Next Episode

by Hubert Aquin, Jean-Louis Major (Afterword), Sheila Fischman (Translator)

First published in l965, Hubert Aquin’s Next Episode is a disturbing and yet deeply moving novel of dissent and distress. As he awaits trial, a young separatist writes an espionage story in the psychiatric ward of the Montreal prison where he has been detained. Sheila Fischman’s bold new translation captures the pulsating life of Aquin’s complex exploration of the political realities of contemporary Quebec.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, France, Canadian Literature, Roman, Classics, Historical Fiction

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Hubert Aquin was a Quebec novelist, political activist, essayist, filmmaker and editor.

Aquin graduated from the Université de Montréal in 1951. From 1951 to 1954, he studied at the Institut d'études politiques in Paris. On his return to Montreal worked for Radio-Canada from 1955 until 1959.

From 1960 to 1968, Aquin was active in the movement for Quebec independence. He was an executive member of the first independentist political party, the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale (1960–1969). In 1964, he announced that he was going "underground" to work for independence through terrorism; he was arrested shortly thereafter and detained for four months in a psychiatric hospital. It was there that he wrote his first novel, Prochain épisode (1965), the story of an imprisoned revolutionary. In December 1964, he was acquitted of illegal possession of a firearm.

Regarded as a classic of Canadian literature, Aquin's novel Next Episode (the English translation of Prochain épisode by Sheila Fischman), was chosen for the 2003 edition of CBC Radio's Canada Reads competition, where it was championed by journalist Denise Bombardier. It was the winning title. An earlier English translation by Penny Williams, keeping the French title, was published in 1967.

The self-destructive thoughts of the novel's narrator foreshadow Aquin's own death: On 15 March 1977, Aquin committed suicide.

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interested in the tiny wormhole of Quebec separatist philosophy from the 60s? Are you super artsy and into hard core Can-Lit, with an exceptional ability to see what isn't written on the page, but is vital in the quiet mind of an obscure author? This might be just the right book for you!

I've given this two stars, but I can see that with some good discussion or some supplementary lessons on Quebecois history, this could be higher for me. Quebec History 101 might be the perfect place to read and discuss this; outside that classroom, not so much.

I'd love to listen to the 2003 Canada Reads debates for this book. Its winner convinced Justin Trudeau to vote against his OWN book, and by doing so, he handed his opponent the crown. I mean, cool, but that defense must have been pretty awesome, I realize now. This isn't a rewarding read in and of itself.

The book is an insane, schizophrenic stream of consciousness/unconsciousness that made absolutely no sense to me (sort of like this sentence). It was all over the crazy map, literally and figuratively. There's probably so much cool innuendo that I missed reading this book all alone, and so in that way I really do admire it. My two star rating reflects my reading experience, but certainly not my respect for it, if that makes any sense.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je suis en train de lire "Histoire de la littérature Québécois" de BDN (Michel Biron, François Dumont et Élisabeth Nardout-Lafarge) ce qui m'a rappelé d'avoir lu "Prochain épisode" il y a quarante-trois ans. Les critiques le considèrent presqu'à l'unanimité comme étant un chef-d'œuvre de l'époque où le mouvement indépendantiste québécois semble s'approcher de la victoire.

Le livre m'a beaucoup dérangé non parce que je suis fédéraliste mais parce que l'auteur parle obsessivement dans le roman de son désir de se suicider ce qui a finalement réussi a faire en 1977. C'est une horreur à lire.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Many people (including the champions who made this the "Canada Reads 2003" winner) will have you believe this is a masterpiece of counter-point & metaphor regarding 1960s Quebec separatism. I'd like to believe that...unfortunately, what I read turned out to be a schizophrenic, turgid volume containing some of the most pretentious language I've read in some time. In fact, it becomes so mind boggling at times that even Charles Dickens at his worst would be more bearable. There will be many who disagree with me...and that's fine. Such is the way of literary opinion. But for me, this joins "Heart of Darkeness" and "Fellowship of the Ring" on my pile of over-rated books I simply couldn't finish.

[Karine Mon coin lecture · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je vois parfaitement en quoi c'est un roman ambitieux et songé... mais je suis drôlement pas certaine d'avoir tout compris!

[Michael E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating little book.

