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Bonheur d'occasion
Sur fond de guerre, Rose-Anna et Florentine, la mère et la fille, tentent de survivre dans un quartier pauvre de Montréal. On ne compte plus les rééditions de Bonheur d'occasion, le grand roman réaliste de Gabrielle Roy, fresque sociale traduite en une quinzaine de langues qui a fait entrer la métropole québécoise dans la littérature mondiale.
Sur fond de guerre, Rose-Anna et Florentine, la mère et la fille, tentent de survivre dans un quartier pauvre de Montréal. On ne compte plus les rééditions de Bonheur d’occasion, le grand roman réaliste de Gabrielle Roy, fresque sociale traduite en une quinzaine de langues qui a fait entrer la métropole québécoise dans la littérature mondiale.
1945 est une date importante dans l’histoire de la littérature québécoise puisque c’est l’année où paraissait Bonheur d’occasion, le grand roman réaliste de Gabrielle Roy qui obtint le prix Femina. 1945 marque aussi la fin de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, à laquelle le destin de plusieurs personnages du roman est inextricablement lié.
Les éclats de bonheur sont brefs quand on est pauvre et coincé entre le rêve d’une vie meilleure et la dure réalité. Sur fond de guerre, Rose-Anna et Florentine, la mère et la fille, tentent de survivre dans un quartier pauvre de Montréal, Saint-Henri. La première a la tâche ardue de veiller au bien-être de sa famille, tandis que la seconde trime au restaurant du coin “dans l’odeur violente du caramel”. Elles incarnent les deux cotés d’une même destinée féminine.
Florentine s’éprendra de Jean Lévesque, un jeune intellectuel qui tente de s’élever au-dessus de sa condition, et cette passion ne la laissera pas indemne. “Il était le vent dur et cinglant, l’hiver profondément ennemi de cette soudaine douceur que l’on éprouve en soi à l’espoir du printemps. Mais le froid, la tempête cesseraient. Il était entré dans sa vie comme un éclat de bourrasque qui saccage, détruit, peut-être afin qu’elle vît bien, le premier tourbillon passé, toute la laideur, toute la misère qui l’entourait.”
Gabrielle Roy, l’une des plus grandes écrivaines qu’ait donné le Québec à la littérature, maîtrise l’art de la description et brosse un portrait toujours juste et nuancé de l’intériorité de ses personnages, tout comme des lieux où son regard se pose. On ne compte plus les rééditions de cette fresque sociale traduite en une quinzaine de langues qui a fait entrer Montréal dans la littérature mondiale.
Sur fond de guerre, Rose-Anna et Florentine, la mère et la fille, tentent de survivre dans un quartier pauvre de Montréal. On ne compte plus les rééditions de Bonheur d’occasion, le grand roman réaliste de Gabrielle Roy, fresque sociale traduite en une quinzaine de langues qui a fait entrer la métropole québécoise dans la littérature mondiale.
1945 est une date importante dans l’histoire de la littérature québécoise puisque c’est l’année où paraissait Bonheur d’occasion, le grand roman réaliste de Gabrielle Roy qui obtint le prix Femina. 1945 marque aussi la fin de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, à laquelle le destin de plusieurs personnages du roman est inextricablement lié.
Les éclats de bonheur sont brefs quand on est pauvre et coincé entre le rêve d’une vie meilleure et la dure réalité. Sur fond de guerre, Rose-Anna et Florentine, la mère et la fille, tentent de survivre dans un quartier pauvre de Montréal, Saint-Henri. La première a la tâche ardue de veiller au bien-être de sa famille, tandis que la seconde trime au restaurant du coin “dans l’odeur violente du caramel”. Elles incarnent les deux cotés d’une même destinée féminine.
Florentine s’éprendra de Jean Lévesque, un jeune intellectuel qui tente de s’élever au-dessus de sa condition, et cette passion ne la laissera pas indemne. “Il était le vent dur et cinglant, l’hiver profondément ennemi de cette soudaine douceur que l’on éprouve en soi à l’espoir du printemps. Mais le froid, la tempête cesseraient. Il était entré dans sa vie comme un éclat de bourrasque qui saccage, détruit, peut-être afin qu’elle vît bien, le premier tourbillon passé, toute la laideur, toute la misère qui l’entourait.”
Gabrielle Roy, l’une des plus grandes écrivaines qu’ait donné le Québec à la littérature, maîtrise l’art de la description et brosse un portrait toujours juste et nuancé de l’intériorité de ses personnages, tout comme des lieux où son regard se pose. On ne compte plus les rééditions de cette fresque sociale traduite en une quinzaine de langues qui a fait entrer Montréal dans la littérature mondiale.
