Reluctant Voyagers

by Élisabeth Vonarburg, Jane Brierley (Translator)

Witnessing strange and unexplainable changes in her once-familiar Montreal home and in her memory of history, Catherine Rhymer fears for her sanity until the arrest of two students puts her on the trail of a secret revolutionary movement.

Genres: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Dystopia, France, Canada

469 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

Élisabeth Vonarburg, French science-fiction author, poet, translator and editor.

Outre l'écriture de fiction, Élisabeth Vonarburg pratique la traduction (la Tapisserie de Fionavar, de Guy Gavriel Kay), s'adonne à la critique (notamment dans la revue Solaris) et à la théorie (Comment écrire des histoires). Elle a offert pendant quatre ans aux auditeurs de la radio française de Radio-Canada une chronique hebdomadaire dans le cadre de l'émission Demain la veille.

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This had an intriguing concept, one that’s right in my wheelhouse: Catherine, a university professor in Montreal, begins experiencing subtle shifts in reality that slowly become bigger and bigger changes. The government grows more authoritarian, and rebel underground political movements begin appearing as if they’ve always been there. Even small changes like the word “psychoanalysis” not being a thing anymore are baffling to the point where Catherine is wondering if she’s going crazy. But every time she experiences these changes, they soon become normalized in her brain, as if she’d simply forgotten momentarily that the government is known to put implants in people’s brains to control them. She also experiences visions or hallucinations of places and people that aren’t actually there. But this may be more common with people than she thinks. Once two of her students are arrested while protesting, the authorities start showing a heavy interest in her, and she slowly becomes entangled in the burgeoning revolution.

I enjoyed trying to unravel the mystery here, but it was extremely frustrating at the same time, as the constant info dumps being thrown at the reader (ie breakdowns of the various political and religious factions) were pretty wearying, as were the endless dream sequences. It probably didn’t help that I could use some brushing up on my Canadian history, as sometimes I couldn’t tell what was a change from real history, even though most differences were obvious. It’s very confusing and disorienting throughout, as I think it’s meant to be, so you the reader experience the same “fish out of water” feeling as Catherine. I was worried for a bit that it was going to be a LOST-type mystery box where all this crazy inexplicable stuff is going on, with no satisfying answers.

But it does deliver in the end, and overall I’m glad I checked it out, and will definitely be on the lookout for more of Élisabeth Vonarburg’s translated work, even if I didn’t entirely jibe with this one. It gets WAY out there, in a good way, but 460-some pages may have just been too much mind-fuckery for my brain to handle.

[William Leight · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I read Elisabeth Vonarburg, the more I wonder why she isn’t better known. “Reluctant Voyagers” starts out in an alternate-universe Canada, which confines the Francophone population of Montreal to what’s known as the Enclave, and is engaged in an ongoing cold war with an even-further-north country, the inhabitants of which seem to be either Communists or followers of some sort of strange syncretic religion (or both). The strange thing is that Catherine, our heroine, doesn’t remember a lot of this (conveniently providing an excuse for us to acquire a bunch of exposition). Indeed, her memories may not be entirely reliable, something which may be connected with the fact that she seems to have some sort of entity in her mind. This presence gives an extra fillip (plus, apparently, the ability to turn a middle-aged university lecturer into a Jason Bourne-like character for brief bursts) to the spy story that ensues as she goes on the run with a Northern agent and Athana, a rather mysterious girl who seems to be a few years older every time we see her. In fact, this world seems to have a number of features that go beyond your standard-issue alternate-history authoritarian Canada: the visions of other worlds that first bring Catherine to the attention of the authorities, the strange way Catherine’s dreams seem to infiltrate reality, the way Athana appears and disappears, the technology-preventing Barrier that separates the North from Canada. As the story goes on, we learn so many strange things and find so many unexpected connections that it becomes practically impossible to see how Vonarburg is going to resolve it, which makes it all the more amazing when she does. The slow escalation of the strangenesses turns the reader’s feeling of cleverness at spotting them into confusion as they go well beyond what he or she is expecting. In the meantime, the spy story is quite suspenseful enough to get you hooked, and the characters are interesting enough to keep you reading even if you weren’t anxious to figure out just how this world works. “Reluctant Voyagers” is more intimate than “In the Mother’s Land”, without the latter’s epic sweep, but in some ways it's even more imaginative, and it’s just as much fun.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mon troisième Vonarburg et je l'aime moins que les deux autres. Probablement parce que cela semble parfois être plus fantastique que scifi.