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

It didn't take me long to realize that I couldn't read this book the way I normally read books. I had to read it when I was not distracted or tired, and I had to take it slow and let the words flow over me. This is a powerful book with amazing imagery. I can't proclaim to have understood all of the symbolism and how it relates to Quebec politics in the 1960s, but that didn't stop me from appreciating it as a work of art.

[Marc Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video review https://youtu.be/XMcPImNO2sY

[Clem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nécessite une relecture

[Natasha Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hubert Aquin's "Next Episode" is a veritable minefield of symbols and thematic presences which at first are nigh on impossible to detect. "Next Episode" is a masterpiece of stream of consciousness prose, moving (sometimes imperceptibly) between the written composition of the antagonist's novel and his thoughts as they occur to him while he writes. Oftentimes cryptic and coded, there are many places for a reader of "Next Episode" to stop and ponder the riddles presented on the pages. At one point, there is made available a coded message (which is never solved by the antagonist) for the reader to consider, agonise over, or ignore at his or her whim. Full of passages that are poignant while simultaneously alienating, "Next Episode" can be safely read as the monologous rant of an insane character with a desperate need for narrative catharsis. I enjoyed wading through the enigmatic ramblings of the unnamed main character, moving with him through his emotions so vividly that there seems often to be no boundaries between the narrator and the reader. Like him, the reader becomes trapped behind the bars of a prison that is both real and unreal, forever wishing for the end of a war which has not yet begun.

[Lochin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un roman aussi explosif que la révolution à laquelle il aspire tant sur la forme que le contenu. Comme d'autres le relèvent dans leurs commentaires, ce n'est pas une lecture 'facile', sans doute surtout en raison du va-et-vient constant entre narrateur et récit narré, des sauts entre les niveaux diégétiques qui nous mènent nécessairement en-dehors du roman même, du côté de la vie de l'auteur et des circonstances de l'écriture. Le style est haletant - même si on voulait s'attarder aux phrases ciselées d'Aquin, on se sent emporté par l'élan irrésistible, le rythme effréné du roman. Ironique que de contraster l'auteur/narrateur prisonnier et immobile avec son récit qui s'élance et qui bondit d'un continent à l'autre. L'oeuvre atteint le sublime quand elle mêle amour et révolution, le comique quand il s'agit de suivre les péripéties de l'espion raté. Je l'ai terminé vaguement perplexe mais aussi très (es)soufflée.

[anne larouche · Rating 5 out of 5]

Renversement totalisant qu'est ce livre aux multiples couches de narrations. Je le critique fortement sur le portrait réducteur que Aquin fait des femmes (l'amour comme mouvement idéalisant de "la" femme sur le point unique de la sexualité... aucune interaction avec les femmes sauf lorsqu'il s'agit d'aider le protagoniste. Aquin comme les autres)

Je vois dans Prochain épisode le désespoir indépendantiste au sens de la défaite et de l'espoir, et le grandiose de ce qu'est la littérature d'ici. J'ai surtout aimé lire ce livre dans ses notes de bas de pages et au travers de ce qu'on s'imagine être autobiographique. Aquin personnage fascinant, dans son suicide et son existentialisme.

[Bella Dufresne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing was rly pretty. I liked it

[Laurence Leduc-Primeau]

Un grand livre incandescent et triste sur nos prisons intérieures.

[Joel Belliveau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mon roman québécois préféré. Lu il y a un bon bout déjà, mais à relire bientôt...

[Jennifer]

Au risque de me faire juger, c'était ma 4e tentative de lecture et je suis juste heureuse d'enfin pouvoir dire que je suis passée au travers!

[Jelena · Rating 1 out of 5]

I learned “Next Episode” was a modern classic in my search for French Canadian literature. Having read a little about the author’s involvement in The Quiet Revolution, I expected a dominant social and political basis in the novel.

The narrator is a revolutionary who, while awaiting his execution in a psychiatric ward, decides to write a thriller. (Makes one think of Siegfried Lenz, true, but there is quite a difference in both setting and content.) The protagonist of that thriller is again a Quebecoise revolutionary who is, after an encounter with the woman he loves, given the assignment to find “the enemy”. I saw this as a mirror within a mirror, since the (second) protagonist reflects the (first) narrator who again reflects many elements from the author’s personal life. The second story opens as a film-noir pursue on the streets of Lausanne, with spies, blond bombshells and bedroom acrobatics –delightfully tacky and hilariously trashy.