413 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
154 people are currently reading
4723 people want to read
About the author
Gabrielle Roy
55 books112 followersGabrielle Roy was born in March 1909 in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, the youngest of eleven children. Her mother and father, then, were relatively old at the time of her birth -- 42 and 59 respectively. Like Christine's father in Rue Deschambault (Street of Riches), Léon Roy worked as a colonisation officer for the Department of Immigration, a position he held between 1897 and 1915. His politically motivated dismissal occurred six months before his retirement, thus leaving Roy with no pension to support his family. The family's financial predicament during Gabrielle's youth precluded any chance of her attending university, despite having earned stellar marks throughout high school which put her as one of the top students in the entire province. In 1927, after graduating from grade twelve, she enrolled at the Winnipeg Normal Institute where she completed her teacher training.
After teaching in the rural communities of Marchand and Cardinal, where she taught for a year, Roy returned to Saint-Boniface. There she accepted a teaching job at the Académie Provencher boy's school, a position she held from 1930-37. During this period, Roy began actively pursuing her interest in acting and joined the Cercle Molière theatre troupe. Her experiences as an actor inspired her to leave her teaching position and travel to Europe to study drama. Spending between 1937 and 1939 in Britain and France, the fluently bilingual Roy studied acting for six months before concluding that she did not desire to pursue a career in the theatre. In the meantime, she had also begun to write articles about Canada for newspapers in Paris and pieces on Europe for newspapers in Manitoba and came to realize that writing could be her vocation.
Over the course of her lengthy and prolific career, Gabrielle Roy received many honours, including three Governor General's Awards (1947, 1957, 1978), the Prix Fémina (1947), the Companion of the Order of Canada (1967), the Medal of the Canada Council (1968), the Prix David (1971), and the Prix Molson (1978).
After teaching in the rural communities of Marchand and Cardinal, where she taught for a year, Roy returned to Saint-Boniface. There she accepted a teaching job at the Académie Provencher boy's school, a position she held from 1930-37. During this period, Roy began actively pursuing her interest in acting and joined the Cercle Molière theatre troupe. Her experiences as an actor inspired her to leave her teaching position and travel to Europe to study drama. Spending between 1937 and 1939 in Britain and France, the fluently bilingual Roy studied acting for six months before concluding that she did not desire to pursue a career in the theatre. In the meantime, she had also begun to write articles about Canada for newspapers in Paris and pieces on Europe for newspapers in Manitoba and came to realize that writing could be her vocation.
Over the course of her lengthy and prolific career, Gabrielle Roy received many honours, including three Governor General's Awards (1947, 1957, 1978), the Prix Fémina (1947), the Companion of the Order of Canada (1967), the Medal of the Canada Council (1968), the Prix David (1971), and the Prix Molson (1978).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 304 reviews
June 21, 2010
My mother tells us, her children, that when my younger brother was around six years old she was with him one time walking along a city sidewalk when my brother saw a nice toy being peddled by a street vendor. He must have wanted such a toy for a long time, as toys were a luxury in our poor household, that he calls her attention and says mother, that's a nice toy isn't it? My mother said yes, it is a nice toy. Then my brother adds, but we can't buy it because we don't have money? Yes, we can't, we don't have money, she says. Forty years after it happened, my mother still recalls it. It must have broken her heart that her son had to be fully conscious of want at such a young age. That brother of mine grew up a very frugal man, quite unlike my other brother, who was shielded from the enfeebling effects of our poverty that he grew up a spendthrift, buys books like there is no tomorrow and is as generous as the sun on a hot summer day. His grand birthday celebrations are almost always like historical events.
Anyway, this is a book by a Canadian author, Gabrielle Roy. She was born and educated in Manitoba where my only sister, who doesn't read anything but her patients' charts, is based now. What a waste. If we can exchange places, I most likely would check out where Gabrielle Roy had lived or studied in Manitoba, and maybe get an idea where she got the wonderful insights which helped her write this extraordinary novel.
Florentine, the protagonist, is a 19-year-old waitress in a small diner/store. She's skinny because she (the eldest) and her eight siblings have very poor nourishment. Her father, Azarius, is a taxi driver. He's in and out of jobs. Well-meaning and kind, he does not have much luck, however. He has had many grand schemes to earn money which all failed. He and his wife Rose-Anna are just in their early 40's. They live in the slums in Montreal (the story is set during the Great Depression, just before the second world war). Rose-Anna is again with a child, the 13th pregnancy of her young life. Three of her children had died during infancy.
There are a lot of novels about the poor and about being poor. But what makes this book different, I think, is the author's remarkable understanding of how the poor thinks and feels. She knows how it is to be a young woman in love, but poor, so that the object of her longing would be both attracted by her beauty and repulsed by her poverty; or how it is to be a mother, who love her children, but does not have enough to feed and clothe them all properly. Details which only those who are poor, or had been poor, would notice sear the pages of the book. There were moments when I felt like taking all of my money from my wallet, insert the same inside the book's pages and hope that this poor family can take the cash and spend them for their needs.
