Two Solitudes

by Hugh MacLennan

First time in the New Canadian Library

“Northwest of Montreal, through a valley always in sight of the low mountains of the Laurentian Shield, the Ottawa River flows out of Protestant Ontario into Catholic Quebec. It comes down broad and ale-coloured and joins the Saint Lawrence, the two streams embrace the pan of Montreal Island, the Ottawa merges and loses itself, and the main-stream moves northeastward a thousand miles to sea.”

With these words Hugh MacLennan begins his powerful saga of Athanase Tallard, the son of an aristo-cratic French-Canadian tradition, of Kathleen, his beautiful Irish wife, and of their son Paul, who struggles to establish a balance in himself and in the country he calls home.

First published in 1945, and set mostly in the time of the First World War, Two Solitudes is a classic novel of individuals working out the latest stage in their embroiled history.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Historical Fiction, Classics, Canadian Literature, Literature, Novels

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1945

About the author

John Hugh MacLennan was born to Dr.Samuel MacLennan, a physician, and Katherine MacQuarrie in Glace Bay; he had an older sister named Frances. His father was a stern Calvinist; his mother, creative, warm and dreamy. Hugh inherited traits from both. In 1913 they went to London where Samuel took courses for a medical specialty. When they returned to Canada, they settled briefly in Sydney, before moving permanently to Halifax where they experienced the Explosion in Dec. 1917, which Hugh later wrote about in his first published novel, Barometer Rising. He became good at sports, winning the men's N.S. double tennis championship in 1927. Both Frances and Hugh were pushed hard in their schooling by their father, especially in the Classics. Frances had no interest in these subjects, but Hugh did well in them, first at Dalhousie University, winning a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. He worked incredibly hard there but only reached second-class. In his 4th year, he spent more and more time on tennis and writing poetry, which was not accepted by the publishers to whom he sent it.
While in Europe he traveled to Italy, Greece, Switzerland, France and Germany. While sailing home in 1932, he met his future wife, Dorothy Duncan. His father was not pleased with her American background and insisted that he not marry before becoming independent. Since he was refused a job at two Canadian universities and had a scholarship for Princeton University, he completed his Ph.D.Oxyrhynchus:An Economic and Social Study, about the decline of a Roman colony in Egypt.
He wrote two novels during those years, one set in Europe, the other in the USA. but they were never published. It was his wife, whom he married in 1936, who persuaded him to set his work in Canada, the country he knew best. He had begun teaching at Lower Canada College in Montreal. She told him, "Nobody's going to understand Canada until she evolves a literature of her own, and you're the fellow to start bringing Canadian novels up to date." Until then there had been no real tradition of Canadian literature, and MacLennan set out to define Canada for Canadians through a national novel.Barometer Rising, his novel about the social class structure of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Explosion of 1917, was published in 1941.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 4 out of 5]

To Live Is To Change - But Not Entirely

In the 1950's my family would spend several holiday-weeks every year in Northern Vermont. Part of the annual ritual was a trip to Montreal and Quebec, only a few hours drive across the border. McGill University and the shrine of St. Anne de Beaupre were the unexceptional tourist standards. But what a shock to me - a country in which people could understand English but wouldn't speak it; a country of some vague but pervasive hostility; perhaps most remarkably a Catholic country which wore its religion as a weapon, whether defensive or offensive I could not tell. But it was certainly different; and yet the Appalachian Mountains of New York were visible from the skyscrapers of Montreal.

Two Solitudes is about the tension between French Canadians and their English-speaking compatriots at just about the time I became inarticulately aware of it. Little known to me at the time, matters had reached such a state as to threaten the national unity of Canada. Ten years later, secession of Quebec from the Confederation was a real political prospect until at least some of the issues MacLennan touches - official language, ethnic discrimination, the role of the Church in politics, for example - had been addressed.

I took an extended camping trip through Eastern Canada, mostly the Gaspe peninsula and the Acadian shore of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island in 2002. My expectation was, given the absence of international news about Québécois separatists, that the reforms of the 1960's had been more or less effective. I was therefore shocked to discover overt hostility to English-speaking visitors and the frequent presence of Acadian independence flags all around the coast.

This experience reminded me of one of the most remarkable traits of Canada that isn't shared with its neighbour to the South: cultural continuity. Like the United States, Canada of course is a country of immigrants, and therefore to some degree a 'melting pot'. But in Canada what's in the pot is much less homogeneous and maintains much more of the national flavours of its first white settlers.

MacLennan's characters are often frustrated by the Canadian penchant for resolving a problem, specifically the inequity experienced by French Canadians, by ignoring it. Canadians, the reader is led to believe, tend, in a very English way, to muddle through, to make small, incremental, half-hearted attempts at social change. But these same characters despise the absence of cultural continuity and its substitution by greed and ideology in the United States.

Given my experience on the Acadian Shore, it strikes me that Canada has indeed found a middle way between the ideological destructiveness of the United States and the political stagnation of pre-WWII ethnic relations in the country. The French-English problem isn't 'solved'. But it's not meant to be. It is too complex to even attempt to fix permanently. Since it evolves, in this case by catalysing isolated French-speaking settlements, it can only be addressed incrementally with enough national energy to keep the whole together without destroying the smaller wholes within it.

