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Articles

Volume 19, Number 2 (1994)

The Writing of Future Revolt in Blais's Une Saison dans la Vie D'Emmanuel and Aquin's Prochain Épisode

  • Yaël Schlick
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1994-06-06

Abstract

Herbert Aquin's Prochain épisode and Marie-Claire Blais's Une Saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel are similar in their emphasis on death and writing. Through Aquin's text explicitly posits its inconclusive end as revolution, the revolution remains embedded within the text. In Blais's novel, the reading of Jean le Maigre's texts double the reading of the text and solicits the reader's involvement: the reader is asked to take up an oppositional stance against 'the laws of the Father' and to mediate a future. Although some critics have dismissed Blais's work through their elevation of political fiction over the folkloric, Blais's novel is more revolutionary than Aquin's.