There are several scenes here that will strike you as so true, but I have a favorite because it reminds me of my young brother and the toy our mother couldn't buy for him.
The mother, Rose-Anna, decides to leave the house one day to look for a new house they can rent as they are about to be evicted from their present dwelling. As she was leaving, one of her small children, a 6-year-old boy named Daniel who is often weak and with a fever (unknown to them, he has leukemia) asks her several times to buy him a tin flute. He had long wanted one.
Rose-Anna walked all day but failed to find a house they can afford to rent from the meager budget they have which comes mostly from Florentine's wages and her husband's (if he has work). On her way home, pregnant, hungry and tired, Rose-Anna decides to drop by the diner/store where Florentine works. She asks only for a cup of coffee "to perk her up" a little, but Florentine knows her mother is hungry and gets her a chicken meal which costs only forty cents(on sale that day) and insists that she eats it. As Rose-Anna was eating all she could think of is how expensive the meal is, and with forty cents she can prepare something at home more plentiful and more filling. After eating the chicken meal, Florentine also serves her a piece of pie which Rose-Anna would not have eaten had Florentine not told her that the pie is already included in the chicken meal. Later, as Rose-Anna was about to leave, Florentine also gave her two dollars--the tips she had earned for the day. Then Florentine--
"saw her mother's piteous, beaten look, full of gratitude and admiration. She saw her mother rise painfully and leave, skirting the counters and stopping here and there to touch an object or feel a piece of material.
"Her mother! Rose-Anna seemed very old to her. She moved slowly and her tight coat made her stomach bulge out. With two extra dollars hidden deep in her bag, the bag held close to her side, she was less sure of herself than before. Pots and pans, bolts of material, all the things she had long denied herself the privilege of looking at, fascinated her. Countless yearnings swelled within her, but she went steadily on her way, the money that had given rise to them buried in her pocketbook. Certainly she was poorer now than when she had entered the store.
"As she watched this silent drama, all Florentine's joy was turned to bitterness. The rapture she had felt in being generous and unselfish gave way to a sense of aching frustration. It had been a total loss, completely useless. It was a drop of water in the desert of their lives.
"At the other end of the store, Rose-Anna had stopped at the toy counter, and picked up a little tin flute. As a salesgirl approached, however, she put it down hastily, and Florentine knew that Daniel's desire for the flute would never be any closer to realization than this. Her mother's good intention was quickly suppressed. Likewise between her desire to help Rose-Anna and the peace of mind her mother would probably never have, nothing would be left but the aching memory of a good intention. If she alone could escape from their narrow life, that would be a great achievement, but even for her it was very hard. She would have been happy to take her family with her and raise them also to a position of ease and comfort, but she knew that it was useless to think of it.
"She forced herself to smile at her mother, who seemed to be asking her advice: 'Should I buy the flute, the pretty little toy flute, or should I buy stockings, underwear, food? Which is more important? A flute like a ray of sunshine for a sick child, a happy flute to make sounds of joy, or food on the table? Tell me which is more important, Florentine?'
"Florentine brought herself to smile once more as Rose-Anna, deciding at length to leave the store, waved goodbye, but by that time she was ready to rip all her good intentions to shreds, like a useless rag."
Anyway, this is a book by a Canadian author, Gabrielle Roy. She was born and educated in Manitoba where my only sister, who doesn't read anything but her patients' charts, is based now. What a waste. If we can exchange places, I most likely would check out where Gabrielle Roy had lived or studied in Manitoba, and maybe get an idea where she got the wonderful insights which helped her write this extraordinary novel.
Florentine, the protagonist, is a 19-year-old waitress in a small diner/store. She's skinny because she (the eldest) and her eight siblings have very poor nourishment. Her father, Azarius, is a taxi driver. He's in and out of jobs. Well-meaning and kind, he does not have much luck, however. He has had many grand schemes to earn money which all failed. He and his wife Rose-Anna are just in their early 40's. They live in the slums in Montreal (the story is set during the Great Depression, just before the second world war). Rose-Anna is again with a child, the 13th pregnancy of her young life. Three of her children had died during infancy.
There are a lot of novels about the poor and about being poor. But what makes this book different, I think, is the author's remarkable understanding of how the poor thinks and feels. She knows how it is to be a young woman in love, but poor, so that the object of her longing would be both attracted by her beauty and repulsed by her poverty; or how it is to be a mother, who love her children, but does not have enough to feed and clothe them all properly. Details which only those who are poor, or had been poor, would notice sear the pages of the book. There were moments when I felt like taking all of my money from my wallet, insert the same inside the book's pages and hope that this poor family can take the cash and spend them for their needs.
There are several scenes here that will strike you as so true, but I have a favorite because it reminds me of my young brother and the toy our mother couldn't buy for him.