I don't know if this kind of national social strategy has a name but it appears to be in play in a number of policy areas - First Nation, international relations, immigration, to name only three. And it seems to be a rather effective way to keep the country away from the obvious distress of social trauma and disintegration of its larger neighbour.

Appropriately, therefore, while brilliantly describing the existential reality of a multinational country, MacLennan doesn't provide what has come to be called a 'global solution'. Canada, it would seem, has the rare and precious virtue of humility - in its writers as well as its social policy. Or put another way by one of MacLennan's characters, "Its an odd thing about this country - there are few outright villains."

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seemingly interminable as I went along and I find the book really did drag on at times, yet this was a fantastic and inspired piece of vintage Canadiana that I’m grateful I finally read.

The novel sets its gaze on my corner of the world and much of the action takes place in Montreal, Quebec, about a century ago. Hugh MacLennan explores at length the cohabitation of French and English cultures with an interest and tenderness I have not encountered often, not with such compassion, not with such progressive views and a refined education. Not for hundreds of pages. Not in fiction, anyway.

Two Solitudes is also a love letter from the author to his vast and verdant country.

But down in the angle at Montreal, on the island about which the two rivers join, there is little of this sense of new and endless space. Two old races and religions meet here and live their separate legends, side by side. If this sprawling half continent has a heart, here it is.

I’m French Canadian and a lot of my friends are Anglos. Most of us happen to be bilingual at least to some extent and we are part of a crowd that does not dwell on differences: we feel the entire country is ours, regardless of our mother tongue. However, we are not alone and by making language such a strong determinant of his characters’ identities, MacLennan hits quite a few nails on the head in this novel when he writes about Montreal – or Quebec in general, or Canada as a whole.

Calling the book a political exercise would still seem reductive. More than anything else, Two Solitudes gives voice to a personal philosophy and it visibly feeds on decades of careful observation; making it a family saga – la famille Tallard not so much versus, but alongside the Methuen family – successfully brings to light core beliefs and social worries that resonate to this day in this country.

“I want him to learn to mix naturally with English boys. I’ve never believed in this artificial separation. I want our people to feel that the whole of Canada is their land – not to grow up with the impression that the Province of Quebec is a reservation for them. Besides, I want Paul to get a scientific education.”

Two Solitudes is mostly about language and culture, including religious inclinations and business acumen, but it also does a fine job of contrasting generations against each other. An old sea dog by the name of John Yardley provides some of the most memorable moments in this novel, going the exact other way and disregarding traditions, moving in next to French laborers just like that, keeping up with younger characters and generally getting along with everyone. He shines like a beacon in this epic saga. His is a voice of reason and a breath of fresh air.

“Consider my eye! How do you expect people like Paul and Heather to feel toward people like us? Do you think we’ve deserved their respect? We’ve sat on them all our lives. We’ve managed our affairs so badly thet boys like Paul have had to spend their last eight years wandering like tramps from one end of the country to another looking for work. You talk to me about rebellion? I’m telling you Janet – the first word any child in the country hears said to it is ‘No,’ and the first sentence he hears is ‘Be careful.’ God only knows how it’s happened thet way, for when I was a boy it was certainly different. You and your friends – you go crazy if a girl and a boy make love to each other before they’re married. (…) People get sick of hearing ‘no’ all the time. Don’t talk to me about rebellion, Janet, for I can’t stand to hear it. If you’d done a little rebelling yourself you’d be a happier woman today!”

A great read. A long read. Can’t believe I’d never heard of this Canadian classic before reaching adulthood. As I was growing up, everything was about Anne of Green Gables all the time, or so it seemed when it came to English Canadian literature. Reading this in my forties, Two Solitudes felt like our very own Middlemarch. Go figure.

[Stela · Rating 3 out of 5]

My ineffable Quebec, my love

Quebec is a magic place. You see it and you are besotted with it. You live in it and you become addicted by it. Almost imperceptibly you think of it not only as your home, but also as your wonderland.

I often wander Montreal’s streets, never tiring to marvel at the people and places’ diversity. Nowhere else in the world the word “cosmopolite” makes more sense than here, indeed, I almost believe this was the place that originated it, with its incessant scrolling of people from any corner of the world you could think of, with its happy charivari of languages more or less recognizable, with its interesting display of customs and traditions, with its generous, never-ending offer of artistic events. Whatever your mother-tongue is, sooner or later you will hear it, in the street, or in a supermarket, or in a theatre foyer. Whatever new the place you happen to come by, sooner or later you will meet a friendly face.

Therefore, it would seem the last epithet you could apply to Quebec is lonely. However, it is not paradoxical, not even oxymoronic. And you cannot truly begin to understand Quebec, its history, its aspirations and its very soul if you don’t accept its fundamental dichotomy, a result of its perpetual struggle to assert its own identity, its continual need to remind the world but also its own inhabitants that this is an island of French speakers in a sea of English ones. Such atavistic (and European) is this need to define itself, is this fear of assimilation despite its so open immigration politics. And such alien for a stranger, even an European like me, who cannot help but sharing the feelings of Paul Tallard, the character with mixed origins in the novel:

“Does it feel funny belonging to both races?”
“Well, it makes it impossible to be enthusiastic about the prejudices of either of them, and that can be uncomfortable sometimes."