Cela commence comme un thriller paranoïaque, dans un Montréal froid, dans un environnement politique croissant. Et petit a petit, cela se transforme en un mystere psycholgique. Cela m'a beaucoup intrigue. Mais le developpement s'est deroule aun rythme tres modere.

Le mystere des illusions et des hallucinations pose des questions intrigantes sur la manipulation des croyances et le developpement des mouvements religieux. Et le liens eternels entre les croyances religieuses et politiques.

Etait-il vraiment necessaire que nos protagonistes assistent a un bal costume? C'est l'une de choses qui m'a fait lever les yeux au ciel.

Mais dans l'ensemble, j'aime toujours beaucoup l'auteur.

[Anastasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is alternate history science fiction, with an intriguing world. The pacing is rather slow, but the writing is very good.

A university professor in Montreal gets involved with radical revolutionary groups, as reality begins to shift around her, streets reshaping themselves. As usual, Vonarburg is a subtle, sophisticated writer; the strangeness of the world builds slowly and draws you in. The story is more straight-forward and engaging than "Dreams of the Sea," more like "Maerlande Chronicles" (which I highly recommend). And there's real payoff at the end - the strangeness isn't fake.

[Lilith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Les voyageurs malgré eux de l'auteure québécoise
Vonarburg, Élisabeth est un roman de science-fiction imposant qui plaira à ceux qui aiment les univers intelligents, mais rebutera peut-être les amoureux d'action pure. Review complète sur lilitherature.com

[Michèle · Rating 5 out of 5]

C'est une des premières histoires d'Élsabeth que jai lu et qui m'accrochée. J'ai lu la première édition, chez QUébec-Amérique, collection Sextant, alors ditigée par Jean Pettigrew qui fonda plus tard la maison Alire.

Ca commence avec un décor universitaire québécois typique, avec quelques étrangetés qui se multiplient... Ici, "le monde est un théatre" prend tout son sens...

Ce fut pour moi, une lecture très satisfaisante!

[Isabellü Dubois · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the first book I read from Vonarburg and at first, I didn't quite understand everything. I was 16 and it's a unique universe she brings us in so I had to adapt. I read it once than twice than later on in life, close to 25. And I like the way she leaves us imagine what she doesn't tell. She gives us just enough information and she trusts us to think by ourselves to figure it out.

Give it a try! =)

[Mireille Duval · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparemment, il y a dans ce livre un tas de références aux nouvelles de Mme Vonarburg, que je n'ai pas lues. C'est peut-être pour ça que le livre m'a semblé très complexe (je veux dire, plus que ses autres livres) et très lent à démarrer. J'ai aimé les 200 dernières pages mais ça m'a pris plusieurs semaines pour passer au travers.

[Vasha7 · Rating 3 out of 5]

See My journal entry, on how this book frustratingly undid the promise of its best parts.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai finalement fini ce livre!

And like others, I thought that this book was quite slow to start, and frankly odd details and observations felt like they were dropping out of the sky. I was worried that the book was secretly the inspiration for the TV show Lost in that it would be overstuffed with strange ideas full of possibilities, but ultimately disappoint us with some magico-mystic ad hoc explanation for 25% of the story, and leave the rest blowing in the wind. For the kicker, people on Goodreads could say "Americans always want things tied up in a neat little bow!" as if it's our fault when an author sucks at endings.

Mais il faut continuer a lire (et desole de ne pas savoir comment faire les accents francais sur Goodreads.)

The book speeds up considerably after about page 200 and stays fast (more or less) up until just about page 500, when explanation slows us down again. And to her credit, the author's explanation doesn't come completely from nowhere, and it actually does explain almost all of the strangeness that precedes the reveal.

But what I missed (maybe because my French is not great) is how the young Catherine arrives at the planet of the Marrus in her dream in Quebec. It says, if I'm reading right, that she ended up on Khorai on her first voyage, a somewhat common spot for first-time Voyageurs according to Egon, but she hadn't really gone of her own free will, and due to no training she had even forgotten her own name in the process of being sent by the Bridge.

But I must have missed the part about how she came to be sent to Khorai in the first place. Why was it against her will? Did someone stick her in the pod and hit the button to get rid of her? It seems like it's important to understanding her character in the end, so much so that I'm sure it was in there somewhere and I just blew right by it.