The mother, Rose-Anna, decides to leave the house one day to look for a new house they can rent as they are about to be evicted from their present dwelling. As she was leaving, one of her small children, a 6-year-old boy named Daniel who is often weak and with a fever (unknown to them, he has leukemia) asks her several times to buy him a tin flute. He had long wanted one.
Rose-Anna walked all day but failed to find a house they can afford to rent from the meager budget they have which comes mostly from Florentine's wages and her husband's (if he has work). On her way home, pregnant, hungry and tired, Rose-Anna decides to drop by the diner/store where Florentine works. She asks only for a cup of coffee "to perk her up" a little, but Florentine knows her mother is hungry and gets her a chicken meal which costs only forty cents(on sale that day) and insists that she eats it. As Rose-Anna was eating all she could think of is how expensive the meal is, and with forty cents she can prepare something at home more plentiful and more filling. After eating the chicken meal, Florentine also serves her a piece of pie which Rose-Anna would not have eaten had Florentine not told her that the pie is already included in the chicken meal. Later, as Rose-Anna was about to leave, Florentine also gave her two dollars--the tips she had earned for the day. Then Florentine--
"saw her mother's piteous, beaten look, full of gratitude and admiration. She saw her mother rise painfully and leave, skirting the counters and stopping here and there to touch an object or feel a piece of material.
"Her mother! Rose-Anna seemed very old to her. She moved slowly and her tight coat made her stomach bulge out. With two extra dollars hidden deep in her bag, the bag held close to her side, she was less sure of herself than before. Pots and pans, bolts of material, all the things she had long denied herself the privilege of looking at, fascinated her. Countless yearnings swelled within her, but she went steadily on her way, the money that had given rise to them buried in her pocketbook. Certainly she was poorer now than when she had entered the store.
"As she watched this silent drama, all Florentine's joy was turned to bitterness. The rapture she had felt in being generous and unselfish gave way to a sense of aching frustration. It had been a total loss, completely useless. It was a drop of water in the desert of their lives.
"At the other end of the store, Rose-Anna had stopped at the toy counter, and picked up a little tin flute. As a salesgirl approached, however, she put it down hastily, and Florentine knew that Daniel's desire for the flute would never be any closer to realization than this. Her mother's good intention was quickly suppressed. Likewise between her desire to help Rose-Anna and the peace of mind her mother would probably never have, nothing would be left but the aching memory of a good intention. If she alone could escape from their narrow life, that would be a great achievement, but even for her it was very hard. She would have been happy to take her family with her and raise them also to a position of ease and comfort, but she knew that it was useless to think of it.
"She forced herself to smile at her mother, who seemed to be asking her advice: 'Should I buy the flute, the pretty little toy flute, or should I buy stockings, underwear, food? Which is more important? A flute like a ray of sunshine for a sick child, a happy flute to make sounds of joy, or food on the table? Tell me which is more important, Florentine?'
"Florentine brought herself to smile once more as Rose-Anna, deciding at length to leave the store, waved goodbye, but by that time she was ready to rip all her good intentions to shreds, like a useless rag."
November 21, 2009
Originally titled Bonheur d'occasion (trans. Second-hand Happiness), The Tin Flute is the vivid story of the working poor in Quebec during World War II. The story begins with the eldest daughter, Florentine, who works in the Five and Ten in order to help support her parents. She falls for a machinist, Jean, who agrees to date her merely to benefit himself. His friend, Emmanuel, in the meantime, falls for Florentine who has eyes only for Jean. As the Afterword (Philip Stratford) mentions, Florentine was Gabrielle Roy's first and foremost character for the story, but Florentine's mother Rose-Anna pushed her way into the story and was there to stay. Lucky for us, the readers, as Rose-Anna is truly the heart and soul of the entire story. There would be no Florentine without Rose-Anna, nor would Florentine's many siblings exist. Mother holds the story together. She is the glue.
The story is told from the perspectives of the different characters, and because of this the reader walks away feeling a little bruised around the edges. Not since Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have I finished a book feeling like I've just suffered with an entire family. Like Steinbeck did for the American literary landscape of the Great Depression, so does Gabrielle Roy for the Canadian slums of Montreal of World War II. The characters could be real people, with real reactions and real hopes and real fears. The situations, though perhaps dated at times, are not too far removed from the ones imagined by most contemporary readers.
Wonderful story, deserving of its place on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list. But if a happy ending is ones goal for picking up this book, you will be sorely disappointed. Life isn't always a bushel of cherries.
The story is told from the perspectives of the different characters, and because of this the reader walks away feeling a little bruised around the edges. Not since Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath have I finished a book feeling like I've just suffered with an entire family. Like Steinbeck did for the American literary landscape of the Great Depression, so does Gabrielle Roy for the Canadian slums of Montreal of World War II. The characters could be real people, with real reactions and real hopes and real fears. The situations, though perhaps dated at times, are not too far removed from the ones imagined by most contemporary readers.