Very soon misery sets in on several levels: there is the personal sacrifice every revolution demands, the loss of love, despair over someone else’s personal gain from the struggle for general benefit, grief for lost comrades. It was striking that all the characters go only by alias (the bombshell for instance is referred to as “K”, so there you have your decline within the system), just as the revolution is abstract to a degree that comes down to “enemies”, “our goal” and “the fallen comrades” – most of the time even the protagonist does not know why he does what he is doing. So while hoping for a critical take on social and political engagement I got fanaticism for beginners.

This entire novel is a metaphor: from the first to the last sentence it supports no analysis (other than guessing and assumptions) nor does a significant change occur. I went in for a text of clear structure and firm basis in social occurrences, but from where I stand “Next Episode” is rather a modern(ist) take on romantic despair an lament (affectation to me). The style contributes largely to that impression: I did have my fun with it in the beginning, as long as I believed it to be a method of parody of cheap crime novels, but the language is highly mannered and pretentious beyond decency.

Despite being a modern French Canadian classic, this novel is quite lost in a commonplace plain that it could (if it were not for the already established interpretation) easily stand for any lost ideal or struggle, though not by being universal in a good way, but through fatalism, megalomania and pathos. And there is no good way for that.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short Version
Pluses+ Surprising, trippy, impactful, dramatic, powerful, complex
Minuses- Repetitive, loses lustre fairly quickly, depressing, complex, disappointing in some ways, pretentious
3.7 Stars



"Cuba is sinking in flames in the middle of Lac Léman, while I descend to the bottom of things" -- so begins the expertly-translated version of this breathtaking novel.

I say breathtaking, because, starting with this line, the reader is forced to take a breath, slow down, and put effort into deciphering just what is going on.

And what IS going on, plot-wise in Next Episode? Jean-Louis Major, in the afterword, explains it best:

"Although Next Episode is set in Switzerland, this story of a Québecois terrorist on a mission to murder a counter-revolutionary whose identity and role remain problematic is imagined and narrated by a terrorist who was arrested and sent to a psychiatric institution before he had the opportunity of setting out on his own destructive mission."

Essentially, Hubert Aquin wraps his textual tentacles around the reader and drags them down, down, down, to the bottom of a shallow sea of repetitive failure and despair. One tentacle is an introduction of beautiful flowing language, another the promise of spy-craft and intrigue, another the sadness of colonized Québec, and perhaps another an appendage pulsating with the bittersweet touch of great love lost.

There are wheels within wheels here, as the narrator of the story, who is also writing a story, is himself drowning in captivity and waves of water metaphors. The story he writes, as it first appears, is his desperate life-line of mental escape and artistic expression, of catharsis and possible redemption and of impossible, passionate, clinging desire for the embrace of a woman:

"Writing a story is no small matter, unless it becomes the daily and detailed punctuation of my endless stillness and my slow fall into this liquid pit. The enemy will be lying in wait for me unless I can make life absolutely impossible for my character. To populate my own empty space I intend to pile up corpses along my character's way, multiply attempts on his life, drive him crazy with anonymous calls and knives planted in his bedroom door; I'll kill everyone he's spoken to, even the courteous hotel cashier. I'll put Hamidou through the mill or I won't have the courage to live... as I draw up the outline of a novel without continuity, lay down the unknowns of a fictitious equation, and in the end imagine some total nonsense for as long as this disorganized siege gives me a bulwark against sadness and the criminal waves that crash into me, roaring and chanting the name of the woman I love." - Page 3

Quickly enough, Aquin establishes a pattern of initially devastating chapter conclusions which hint at doom and suicide -- of the FLQ, of Québec's freedom, of his narrator's life and purpose, and so on, e.g:

"...in the words I learned at school, in my throat choked with emotion, in my ungrasped jugular gushing blood! To commit suicide everywhere, with no respite -- that is my mission. Within myself, explosive and depressed, and entire nation grovels historically and recounts its lost childhood in bursts of stammered words and scriptural raving, and then, under the dark shock of lucidity, suddenly begins to weep at the enormity of the disaster, at the nearly sublime scope of its failure. There comes a time, after two centuries of conquest and thirty-four years of confusional sorrow, when one no longer has the strength to go beyond the appalling vision. Shut away inside the institute walls and outfitted with the file of a terrorist who suffers ghostly maniacal phases, I give in to the vertiginous act of writing memoirs and I start writing up the precise and meticulous proceedings of an unending suicide (etc)." - Page 14

Interestingly enough, Aquin himself was a recently-minted, self-proclaimed terrorist imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital when he wrote Next Episode, which explains a lot, particularly the crazy aspects. Additionally, his writing may have been a somewhat childish overreaction to being imprisoned (for a measly four months), though one can not overestimate the shock and horror loss of freedom can have on a person. Also interesting, Aquin committed suicide, thirteen years after his imprisonment.

Although mind-messing prose, plot and a potential desire to see the spy novel through keep the novel interesting to the end, the beautiful language becomes white-washed by constant repetition and plot disappointment. Even Aquin's narrator admits this in a way, on page 48: "...Between July 26 and my inflationary night, I keep inventing the arms of the woman I love and celebrating through the weary repetition of my prose the prophetic anniversary of our revolution..."

This "weary repetition" makes it difficult and unappealing for you, the reader, but seems to be essential to expressing the emotional tone and deeper meaning of the story. Reading Next Episode, you feel the sadness and despair of a desperate, failed man, struggling to deal with his reality and indeed, to maintain both his sanity and his raisons d'êtres. You are pulled down with the characters, you are lost in their maze and you drown in their depth. There is no escape from this watery grave until the ambiguous ending, which promises fiery vengeance and patriotic victory, in literal and abstract terms, for characters, author, and province.









Notes and bits:


"Psychiatry is the science of individual imbalance enclosed within a flawless society. It enhances the standing of conformists and the well-integrated, not those who refuse; it glorifies all forms of civil obedience and acceptance." - Page 7

- Intense, brutal and metal chapter ending on suicide of all, pages 14-15

- Much on Love and Desire: Pages 17-19

- Page 21: Another crazy dark chapter ending, focusing again on his night of passion. Looks at Canada as "our national dungeon."

- Page 22: "The sun hazy... draining the valley of its significance"

- Page 29: The narrator's spy character can represent ultimate freedom and action versus being stuck in prison once again, even though the spy character ultimately fails in his mission, just as the narrator did...

- Page 46: "...down the corridor of my closed submersible..." The narrator's prison cell (like Aquin's). A tiny, confined space, within which the narrator plumbs the depths of his memories, and from which he writes his story...

- Page 53: An intense yearning for a free, impossible future in the Quebec countryside

- Page 74: Pretty shitty spy novel and main character. He is IMPRISONED by fear and RESTRICTED in his actions

- Page 92: Does H. de Heutz, villain of the spy novel, represent: The British, Canada, Anglo-Canada, America, English... what?

- Very, very repetitive!

- We are lost in the maze of the story

- Page 120: Another moral of the story -- don't be late!

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very slim volume that packs a powerful punch. The story superficially follows in the footsteps of a would-be revolutionary following his nemesis H. de Heutz through the cities, back roads, and chateaux of Switzerland, but in reality is an allegorical approach to the Quebec separatism movement of the 1960s. Very cleverly woven together. At times, it seems to be a loosely connected series of essays on politics, freedom, and the power of revolution to effect widespread change. I can't pretend that I "get" it all, but the fascinating writing carried me through anyways. Like this...

"I am the fragmented symbol of Quebec's revolution, its fractured reflection and its suicidal incarnation."

Next Episode is the novel chosen by CBC's Canada Reads panel as the Canadian book that every Canadian should read in 2003. I've done my part! :-)

[GregCarey10 · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tiny little novel, not even a hundred pages, but wow does it hit hard. The story on the surface tells the tale of a captured revolutionary who is following his nemesis H. de Heutz through the cities, back roads, and chateaux of Switzerland. In actuality the novel is much deeper, an allegorical depiction of the Quebec separatism movement of the 1960s. The book is very hard to read, and I suggest reading it twice, but even then you may not fully understand it. Strictly for those studying quebec. Stay away, you've been warned.

