quebecers, at the bottom of themselves, doubt their right to exist, and are haunted by what Bouthillette called the temptation of death. Hubert Aquin spoke to the tiredness cultural of Quebec. It is a people unfinished.

The spirits mocking, today, will wonder how this affects us. We are who we believe delivered from history, we do not see how it can still weigh on us.

Because the portrait drawn by Bouthillette seems to be more true than ever. The Québécois don’t know how to name and just now the shy identity of ” French-speaking “.

They dream of dissolve in English in the name of modernity.

At the time of globalization, this temptation is stronger than ever.

At the time of publishing his book, Bouthillette believed the people of quebec on the threshold of a great renaissance.

Read

He wrote in particular : “A people asserts itself as a sovereign in the concert of the peoples of the earth, or it vanishes “. But independence has failed, and today, we are again tempted to disappear without making noise.

It is necessary to read Bouthillette to understand this temptation and reject it.