Wonderful story, deserving of its place on the 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die list. But if a happy ending is ones goal for picking up this book, you will be sorely disappointed. Life isn't always a bushel of cherries.
February 15, 2023
Another Canadian classic that should be read! Thank you, Rosemarie.
A book of historical fiction that plays out in a working class neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The residents are struggling to make ends meet. The Depression lingers. Unemployment is rampant. We follow a French speaking family, their friends and acquaintances. The family’s fourteenth child will be born. Large families are the norm. The years before Canada’s entry into the Second World War is the time. The book gives readers an accurate picture of a time and a place.
A question is returned to repeatedly. Why do people agree to take part in a war? What is the motivation? Patriotism? The power and excitement of taking a stand and wielding a gun? An opportunity to leave the old for something new? Some joined up for the money—living on a subsistence level, one might see enlistment as a viable alternative solving pecuniary difficulties. An escape? A relationship falters, and here is a way out. We observe the choices made by a wide assortment of characters.
Times are hard. It is not easy to judge, but I simply could not see myself in the characters. This is one reason why I don’t give the book more stars. I felt close to one—the mother of the family. Maybe one can say this--the large number of characters dilutes character portrayal. The focus shifts from character portrayal to instead a depiction of a time and a place.
The themes? War and how it affects society. The value of life and the futility of war. The role of women. And how no two individuals behave in the same way. It is not a bad book!
Perhaps it’s the prose that gives me trouble, that is not so special. Could this be a problem of translation? Originally the book was in French, entitled Bonheur d'occasion. The English and Swedish translations came later. The Swedish translator is Einar Malm. We are in the hands of the translator. Prose is important to me. It didn’t do much for me here.
Tore Bengtsson reads the Swedish audiobook. His voice takes over. He doesn’t let each character’s personality come to the fore. You hear him….rather than them! He is a Swedish actor. It is not hard to understand what is said. I am this time giving his narration three stars. His narrations vary—sometimes I like them, other times I don’t.
The book is not a waste of time. If you are a fan of historical fiction you’ll probably like it. It draws the struggles of the common people in Quebec before the war.
A book of historical fiction that plays out in a working class neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The residents are struggling to make ends meet. The Depression lingers. Unemployment is rampant. We follow a French speaking family, their friends and acquaintances. The family’s fourteenth child will be born. Large families are the norm. The years before Canada’s entry into the Second World War is the time. The book gives readers an accurate picture of a time and a place.
A question is returned to repeatedly. Why do people agree to take part in a war? What is the motivation? Patriotism? The power and excitement of taking a stand and wielding a gun? An opportunity to leave the old for something new? Some joined up for the money—living on a subsistence level, one might see enlistment as a viable alternative solving pecuniary difficulties. An escape? A relationship falters, and here is a way out. We observe the choices made by a wide assortment of characters.
Times are hard. It is not easy to judge, but I simply could not see myself in the characters. This is one reason why I don’t give the book more stars. I felt close to one—the mother of the family. Maybe one can say this--the large number of characters dilutes character portrayal. The focus shifts from character portrayal to instead a depiction of a time and a place.
The themes? War and how it affects society. The value of life and the futility of war. The role of women. And how no two individuals behave in the same way. It is not a bad book!
Perhaps it’s the prose that gives me trouble, that is not so special. Could this be a problem of translation? Originally the book was in French, entitled Bonheur d'occasion. The English and Swedish translations came later. The Swedish translator is Einar Malm. We are in the hands of the translator. Prose is important to me. It didn’t do much for me here.
Tore Bengtsson reads the Swedish audiobook. His voice takes over. He doesn’t let each character’s personality come to the fore. You hear him….rather than them! He is a Swedish actor. It is not hard to understand what is said. I am this time giving his narration three stars. His narrations vary—sometimes I like them, other times I don’t.
The book is not a waste of time. If you are a fan of historical fiction you’ll probably like it. It draws the struggles of the common people in Quebec before the war.