[Heep · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Next Episode" is written in a daunting first-person. It weaves a narrative from what seems part stream of consciousness and part daydream and part delusion. At times it becomes somewhat captivating, but the narrative tends to loop back on itself frequently and becomes wearying. The jacket cover description, which is largely repeated in the Goodreads summary does describe the story to the extent possible. The book is blessedly short so I didn't give up although I was frequently tempted.

[Shirley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally insane, I like it a lot.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life after la Révolution Tranquille. Can one escape one's identity? The main character shows us his split identity in this spy-like novel. Voicing in the novel is like voicing in a musical fugue.

[Kereesa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I.
Have.
No.
Idea.
What.
This.
Was.
About.

Seriously.

3 Hours Later:

I get it.

Thank you Seminar classes!

[Care · Rating 2 out of 5]

A tale of an idiot. The story parallels Quebec's Quiet Revolution so I'd recommend this to fans of CanLit and Quebec history...not many others.

[Marie-Ève · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Tout simplement phénoménal. Il était grand temps que je lise mon premier Hubert Aquin...

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

And thus we come to the ENDING (and title references). I found this novel at times tedious and at others too wordy, but the writing is exquisite, the prose beautiful, and the writer so true and so tragic. The writer as narrator, and the real author. Brilliant novel. I understand why it won Canada Reads. From the first sentence to THE END, it is powerful, brilliant, a story of Quebec, a story that precedes the FLQ Crisis, but is part of it, a story of liberation, loss, fear, death.
"But this is not the last word. I any event I must keep myself invulnerable to doubt and stand firm in the name of what is sacred, for within me I carry the germ of revolution. I am its impure tabernacle. I am an ark of the covenant and of despair, alas, for I have lost everything! I feel that I myself as finished; but everything inside me is not. My story is interrupted because I don't know the first word of the next episode. But all will be resolved and end on a high note. I trust blindly, even though I know nothing about the next chapter, absolutely nothing, only that it's waiting for me and will sweep me away in a whirlwind. All the words of the sequel will grab me by the throat; the ancient serenity of our language will be shattered by the shock of my story. Yes, the unchanging nature of the subject of my account will suffer the impious terror; revolutionary letters will be painted by rifles all down the length of pages. Since Cuba's July 26, I have been dying in sterilized sheets while the foothills of the Alps surrounding our kisses fade away in me a little more every day. One certainty comes to me, though, of what's to come. Already I have a premonition of the unbearable tremors of the next episode. I tremble at what I've written. Unsure of everything, at least I know that when I finally rise up against this incomplete régime and from my prison bed, I won't have enough time left to lose my way again in my story, or to link the series of events into a logical structure. Already it will be very late, and I won't waste my energy waiting for the propitious moment or the favourable instant. Then it will be time to fire at point-blank range--in the back if possible. The time to kill will have arrived, as well as that--an even more pressing deadline--for organizing the destruction according to the ancient doctrines of discord and the canons of nameless guerrilla warfare! Parliamentary struggles must be replaced by warfare to the death. After two centuries of agony, we'll make dissolute violence burst out, an unbroken series of attacks and shock waves, spelling out in black a project of total love ...
No, I won't finish this unpublished book: the final chapter is missing and I won't even have time to write it when the events occur. When that day comes, I won't have to make up the minutes of lost time. The pages will write themselves in gunshots: the words will whistle above our heads, the sentences will shatter in the air ...
When the battles are done, the revolution will continue to unfold; only then perhaps will I find the time to bring this book to a final stop and to kill H. de Heutz once and for all. The event will occur as I predicted. H. de Heutz will go back to the funeral chateau where I lost my youth. But this time I'll be well prepared for his reappearance. I'll watch and wait for him. When the iron-grey 300SL with Zurich plates makes its appearance, it will strike me as obvious, it will send me into action. First, I'll tiptoe across the distance between daylight and the Henri II credenza while I trip the safety on the revolver. And as soon as I feel the bolt move in the lock, H. de Heutz will come on stage and, unbeknownst to him, move into my range. I'll shoot him before he even gets to the telephone; he'll die blinded by the knowledge that he has been trapped. I shall bend over his body to see the precise time on his watch and, as I do so, I'll realize I have time to get away from Echandens to Ouchy. And that's how I shall arrive at my conclusion. Yes, I'll emerge victorious from my intrigue, calmly killing H. de Heutz to rush to you, my love, and close my tale in grand style. Everything will end in the secret splendour of your belly, populated by slippery Alps and eternal snow. Yes, that is the conclusion to the story: because everything has an end, I shall go to meet the woman who's still waiting for me on the terrace of the Hôtel d'Angleterre. That's what I'll say in the final sentence of my novel. And, a few lines later, I shall write in the capital letters the words:
THE END"