Here is one of the reasons I found MacLennan’s book so interesting. It helped me cope with my own incapacity to choose a side or another without feeling like betraying my French-Canadian friends every time I cannot identify with their choices and their views. For it is not a question of taking sides, at least not anymore, it is simply a question of acknowledging that these feelings are an undeniable part of Quebec’s charm, along with its picturesque places, generous people, undying love for art.

Another reason to count Two Solitudes among the great writings of Canadian literature is the creation of a complex and tragic character, Athanase Tallard, born before his times, with a deep understanding of his country, which of course cannot understand him back. Not yet.

Then there is an amazing reconstruction of a typical catholic village at the beginning of the 19th century, with its closed society suspicious of strangers and gravitating around the priest against whom not even Athanase, whose family had been the most influential in those parts for more than two centuries, can fight. Indeed, it will be Father Beaubien who will trigger, inadvertently, it is true, the ruin of the Tallard family.

“Well, Captain”, Athanase said slowly, “this is just like any other parish in Quebec. The priest keeps a tight hold. Myself, I’m Catholic. Bur I still think the priests hold the people too tightly (…) Here the Church and the people are almost one and the same thing, and the Church is more than any individual priest’s idea of it.”

I agree with all those who observed that the second part of the novel, that follows the destiny of Athanase’s son, Paul, is not as good as the first one. Or maybe it should have been an independent novel, a sequel, maybe, for it harms the unity of the composition by changing tone and direction. Whereas the first part is mainly historical, the second becomes a bildungsroman, sometimes awkwardly constructed.

However, there are enough touching scenes and intriguing characters (Heather is one of them, McQueen is another) in this second part to conclude that even this last dichotomy could count among all the other paired solitudes in the book: French/ English, village/ city, male/ female, war/ peace, Canada/ USA, catholic/ protestant, and so on.

That Two Solitudes deservedly gained its place among the the best of Canadian literature it is undeniable. The old-fashioned pace of the narrative, the classic structure and plot-building help to re-create a charming world, whose beliefs, fears and lifestyle have founded the nowadays Québec.

[Emmeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

There really is no justice. This wonderful novel from 1945 is mouldering away, unread, published by a university press (with a fair few typos due to digital scanning) and as far as I can tell not published outside of Canada this century… and it’s a fabulous book. If it were American, it would be a total classic. Since it is Canadian, it’s largely forgotten. But of course it could not be American anyway, since it is so concerned specifically with what it is to be a French or English Canadian – the “two solitudes” of the title.

I had low expectations. I was familiar with the two solitudes and that the idea came from a book, but I did not know that book was a novel and then assumed it would be a mediocre novel. I also don’t often like lengthy family sagas. But I do like novels about Quebec – the 1995 Quebec referendum was maybe the first political event that I remember clearly capturing my interest, and now I live in a region of another country with certain parallels. Anyway, a previous interest in Quebec is not a prerequisite for enjoying this book, which is well-written and engrossing and just generally a good read.

The main story follows Athanase Tallard, who, as a man of power in the fictional rural community of Saint Marc des Érables during WWI, is able to question and to some extent ignore the power of the church, marry outside his language group, and consider whether he should use his money to develop a factory that may transform the fortunes of the town. But he is troubled by a rebellious draft-dodging teenage son and up against the local priest who disapproves of his selling land to an Anglophone man. This man is John Yardley, a colourful character with a wooden leg and, importantly, two anglophone grand-daughters born into one of Montreal’s most important families. The later section of the book concerns a romance between one of these girls and Tallard’s younger son Paul. Over 400 pages, MacLennan expertly laces together the many strands of the national drama, as well as taking his characters through the global conflicts of the First World War and the Great Depression, ending on the eve of the WWII.

Importantly, with all this state-of-the-nationry, we never lose sight of the human drama. The back cover seems determined to sell this as a star-crossed romance, but that is extremely reductive, it is at times the story of a man’s personal tragedy, (brought about in part by English speculative capitalism, in part by the chokehold of the Catholic church), at times the story of a youthful love of life in the face of daunting odds. Athanase and Paul are well-drawn characters, but so are a number of the women, the village priest Father Beaubien, the burgeoning nationalist Marius. There are, as someone comments in a rather meta moment, "few outright villains" -- perhaps one. There are beautiful passages about soldiers returning from war, about the landscape, about the value, indeed the importance, of Canada as a subject in her own right. I would quote them, but I had to leave my copy in Canada and since no one is reading this wonderful book anymore I can’t find them online.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes is an undisputed “classic” of modern Canadian Literature. It is undoubtedly for that reason that I had never read it. Unfortunately it was not on the syllabus of the one Canadian Literature course I took at university. I now wish it had been. Although it was published sixty-seven years ago, it is fresh and provocative. Indeed, I found it to be mostly a deeply thoughtful and extremely well written novel.

Before I read it I considered the “two solitudes” of the book to be simply about relations between English and French Canadians. And it is all of that, focusing on the family of Quebec patriarch Athanase Tallard. The Tallard family seat is on land alongside The St. Lawrence River. The Tallards came to Quebec with Frontenac in the 1670s and for nearly three hundred years have epitomized the virtues of rural Quebec – closeness to the land and the church, a suspicion of outsiders and a contempt for the English; but Athanase has seen the future and it is science and industrialization and his attempts to try to change the village near his country house sets in motion the drama that follows.