January 29, 2024
j'ai vraiment peu de mots pour dire la fulgurance et la force avec lesquelles ce livre s'est hissé tout en haut du Panthéon des romans qui veulent tout dire pour moi à l'échelle de : ma vie
j'ai rarement lu quelqu'un qui écrivait aussi BIEN ce qui se passe dans un coeur, dans une peur, dans un désir, quelqu'un qui savait la VILLE et ses VISAGES et ses RUES et ses SILENCES, quelqu'un qui a lu tout, tout, tout ce qui se joue entre un homme qui veut et une femme qui a besoin, et la façon dont ce besoin se transforme en quelque chose qu'on a tous collectivement décidé d'appeler amour. j'ai également envie de goumer un à un chacun des protagonistes masculins de cette bombe de livre au point que quiconque osera désormais m'affirmer que Gabrielle n'était pas lesbienne au moins dans ses espoirs politiques sera désormais à mes yeux le sot du village. lisez ceci maintenant et merci bien
j'ai rarement lu quelqu'un qui écrivait aussi BIEN ce qui se passe dans un coeur, dans une peur, dans un désir, quelqu'un qui savait la VILLE et ses VISAGES et ses RUES et ses SILENCES, quelqu'un qui a lu tout, tout, tout ce qui se joue entre un homme qui veut et une femme qui a besoin, et la façon dont ce besoin se transforme en quelque chose qu'on a tous collectivement décidé d'appeler amour. j'ai également envie de goumer un à un chacun des protagonistes masculins de cette bombe de livre au point que quiconque osera désormais m'affirmer que Gabrielle n'était pas lesbienne au moins dans ses espoirs politiques sera désormais à mes yeux le sot du village. lisez ceci maintenant et merci bien
February 9, 2017
This is a book that got stronger as I read further into it. The novel takes place right at the end of the depression and the beginning of WWII. The LaCosse family at the center of the novel has gotten poorer as the years - and the children - added up. It was this poverty that that prevailed.
I never really felt comfortable, never felt connected to the characters or invested in the future that was being revealed. Still, I couldn't put it down for the last 50 pages. I needed to know how all of the issues were resolved. I wanted to like it more, but it's just a strong 3-stars for me.
She was brooding over the fact that poverty is like a pain, dormant and not unbearable as long as you don't move about too much. You grow used to it, you end up by paying no attention to it. But once you presume to bring it out in the daylight, it becomes terrifying, you see it at last in all its squalor and you shrink from exposing it to the sun.I might have wanted more from the prose, and I was tempted to blame the translator. Then I remembered that I'm not likely to give the translator credit when I do like the prose, so maybe I should treat them fairly. I might have wanted a bit more in terms of characterization, but those became clearer as I got deeper into the novel.
I never really felt comfortable, never felt connected to the characters or invested in the future that was being revealed. Still, I couldn't put it down for the last 50 pages. I needed to know how all of the issues were resolved. I wanted to like it more, but it's just a strong 3-stars for me.
February 3, 2024
Il y a eu Maria Chapdelaine. Ensuite il y a eu le silence. Et puis, tout d'un coup ce roman de la Franco-Manitobaine Gabrielle Roy est arrivé sur la scene pour finallement decrire la vie d'une femme quebecoise du milieu ouvrier et urbain. Bonheur d'occasion constitue bel et bien le debut de la literature moderne de Québec. C'est un des grands oeuvres incontournables que tout francophone d'Amérique devra lire.
May 8, 2021
The Tin Flute is the debut novel of Gabrielle Roy, a French Canadian author. The story tkes place in Montreal during WWII.
The Lacasse family is deep in poverty and ignorance, struggling in the Saint-Henri slums of Montreal.
From gradesaver.com, the list of characters:
Florentine Lacasse
This young woman has been tasked to support her entire family with her meager income at a lunch deli, but she's really more interested in Jean Levesque, the young machinest who comes by the shop to flirt with her.
Daniel
Daniel is Florentine's younger brother who is sick throughout the novel. It is his desire for a small flute that inspires the title of the novel.
Rose-Anna
The family matriarch who worries about her family. She is pregnant with her twelfth child. One day, her husband borrows a work truck to drive her back to her family's land in the country. She feels that city life is more difficult than her family's rural life.
Azarius
The patriarch who disappoints as a provider throughout the entire novel. He gets fired for stealing that truck from his workplace, even though he always planned on returning it. When France is taken over by Germany, Azarius finds a new employment with the British army fighting the Nazis.
Jean Levesque
This young flirt keeps coming to hang out with Florentine. He is a cad who is worth nothing. Florentine thinks she loves him. What a mistake.
Emmanuel Letourneau
But, Florentine has this other suitor, a military officer who has been courting her for some time. Happiness ahead?
My feelings about the book:
Poverty and judgement of it are the dominant themes of this book. Florentine works as a waitress to make money for the family. It is still not enough. Note that there are 12 family members at home with one more on the way. (The oldest son has enlisted and is away fighting the war.) Florentine is the only dependable source of income for the family. For this I admire her. But her twisted idea that she loves Jean and succumbs eventually to his wiles, lessens my opinion of her. Maybe the author has empathy for Florentine but I found it hard to empathize.
The book has won many awards and was made into a movie in 1988. I found it readable, but such a sad story.
4 stars
The Lacasse family is deep in poverty and ignorance, struggling in the Saint-Henri slums of Montreal.
From gradesaver.com, the list of characters:
Florentine Lacasse
This young woman has been tasked to support her entire family with her meager income at a lunch deli, but she's really more interested in Jean Levesque, the young machinest who comes by the shop to flirt with her.