Passion mixed with revolution. A country, a people, a couple, a hope for the future, a loss of conviction.
"...The things we loved together have no meaning any more, not even life. Even the war, alas, since I've lost contact with your sovereign flesh, you, my only country! Starting now, I am living a glacial night. I own nothing except a gun that's become ridiculous, and some memories that are rendering me harmless. Where are you, my love? ..."

Awareness of the writer, his perspective, writing a story, about something that happened, that could happen, is happening?
"...The coordinates of the plot are tangled. I've dropped the thread of my story, and here I am in the middle of a chapter I don't know how to finish."

In light of recent events, this is horrific, but in the context of this book, understandable, and also offers an understanding of the mind of a revolutionary. There are times, there are times, when events must unfold... But there are times when it is horrific and even for reasons that might mean liberation, the events in Paris make it all so very sad, and terrifying, and they must be stopped.
"...One thing is certain, my plan is something of a challenge, for according to the current logic of our profession, it could strike one as a rash undertaking par excellence. This illogical appearance, however, is its most formidable quality: it's a counter-disguise! Yes, I'm an innovator. I no longer disguise myself as a tree branch or an innocuous stroller or a bearded tourist weighed down with loaded cameras; my disguise is now that of a victim of the stunning murder I'm about to commit. I take his place behind the wheel of a blue Opel; soon I'll be part of his furniture--indeed, I'm nearly inside his very skin..."

Beautiful observation and perspective about writing, his story, his character, his narration, about the writer. Also, an oblique reference to the title.
"...Whenever I come back to this paper a new episode is born. Every writing session creates a pure event, attached to the novel only to the degree, unreadable but terrifying, to which I myself am connected to my broken-down existence. A naked event, my book is writing me, it is open to understanding only on condition that it's not removed from its historical context. And here I am, suddenly dreaming that my epic, which is losing its sense of reality, is inscribed on the national calendar of a people without a history! How ridiculous, how pitiful! It's true that we have no history. And we'll start having one only at that uncertain moment when the revolutionary war begins. Our history will be launched in the blood of a revolution that is breaking me, that I've served poorly: on that day, with slashed veins, we'll make our debut in the world. On that day, a bloody intrigue will build on our quicksand an eternal pyramid that will let us measure the size of our dead trees. History will begin to write itself when we give to our pain the rhythm and the blinding power of war. Everything will take on the flamboyant colours of history when we march into battle, machine-guns at the ready. ..."

Poignant and prescient.
"I see in this novel I'm writing, in this daily book that's beginning to give me more pleasure, a meaning different from the powerful novelty of its final format. I follow this book from hour to hour and from day to day, and I'm no more likely to give up on it than I am to commit suicide. This broken book resembles me. This mass of paper is a product of history, an unfinished fragment of my own essence and thus an impure testimony to the faltering revolution I continue to express in my own way through my institutionalized delirium. This book is cursory and uncertain, as I am, and its true meaning cannot be dissociated from the date of its composition or from events that have happened within a given period of time between my native country and my exile, between a certain July 26 and a June 24. ..."

Brilliantly conceived and written. His prose and his purpose are exacting and brilliant.
"...I'm not writing, I am written. The future act has long since known me. The uncreated novel is dictated to me word by word and I appropriate it as I go, following the Geneva convention on literary copyright. I am creating something that outdistances me, that sets down before me the mark of my unpredictable footprints. The imagination is a scar. I live my own invention and what I kill is already dead. ..."