There are other “solitudes” too; one is that between the village and the city, in Athanase’s case, between Saint-Marc and Montreal. Another space is that between men and women; women play a vital part in the novel, enlivening the whole by their presence and creating complications in the world of city men who want stability and order above all. A fourth solitude is between war and peace. The novel begins in 1917 as the horror of the First World War is grinding to a halt and ends on the day war is declared again, in September 1939. A fifth solitude is between Canadians and Americans. A section of the novel is set in Maine where the Montreal gentry summer in companionship with various Americans of the same class. There is also a vast gulf between Catholics and Protestants, one mostly encompassed by French and English Canadians but even more complex in the case of Athanase’s second wife, Katherine, who is Irish and Catholic.

Another theme that was most fascinating about the novel is the role of reading, of writing and of libraries in it. Athanase Tallard has an old and well-stocked library and he wants to write a book about the role of religion in Canadien society. He doesn’t accomplish this but his youngest child, Paul Tallard, works his way through the last third of the novel as a struggling novelist. Indeed the last third could be honestly titled “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” for it is Paul’s education that is paramount here.

Finally, one should pay tribute to MacLennan’s lovingly detailed descriptions of the land. This is so much a book about geography, about the specifics of northern geography. This is the first paragraph of the concluding chapter:

In that autumn of 1939 the countryside in Canada had never seemed more tranquil. There was golden weather. In Nova Scotia and New Brunswick the moose came out of the forests on October nights and stood in silhouette against the moon-paths that crossed solitary lakes. In Ontario people looked across the water from their old river-towns, and seeing the lights of moving cars in the United States, remembered again that they lived on a frontier that was more a link than a division. On the prairies the combines rolled up the wheat, increasing the surplus in the granaries until it was hard to believe there were enough human mouths in the world to eat it all. In British Columbia the logs came down the rivers; people separated by mountains, plains and an ocean remembered English hamlets, pictured them under bombs, themselves islanded between snow-peaks and the Pacific. The Saint Lawrence, flowing past the old parishes, enfolding the Île d’Orléans and broadening out in the sweep to Tadoussac, passed in sight of forests that flamed with the autumn of 1939: scarlet of rock maples, gold of beeches, heavy green of spruce and fir. Only in the far north on the tundra was the usual process of life abruptly fractured. Prospectors hearing on their portable radios that the world they had left was at war could stand the solitude no longer; they broke camp, walked or paddled hundreds of miles southward, were flown out by bush-pilots, appeared before recruiting stations in Edmonton, Battleford, Brandon, in the nearest organized towns they could find, and faded into the army.

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

For me and also probably first and foremost, Hugh MacLennan’s 1945 novel Two Solitudes is basically the author's attempt to bring together harmoniously the main two cultural and linguistic communities in Canada, namely French Canadians and English Canadians, and with MacLennan also and abundantly clearly textually demonstrating that both the Francophones and the Anglophones are most definitely necessary for this balance to occur, but also and very much importantly, that neither group is somehow to be seen as inherently superior to the other either (which for me is kind of avant garde even now, even in 2023, as far too many books of both fiction and non fiction regarding the French and English Canada debate do tend to place one group rather above the other).

And in my opinion, MacLennan balanced striving for a solution and a reconciliation is clearly shown in Two Solitudes by both the Francophones and the Anglophones being depicted and described as having not only their good but also their less than stellar qualities, both their positives and their negatives (with the fact of the matter that Hugh MacLennan as an Anglophone author from Grace Bay, Nova Scotia truly does not ever try to show in Two Solitudes the English Canadians as automatically glowing, as beyond contempt and criticism and French Canadians as inherently problematic and as simpletons, as total religious and cultural backwaters just by their birth, by their culture and their religion, I do most definitely and warmly appreciate this immensely and in particular with a novel penned in 1945).

But whether Hugh MacLennan thinks that his hope for a lasting harmony between French and English Canada is actually something that is more than just a fond dream and is in fact achievable, this is (at least for me) pretty much as open and as much a so-called cliff hanger as the ending of Two Solitudes. Because indeed, truly, Two Solitudes really does in my humble opinion seem to conclude with more questions than answers provided by MacLennan with a bit of hope for Canada's future perhaps (both generally and also more specifically regarding the characters of Paul, Heather and their families), but with even Paul and Heather's joint future as a married couple totally uncertain, since with Paul going to enlist for fighting in WWII, his own actual survival is of course not at all a forgone conclusion but actually a huge question mark (with maybe some hope of the two solitudes of Canada finally meeting and combining harmoniously given to us as readers by Hugh MacLennan that this is also not necessarily going to be the outcome either or perhaps only a partial success).

Oh and furthermore, what I have also noticed with Two Solitudes is that even how the novel is divided up into four very much distinct parts (of different lengths but each of similar if not in fact equal thematic, of equal textual significance and importance), this very much structurally already reveals MacLennan's constant effort to establish and maintain a balance between the two communities, between Canadian Francophones and Anglophones. For most certainly, if one reads between the lines, how Hugh MacLennan has penned (and has set up) Two Solitudes, for me and specifically signifies that McLennan sees the history of Quebec and of Quebecois culture/language being in every way and manner as important as the history, culture and language of English Canada (and that this is indeed majorly and absolutely necessary if there ever is to be a pan-Canadian balance and harmony, and which also makes the first part of Two Solitudes the longest and the most detailed, as there is just so much information and detail in particular regarding Quebec society and such that needs telling and also explaining for everyone).