Daniel
Daniel is Florentine's younger brother who is sick throughout the novel. It is his desire for a small flute that inspires the title of the novel.
Rose-Anna
The family matriarch who worries about her family. She is pregnant with her twelfth child. One day, her husband borrows a work truck to drive her back to her family's land in the country. She feels that city life is more difficult than her family's rural life.
Azarius
The patriarch who disappoints as a provider throughout the entire novel. He gets fired for stealing that truck from his workplace, even though he always planned on returning it. When France is taken over by Germany, Azarius finds a new employment with the British army fighting the Nazis.
Jean Levesque
This young flirt keeps coming to hang out with Florentine. He is a cad who is worth nothing. Florentine thinks she loves him. What a mistake.
Emmanuel Letourneau
But, Florentine has this other suitor, a military officer who has been courting her for some time. Happiness ahead?
My feelings about the book:
Poverty and judgement of it are the dominant themes of this book. Florentine works as a waitress to make money for the family. It is still not enough. Note that there are 12 family members at home with one more on the way. (The oldest son has enlisted and is away fighting the war.) Florentine is the only dependable source of income for the family. For this I admire her. But her twisted idea that she loves Jean and succumbs eventually to his wiles, lessens my opinion of her. Maybe the author has empathy for Florentine but I found it hard to empathize.
The book has won many awards and was made into a movie in 1988. I found it readable, but such a sad story.
4 stars
September 29, 2016
Oh, so readable, so heartbreaking, so thought provoking.
What is the consequences of destitution on a family? How does it affect one's psyche? The author of this book shows the devastating affects of poverty on one family., but the author does it in a loving way. I read this book through many tears.
Another theme is war. Why do the poor fight? It can't for loyalty to the country who has crushed their dreams in the past. Who benefits from war? Is it the soldiers or is the ones who stay home and make money?
The book was originally written in French, but my translation is so good, that I found it hard to believe it wasn't written in English. Highly recommended.
What is the consequences of destitution on a family? How does it affect one's psyche? The author of this book shows the devastating affects of poverty on one family., but the author does it in a loving way. I read this book through many tears.
Another theme is war. Why do the poor fight? It can't for loyalty to the country who has crushed their dreams in the past. Who benefits from war? Is it the soldiers or is the ones who stay home and make money?
The book was originally written in French, but my translation is so good, that I found it hard to believe it wasn't written in English. Highly recommended.
May 6, 2014
Gabrielle Roy has marvelous powers of description that make winter wind, snow, cold and choking city smoke descend and engulf the reader as well as her fictional characters. Just as invasive are her powers of discernment which take the reader right inside the thoughts and desperation of a family caught inside the slums of Montreal during the depression that preceded world war two. This is a Canadian classic, one of the finest books ever written. However, don't expect to lift your head from its last page feeling any more optimistic about life than you did before.
December 26, 2021
J'aurais donné 6 étoiles. Nul auteur, nulle autrice que j'ai lue jusqu'à présent ne m'avait démontré une compréhension si juste de l'âme humaine.
L'écriture de Gabrielle Roy est un cadeau de la vie.
L'écriture de Gabrielle Roy est un cadeau de la vie.
January 16, 2014
This book is an important fictionalized version of herstory that sadly reflects many of the same issues we have in society today.
March 23, 2020
Dickens is well known for his shining his light on the working class of London. But Gabrielle Roy did the same for the working class of Montreal. The drawback with Dickens is that he never bothered or even thought about women; perhaps because she was a woman Roy does. The focus of the story is on the family LaCosse, in particular the eldest daughter Florentine and mother Rose-Anna and how the women have to negotiate lack of money and society as Canada enters the Second World War.
While there is focus on men – in particular Rose-Anna’s husband and the character of Jean, who becomes a man of interest for Florentine, the heart of the novel is on the struggles of the women. There are the long descriptions of Rose-Anna’s struggle to find hearth and home. Her anger about the family’s inability to afford things for her children – new clothes, school, a tin flute.
And that is the pathos of the novel, the struggle to achieve to become more. Whether or Florentine achieves it is left to the reader, but the book is about the restriction of options that poverty brings as well as how those who say the will buck the system are actually those who perhaps make it worse, who lack caring.
It is not a hopeless book but it in some ways it is a braver book than any of Dickens work.
While there is focus on men – in particular Rose-Anna’s husband and the character of Jean, who becomes a man of interest for Florentine, the heart of the novel is on the struggles of the women. There are the long descriptions of Rose-Anna’s struggle to find hearth and home. Her anger about the family’s inability to afford things for her children – new clothes, school, a tin flute.
And that is the pathos of the novel, the struggle to achieve to become more. Whether or Florentine achieves it is left to the reader, but the book is about the restriction of options that poverty brings as well as how those who say the will buck the system are actually those who perhaps make it worse, who lack caring.
It is not a hopeless book but it in some ways it is a braver book than any of Dickens work.