Ah, this reminds me of Earle Birney's i think you are a whole city (one of my favourite poems of all time), and the revolution, the separatists, lovers, the environmentalists. Freedom and resolution. Perfectly beautiful.
"...Again tonight my lips hold the damp taste of your boundless kisses. On your bed of chalky sand and on your slippery Alps I descend posthaste, I spread like ground water, I seep in everywhere; an absolute terrorist, I enter all the pores of your spoken lake: I burst, spilling over above the line of your lips, and I flee, oh how I flee, as rapidly as lightning at sea, I flee at the speed of the breaking waves! ..."

Aquin as his character writes to his lover, in the novel, in the history, but to all of us, albeit in a sexualized way. It's also a good description of why some of us write (maybe?).
"Writing is a great expression of love. Writing used to mean writing to you; but now that I've lost you I still mass words together, mechanically, because in my heart of hearts I hope that my intellectual wanderings, which I reserve for born debaters, will make their way to you. Then my book of ideas will be simply the cryptic continuation of a night of love with you, my absolute partner to whom I can write in secret by addressing myself to a readership that will never be anything more than the multiplication of your eyes. Writing to you, I address the world. Love is the cycle of the word. I write to you infinitely, endlessly inventing the canticle I read in your eyes; through my words I place my lips on the blazing flesh of my country and I love you, desperately, as on the day of our first communion."

Every piece of prose in this novel is filled with evocative, brilliant insight, beautifully written. It is also insightfully written about separatists, years before the FLQ Crisis, but a sure harbinger, although Aquin did not live to see any of it. So much the same, so much different. In reality: Hope, despair, neglect. Lots of exclamation marks though...
"...From a sea of ice I become greedy lava, mirror of suicide. Thirty pieces of silver and I'd kill myself! I would even drop the price lower to cut myself with a shard of glass and be done with revolutionary depression! Yes, it would mark the end of the conspirator's shameful disease, of mental fracture, of falls perpetrated in a police cell. The end of plans for attack, perpetually renewed, and the indecent pleasure of walking in the crowd of voters as I grip the cool butt of the automatic weapon I wear like a sling! And I'll fly! Let me walk, unknown and unpunished, through the streets that run from Place de la Riponne and wind their way streaming to the shores of Pully and Ouchy, let me mingle with the great current of history and disappear, anonymous and universal, in the powerful river of the revolution!"

Again beautiful. So much more beautiful on the second reading. It is spectacular prose.
"...Again tonight I'm shattered by our blinding embrace, by the incantatory shock of our two bodies, and now, at the end of this blazing dawn, I'm alone on a blank page where I no longer breathe the warm breath of a fair-haired stranger, where I no longer feel her weight that attracts me according to a Copernican system, where I no longer see her amber skin or her tireless lips or her sylvan eyes, where I don't hear the pure song of her pleasure. Alone now in my paginated bed, I ache as I remember that lost time now regained, spent naked in the secret profusion of the pleasures of the flesh."

Beautiful prose, full of description, which brings us shocking, back to the story. Gorgeous.
"...Encased in my funerary barque and my repertoire of images, I have only to continue drowning through words. Descending is my future, diving my sole activity and my profession. I drown. I become Ophelia in the Rhône. My long manuscript tresses mingle with water plants and invariable adverbs while I glide, variable, between the two long jagged shores of the cisalpine river. And so duly coffered inside my metallic concept, certain that I won't get out but uncertain as to whether I'll live for a long time, I have just one thing to do: open my eyes, look at this flooded world, pursue the man I'm looking for and kill him."

The beginnings of any book are always important and amazing. Aquin gave us his and Balzac's--bonus.
"...Volume IX of the complete works of Balzac is particularly discouraging. 'In Paris under the Empire thirteen men met, all struck by the same sentiment, all energetic enough to follow the same line of thinking, political enough to conceal the sacred bonds that united them...' I stop here. The opening sentence of the Story of the Thirteen slays me; that dazzling beginning makes me want to end my own cumulative prose, just as it reminds me of the sacred bonds, now broken by isolation, that once joined me to my revolutionary brothers. ..."

It begins in brilliance and continues on through long paragraphs, endless words, ideas flowing. Not an easy read, but worthwhile.
"Cuba is sinking in flames in the middle of Lac Léman while I descend to the bottom of things. Packed inside my sentences, I glide, a ghost, into the river's neurotic waters, discovering as I drift the underside of surfaces and the inverted image of the Alps. Between the anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the date of my trial, I have time enough to ramble on in peace, to open my unpublished book with care, and to cover this page with the key-words that won't set me free. ..."