Now I originally read Two Solitudes in the spring of 1984, in grade eleven English and as part of a year-long perusal of mostly Canadian literature. And it is interesting to realise that what I totally textually adored as a seventeen year old is not really so much what I most appreciate and enjoy regarding Two Solitudes in 2023. For in 1984, I found Hugh MacLennan's often really meticulous and "information dropping" historical, political and economic facts and details both readable and also engaging, at least compared to the very dry Canadian history and Canadian literature textbook we were also using in class (and no, I actually do not recall the title) but conversely was rather bored with MacLennan's landscape descriptions and totally despised the open ending for Two Solitudes and that Paul and Heather's future was a huge and big question that never would textually receive an answer. But today, the exact opposite has in fact occurred for me regarding Two Solitudes, with my older adult reading self absolutely adoring MacLennan's .verbal landscapes, totally appreciating the open ending of Two Solitudes but also finding myself feeling rather preached at and being relentlessly and teacherly shown and almost accosted with waves upon waves of Canadiana and Canadian history, economics and so on and so on, leaving me with Two Solitudes as appreciating and even enjoying what Hugh MacLennan has written, but that in particular some of the rather heavy duty historical information encountered has kind of at times made Two Solitudes a trifle tedious for me in 2023.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read with Gundula (Manybooks). Our thoughts and comments are visible here under the book review.

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So. I sit here in front of my computer, and don’t know what to say. This is not a good sign! Usually, I am brimming over with thoughts and ideas. In other words, the book did nothing to me emotionally. Intellectually, it hasn’t given me much either. I end where I started.

The book focuses upon the divide between the French and the English people of Quebec, Canada. Repeatedly they are referred to as people of different races. I find this a bit of an exaggeration, but I think it illustrates the depth of the rift in the eyes of Canadians themselves . Religion, politics and economy separate the two, as well as their tie to the land. The setting is the First World War up to the Second. We look at two generations of a family. The father is of French Canadian heritage. His first wife was too, but now his second is Irish. The half-brothers struggle both against each other and in their search for their own identity.

The central topic, the focus upon people of different heritage ad culture living side by side is what drew me to this book. It interests me, having seen and experienced this in Belgium.

I related to that which I already knew but found little that was new.

This is a book of historical fiction. Being fiction, I want the fictional elements to pull me in too. They didn’t. I failed to relate to the family around which the fictional tale is woven. Getting a grip on the familial structure was difficult at the start. The reason for decisions made do eventually become clear, but too many words are wasted. I felt I was stumbling in the dark too long. I felt no emotional connection with any of the characters. Halfway through. the focus shifts from the older generation to the younger, the kids who have now become adults. Rather than drawing me closer to the family as a whole, the shift divided my attention. The story seemed to be taking off in another direction. The story feels split and messy. It stops abruptly, too abruptly. I quite simply don’t like how the fictional tale is told.

The prose is ordinary, although there are descriptive lines I have enjoyed. Now, writing this review, I cannot remember any. Why not?! In a couple of months, I don’t think the novel will remain in my head.

The narrator of the audiobook is Alain Goulem. He doesn’t interfere. By this I mean, he reads the story clearly without dramatizing, and this I like! English, French and American accents are well done. Four stars for the narration. You don’t pay attention to him. It is the story that is the focus!

I have considered giving the book two rather than three stars. I have stuck with three because the topic on which the book focuses is important. How can people of different cultures living together be brought to work together for their common good? How does one break down long existing barriers?

[Pooker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished reading this book this morning, January 23, 2012. I started on January 14th. Nine days to read it? I'm shocked. I thought I breezed through it. I know I read a little bit every day and looked forward to doing so. There was never a point where I was bored or tempted to skim. That was also surprising since this is a re-read for me. It is rare that I will read a book a second time. But I made an exception for this book because it is one of this year's Canada Reads finalists and it has been about four decades since I read it the first time.

On picking it up for the second time, I only vaguely remembered the story line. I suspect that even that shadowy remembrance was due to the book's title. I imagine that all Canadians know the meaning of "two solitudes". I do not remember ever thinking that this was one of the best books I ever read, but I suspect I would have enjoyed it, even relished it when I read it.

My copy of the book is a 1972 printing. I have no doubt that I would have read it that year or at least as soon as I bought it. In 1972 a book purchased would have been a treat and would not have been relegated to a TBR heap as I have the luxury of so doing today. In 1972 I was newly married. My first child would be born that year. It was also the first year that I would vote in a federal election. I considered it my duty to make an informed choice. I would vote for Pierre Elliott Trudeau as my mother had done in 1968. I'd vote for him not because my mother had done so but because my father's absolute fury with my mother's decision in 1968 piqued my interest in politics. I had always assumed that my parents were pretty well united in everything they did. So what was it about this Trudeau fellow that caused such disagreement and fireworks between my parents? And so at that time, probably more so than any other time, I was interested in politics and thought about the people and things that divided our country and those that held it together; Bourassa and Trudeau; separatism, nationalism, federalism, multiculturalism; Canada as a mosaic, not a melting pot; the desire of the French to preserve their culture; language rights; and hockey. Paul Henderson shoots and scores. :)

So this book although first published in 1945 is chock full of things that interested me decades later in '72.

So, did it stand the test of time? Did it interest me four more decades later? To my surprise it did. I had not remembered MacLennan's style of writing which seemed almost Dickensian to me on second reading. So delightfully wordy and descriptive.

And while I am aware of criticism of the book - that it would have been a better novel had it ended at Athanase's death, I adored the Paul and Heather story. I think their story, as the younger generation being perhaps the solution to Canadian unity, parallels nicely with the aboriginal youth led Idle no More movement in Canada today.

Do I think it should win Canada Reads 2013? Nope my money's on Indian Horse. But I do think it is a book all Canadians should read and I look forward to it hanging around in the CR debates, hopefully to the end.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Montreal Anglo, I found this book particularly interesting to read. I'm very curious to hear how a French Canadian would take the book, which explores the relationship between French and English in Quebec around the time of World War I. Times have certainly changed.
The passage about the soldiers returning home from war was particularly moving.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great insight into the Quebec-English Canada conflict. The plot is not well developed in places with characters disappearing and later reappearing in the story.

[Penny (Literary Hoarders) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an amazing work of Canadian literature. Epic and sprawling and covering so, so many inherent issues in to what Canada is, what it is to be and feel Canadian, and holds sins of the father storylines, nationalism, etc etc. As Jennifer said here, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., it is dense and wonderful.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little too pat and melodramatic, and far too self-consciously political in a way that no longer resonates, but I couldn't stop reading it.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps this iconic work deserved more of my attention and forbearance than I was able to give it just now, at a time when I’m facing too many other distractions. It’s a novel that requires patience, as it unfolds in leisurely 1945 fashion, exploring the many facets of the eternal Canadian conundrum of two mismatched cultures trying to occupy one nation and never quite succeeding.
To some extent, the novel is a series of snapshots of the state of affairs that existed in French Canada in 1917, and then in 1939. It needs to be read with those time markers in mind, with the realization that French Canada has, over the intervening years, changed in ways that MacLennan, with all his insight, could not have imagined. The most powerful element in those changes has been the dismantling of the power of the Church, which in turn made possible the “quiet Revolution”, wholesale changes in the level and diversity of education of the two generations that followed the end of WW2. And, in more recent times, the rise and maturity of an emphatically Francophone business community that takes no direction from Anglophone Canada!
And yet, so many fundamental truths remain. Despite all that has changed, a statement MacLennan makes early on continues to resonate today: “People seemed so constructed that they were unable to use ideas as instruments to discover truth, but waved them instead like flags.” We’re still doing that in this land today!
This is, of course, such an acknowledged classic of Canadian literature that it was almost inevitable I would be a bit disappointed upon finally getting to read it. Certainly, the tone is right on; MacLennan’s description of the land and the peoples, the political realities, the cultural clashes — all of that has never been written more tellingly. But what, surprisingly, left me cold was MacLennan’s characters, especially Kathleen, McQueen, even Yardley and Athanase in the first parts. Somehow, I never grew to care much about any of them. And the latter part of the book, focusing on Paul, never quite works as the coming-of-age story it was meant to be.
So, with misgivings, I find myself rating the book at just 3 stars.

[MargaretDH · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting insight into the Canadian character and psyche. Being a Canadian is interesting. We're known for our maple syrup, our hockey and our (currently) hot Prime Minister. And, you know, that we're America's hat. But we're also an enormous country geographically, with a relatively small population, many of whom are quite different, all stitched together in a multi-cultural federated country. We think a lot about ourselves, but aren't all that important to others. And here, I really liked the way MacLennan balanced Canadian introspection, and the angst of the Francophone struggle to be both Quebecois and Canadian, with the wry knowledge that, internationally, no else much cares.

If you're interested in the Canadian conscription crises, the beginnings of modernization in Quebec and an exploration of the uneasy alliance between French and English Canada, this definitely worth picking up. The prose is clear, readable and more self-aware than I was expecting.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I meant to review this right after I finished it & had all these profound thoughts, but I didn't & now I can't remember any of them. But, I do know that I really liked it. The opening & closing paragraphs, which described the majesty of our country's natural beauty, and how our rivers & mountains carved and disrupted and formed our landscapes also carved, disrupted, and formed our people.

The divide between the French & English goes back to our founding, as every Canadian knows, but personally, it's always just been a historical fact or something I've known, but never witnessed or understood, or even discussed with an actual French Canadian. I've spent my entire life on the very western edges of Canada & thus am extremely far removed from & unfamiliar with the relationship that has existed over these hundreds of years. So for me, this book was a peek into a previously unexplored part of the Canadian national identity, which makes me deeply value this novel.

Aside from the politics, this is also a great story about dreams and trying to find what you're passionate about, then living your life with happiness against the constraints of your culture, upbringing, expectations, and faith/religion. It's about making your mark in this vast country & being who you truly are, without abandoning or ignoring all that came before you.

I'm very thankful towards CBC's continually amazing Canada Reads for introducing me to Athanase Tallard, his family, Captain Yardley, and an early to mid 20th century Quebec, because I probably would have never discovered them on my own.

[Erika · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would get 2.5 stars if I could. I can understand that it is an important read for Canadians because it describes the lives of the "maudits anglais" and "bloody french" in and around Montreal between 1917 and 1939. This was a time of great change for Canada and the people living in this interface area. If Canada Reads was only for learning more about Canada, this would be my pick but as it is for the best book, this one falls into third place. My order for Canada Reads is: Indian Horse, Away, Two Solitudes, Age of Hope, February. Let the games begin!