[Zen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Next Episode as part of my own 2018 reading challenge to finish all of the Canada Reads winning books. This is one of the most difficult and controversial books to be chosen. In fact, Justin Trudeau voted against his own selection (Colony of Unrequited Dreams) so Next Episode could win.

Next Episode has a unique style, a story within a story, told through the un-named narrator, a failed terrorist undergoing psychiatric evaluation while awaiting trial. The whole book comes across as a fever dream, the language is almost Gothic in its drama, and the exclamation marks are plenty. It is difficult to determine if any of the story is real, and in the end it doesn't really matter.

There is a surprising amount of detail in this book considering its length, about 140 pages, it is really a novella. There is a lot of geography, history and philosophy in this book, so much so that if you were really interested in all the details, you would have to do a lot of research to understand every reference. Without that deep context, the book reminds me most of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; unreliable narrator, unreliable story, told with over the top language and a lot of passion.

Canada Reads winner 2003

[Tharaney Vimalan · Rating 4 out of 5]

if you're into politics, history, literature and the connection between all three... this book is definitely for you!

it's interesting, Canada's shady history (as many may disagree as "shady" but that is what I think of it). especially in politics where we've weaved the laws and orders to reflect a "national" identity we pretend to have, instead of embracing the bi-cultural and bilingual land we really live on. this book can be very complicated, I began to read it and realized there was more than one story/narrator/perspective being told and so I decided to read a bit on what the book was about and it truly helped me enjoy the book a lot more! with more than one story being told, you can easily get lost in the words. but the words are very beautiful! Aquin quotes Hemingway, Balzac, and others... so you can imagine how beautifully constructed/written the rest of the book is! it is a short read, but with tonnes of information about his isolation in the prison, how he got there, his state as he writes the novel... overall, it's an insane story (or I should say, stories) that helps understand the mind of a revolutionary separatist.

[Sebastien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je ne sais jamais exactement quoi dire lorsque je termine la lecture d'un classique. Oui, c'était assez bon, mais encore? J'ai un peu le sentiment de l'imposteur à la suite de cette lecture. J'ai beaucoup lu dans ma vie, mais j'ai tout de même l'impression de ne pas être apte à critiquer un livre de ce genre.

C'est un peu, très peu, un thriller d'espionnage, mais aussi une étude sur la révolution, personnelle et étatique. Un récit sur la dépression, sur le suicide, sur la violence, sur l'amour parfois. C'est une mise en abyme assez intéressante puisqu'il faut un certain temps pour apprendre à reconnaître chacun des personnages. Je ne sais toujours pas si l'amour du protagoniste vise une femme ou sa patrie ou les deux à la fois.

L'écriture est excessivement riche, baroque même. Les paragraphes sont alourdis par des tonnes de références géographiques et culturelles qui, même à l'aide d'une édition annotée, sont parfois assez difficiles à suivre.

C'est une lecture qui a été plus intéressante que divertissante. Rien comme de la Littérature avec un grand L pour me donner envie de plonger dans un livre de science fiction ou de fantasy tout à fait ordinaire.

[Mikayla Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai lu ce roman pour mon cours de la littérature québécoise, mais je me trouvé résonner avec la personnage principal et sa lutte continuelle avec ce que veut dire être une figure révolutionnaire.

Le livre est écrit dans le point de vue d'un homme qui est emprisonné pour les crimes révolutionnaires, où il raconte ses experiences sous forme d'un roman d'espionnage.

Bien que le roman soit courte et l'intrigue me semblait un peu maigre parfois, l'introspection de la personnage principal compensait pour ça. Le roman est très symbolique et il s'adresse les difficultés rencontrés par les figures révolutionnaires au Québec. Cependant les idées expriment sont un peu pessimiste, la fin offre un message d'espoir pour ceux qui rêve d'une révolution.

Dans un monde qui est en train d'expérience beaucoup de la tourmente et où nombreux sont pression pour effectuer des changements, j'ai recommande le livre comme un rappel des épreuves, mais aussi la nécessité du changement révolutionnaire.