[Stacy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this again because I want to know about some of the books in Canada Reads this season. I didn't really like any of the characters and I found the Solitudes to be stereotyped for the 21st century.
A lot of the description is of physical characteristics of individuals, which I found really boring. The descriptions of Montreal and other parts of Quebec and Canada as a whole seemed to be there, not to provide beauty, but to point out how much the author knew. The exception was when he described an episode of Paul playing hockey outdoors - that was the essence of Canada in winter.

[Juniper · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a dense, wonderful important novel. this was a re-read for me but i had lost so many details over the years it was like a new experience, this time through. following the strands of story arcs concerning 'two solitudes', through this novel, was amazing. maclennan wrote about so many important issues and brought heart and humanity to the telling. certainly a canadian classic and a book that should continue to resonate for generations to come.

[Sian Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

an important book for all Canadians

[Shirley Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book written by the marvellous Hugh MacLennan and was originally released in 1945. It’s a novel that has been on my “to read” list for a long time and it is a “must-read” classic for all Canadians. The novel revolves around the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec from just before the beginning of World War I and ends just as World War II begins in 1939. There are so many layers and so many intricacies in this book and it is defined by two solitudes as the title suggests. The two solitudes are varied. There are the solitudes of the English-speaking Canadians and the French-speaking Canadians, and the book depicts so clearly why there has been so much discord between the two nationalities in Canada. It depicts the solitudes of the Canadian way and Canada and our nearest neighbours the United States of America, and how and why there are such differences between the two countries. The most glaring thing is that Canadians really never considered themselves a separate country until after the second World War. We came into our own after that war, mostly because of the bravery and valour of the soldiers who fought and died in that war. Canada took it’s rightful place on the world stage after that war. There are the two solitudes of the fictional characters in the book. Young French-Canadian Paul Tallard, the son of a fading French Canadian aristocrat, is the soldering iron that connects the old French Canadian families to the English-speaking proletariat characters who controlled the money and affairs of Canada and its destiny. As Paul struggles with his English and French Canadian identities, he goes through many epiphanies that enable him to understand the solitudes and why they are there. When the book opens, the world and Canada are on the brink of war (WWI), but the world is also on the brink of enormous change and Canada is on the precipice of taking the leap forward or not - forever remaining a little country outpost in the British empire. As we all know we took the leap and became the Canada we are today. The main characters in the book are wonderfully drawn, but what really drew me in to the book is MacLennan’s love for Canada and for our vast and beautiful country. It was humbling to realize just how important and wonderful my country is. It’s one of those things that I’ve always known, but never really took the time to really examine. It’s the best place on earth and Mr. MacLennan makes that abundantly clear throughout this wonderful book. “O Canada, we stand on guard for thee”.

[Shilpa · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Some novels are a version of memory. Two Solitudes is just such a novel, and in it a number of characters confront the idea of shared or cultural memory and the consequences of that sharing.”

This afterword encapsulates the complexity and richness of Hugh MacLennan’s brilliant Canada Reads novel. The title reflects a number of themes that are portrayed throughout the book – the racial divide of a country, religion, friends and even two star-crossed lovers.

"If there had been the slightest suggestion of kindliness, the least indication of a willingness to believe the best of Quebec in such men as this from Ontario, Canada’s trenchant problem would cease to exist.”

Throughout the novel there is a constant disparity: be it urban vs. rural; Catholic vs. Protestant; English vs. French-Canadian; father vs. son; or male vs. female. Politics drives a lot of the relationships but the complexity of the First World War backdrop is juxtaposed nicely into the real predicament the characters face in trying to justify their choices.

"Athanase felt the dilemma deeply within his own soul. Quebec wanted prestige but not change. By some profound instinct, French Canadians distrusted and disliked the American pattern of constant change. They knew it was ruthless, blind and uncontrollable.”

We know this constant struggle is still ongoing. As Charles Taylor in his book Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism, put it:

The “two solitudes” of Hugh MacLennan are still a fundamental reality in Canada; the ways that the two groups envisage their predicament, their problems, and their common country are so different that it is hard to find a common language. They are like two photographs of the same object taken from such different points of view that they cannot be superimposed (Taylor, 1993:24).1

Although the story enriches you with deeper sense of the history of Quebec, Two Solitudes by no means feels like a dry history book. The author does a beautiful job of weaving the story of an unforgettable set of characters into a social and political theme. As rich as the book is in giving the reader a perspective on the nation’s European history, it is even richer because of the characters and the human interactions.


1Reference: Taylor, Charles. (1993) Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Then, even as the two race-legends woke again remembering ancient enmities, there woke with them also the felt knowledge that together they had fought and survived one Great War they had never made and that now they had entered another; that for nearly a hundred years the nation had been spread out on the top half of the continent over the powerhouse of the United States and still was there; that even if the legends were like oil and alcohol in the same bottle, the bottle had not broken yet. And almost grudgingly, out of the instinct to do what was necessary, the country took the first irrevocable steps toward becoming herself, knowing against her will that she was not unique but like all the others, alone with history, with science, with the future."

So fitting to have finished this fabulous Canadian work on the very day Canada celebrates its birthday. Having read Barometer Rising and enjoying it, I was very much excited to receive this second Hugh MacLennan novel as a gift. Being somewhat familiar with Hugh's background, this book, from start to finish, definitely had the flavour of an autobiography with much of it loosely mirroring Hugh's own life. This book is amazing. Impressively depicting the time in Canada's history when, like the teenager it was between the end of the First World War and the start of the second, it found itself; realizing it's not just French and not just English but, like the main character, Paul Tallard, a mix, an individual unto itself. Unlike anything else I've read, this novel initially told through the eyes of the French Canadian, Athanase Tallard and the very English, Huntley McQueen, highlighted for me the extent of the Two Solitudes that existed in this country at the time and how unlike a cohesive country it was. Paul, with his French father and Irish mother symbolized the meshing of the two that needed to happen in order for Canada to acquire it's own unique identity. Beautifully written with well-developed characters and compelling storyline, Two Solitudes is a must-read for any proud Canadian. Absolutely brilliant.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 1 out of 5]

The recent decline in the Parti Quebecois vote is likely due to the fact that this book is fading into obscurity. As fewer and fewer young French Canadians are reading this book, a major reason for disliking the English is disappearing.

Hugh MacLennan was a smug dolt afflicted by a monumental case of self-admiration who in the Two Solitudes contented looks down on us with Olympian disdain throwing every cliche at us without any sense of discrimination. Forty-five years later, this book still makes me furious.

The good news is that there has been a dramatic turnaround in the attitude of English Canadians towards us since Hugh MacLennan has departed from the scene. English Canadians have now been sending their children to French immersion schools for fifty years. The leading Quebecois novels are published every year in quickly translated for the English market. TIFF fans in Toronto consistently attend the Quebecois movies in large numbers.

Moreover the openness existed on both sides. Last year the Book of Negroes by Torontonian Lawrence Heill won Radio Canada's Concours de Livres. I cannot imagine such a thing having occurred in the 1960s.

Hugh MacLennan and the Two Solitudes simply belong to the bad old days. English and French Canadians have come a long way since this book was published.

[Ally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having grown up in Western Canada, I have never fully understood the tension between Anglophone and Francophone Canadians. This book gave me a glimpse into that world, and showed how war can actually bring together two opposing cultures.

The title of this book goes beyond exploring tension between the English and French people. It delves into the two solitudes that exist between generations, countries, gender, and political beliefs.

From the very start of this novel, it is clear that MacLennan held great love for Canada. The opening and closing parts of this novel demonstrate this so clearly - his writing poetically describes our nation's diverse and beautiful landscape.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and learned a lot about Canada. I also loved the character development and how MacLennan wrote about the inner struggles of each person.

[Caleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Two Solitudes" is an excellent novel about Canadian culture, history, and modernity against the backdrop of the two world wars. Its chronology - end of WWI and its aftermath, Great Depression, and the eve of WWII - gives a unique view of the impact of those conflicts. Its opening and closing passages about the landscape and the country on the eve of WWII are beautiful and moving - about the "embrace" of the Ottawa River and St. Lawrence River around the pan of Montreal Island, and about the itinerant men of the north who "faded into the army" in 1939.

Sometimes the reflections on Canadian politics and identity feel a bit on the nose, but it works. The story about an old French Canadian family and culture is arresting and almost epic. Definitely worth reading, particularly if you want to understand more about this odd country we call Canada.

[Samu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about growing up in between two cultures, two languages, two religions and two traditions in Canada in the first part of the 20th century. Without any fanfare, the author manages to describe a world in a very believable manner. Lots of obnoxious characters, it is kinda hard to like anyone in this book safe for Captain Yardley. But I thoroughly enjoyed this. It is hard not to draw parallels to Finland and a similar situation with the Finnish and Swedish speaking communities. The world is so small, you know. We are so similar, no matter how far apart we are.

[Carollyne Haynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two Solitudes won the Governor General's award in 1945 and is still an excellent, worthwhile read. It provides insights into the two founding cultures which make up Canada - the Protestant English and the Catholic Quebecois - and how they struggled to maintain their own heritage while learning to accept each other's. As a newcomer to Canada in 1970 I learned first hand of the animosity between the two cultures while I lived in Ottawa during the FLQ October Crisis. Hugh MacLennan's book has given me a greater understanding of our differences and our common ground.

[Kay Fur · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the many dichotomies in this story: English and French, war and peace, city and country, man and woman. It didn't leave me feeling changed or mind blown in any way, but it was an enjoyable read and I loved the author's ability to describe the landscape near the St. Lawrence so beautifully. It's like you could smell the fall leaves, feel the cold wind and bask in the spring sunshine. Transported through poetry!

[C.A. Simonsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give MacLennan credit. He was among Canada's first novelists. His formula - following the lives of a few families of different classes through historical times - is copied by Follett and others. Where the book lost me somewhat is the latter half, when MacLennan tries to write hockey and romance. He's writes neither topic well.

As to addressing the country's French-English divide, kudos to the author. I don't know why more Canadian authors haven't tackled the issue.

[Lauren Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ultimate slow burn, I didn't really like this book until the second half and didn't love it till the last 100 pages. As someone born in Quebec, raised in Ontario, but lived my university years in Montreal, this book was very meaningful to me, and the characters in the second half quite compelling.