January 12, 2024
Ich werde manchmal gefragt, warum ich mir so ein verrücktes Projekt antue, die Bücher der Liste „1001 Bücher, die Sie lesen sollten…“ zu lesen. Die (kurze) Antwort ist ganz einfach: wegen kleinen Juwelen wie diesem hier. Gebrauchtes Glück erschien bereits 1945 und würde vor Kurzem vom Aufbauverlag erstmalig in vollständiger deutscher Übersetzung herausgebracht. Und ohne die Liste wäre ich wahrscheinlich niemals darauf aufmerksam geworden und das wäre wirklich schade.
Gabrielle Roy war eine franko-kanadische Autorin, die in Kanada zu den wichtigsten der Nachkriegszeit zählt. Heute ist sie leider fast vergessen. Gebrauchtes Glück spielt vor dem Hintergrund des zweiten Weltkriegs in Montréal. Erzählt wird die Geschichte der jungen Kellnerin Florentine und deren Familie. Florentine hat eigentlich nur den Wunsch der bitteren Armut ihrer Familie zu entfliehen. Sie sehnt sich nach Liebe und einem Leben ohne ständige Existenzangst. Ihre Mutter arbeitet sich Tag und Nacht ab um die Familie über Wasser zu halten. Ihr Vater dagegen hangelt sich von Gelegenheitsjob zu Gelegenheitsjob; aber immer kommen ihm seine Ambitionen nach größerem in die Quere.
Die Armut der Familie, die Anstrengungen der Mutter und das Leid der Kinder taten mir beim Lesen fast körperlich weh. Ich fühlte mich teilweise an Die Asche meiner Mutter erinnert. Durch die verschiedenen Perspektiven erfährt man jedoch nicht nur Elend, sondern hin und wieder auch etwas Hoffnung. Ich konnte Florentines Verhalten nicht immer gutheißen, ihre Jugend und Unerfahrenheit entschuldigt jedoch einiges. Auch das Ende der Geschichte fand ich sehr gelungen: nicht alles endet glücklich, aber insgesamt doch zufriedenstellend.
Eine große Leseempfehlung von mir und ich hoffe, dass dieses Buch noch viele Leser*innen findet.
Gabrielle Roy war eine franko-kanadische Autorin, die in Kanada zu den wichtigsten der Nachkriegszeit zählt. Heute ist sie leider fast vergessen. Gebrauchtes Glück spielt vor dem Hintergrund des zweiten Weltkriegs in Montréal. Erzählt wird die Geschichte der jungen Kellnerin Florentine und deren Familie. Florentine hat eigentlich nur den Wunsch der bitteren Armut ihrer Familie zu entfliehen. Sie sehnt sich nach Liebe und einem Leben ohne ständige Existenzangst. Ihre Mutter arbeitet sich Tag und Nacht ab um die Familie über Wasser zu halten. Ihr Vater dagegen hangelt sich von Gelegenheitsjob zu Gelegenheitsjob; aber immer kommen ihm seine Ambitionen nach größerem in die Quere.
Die Armut der Familie, die Anstrengungen der Mutter und das Leid der Kinder taten mir beim Lesen fast körperlich weh. Ich fühlte mich teilweise an Die Asche meiner Mutter erinnert. Durch die verschiedenen Perspektiven erfährt man jedoch nicht nur Elend, sondern hin und wieder auch etwas Hoffnung. Ich konnte Florentines Verhalten nicht immer gutheißen, ihre Jugend und Unerfahrenheit entschuldigt jedoch einiges. Auch das Ende der Geschichte fand ich sehr gelungen: nicht alles endet glücklich, aber insgesamt doch zufriedenstellend.
Eine große Leseempfehlung von mir und ich hoffe, dass dieses Buch noch viele Leser*innen findet.
January 29, 2018
I am of two poles like Gabrielle Roy: Winnipeg-born, with everything we needed but our parents struggled. I encountered one distant resemblance to the Lacasses of “The Tin Flute”, the most destitute family about whom I've read. Not hitting the right career and financial plan in the beginning, was like a tire that kept puncturing, a black hole. Throw money at the Lacasses and it got sucked up. One of the reasons this award-winning début receives three stars from me, is disbelief that the Father and children did not earn money somehow. A catholic place like Montréal in 1945 was ripe for babysitting! The Mother worked but was too often pregnant. That she was run ragged at home, I don't accept. No kids did dishes, cleaned, or cooked? She wouldn't ask her Mother or brothers for help?
The other reason for moderately grading an admirable, complex literary coup is that we never like the eldest daughter, Florentine. Gabrielle gives voice to everyone's thoughts, even the awful Jean Lévesque, whom Florentine asininely wanted to impress because he wasn't a lover's type. When a story solidifies, after a few chapters of snapshots, she and her Mother are the protagonists. We loathe her sons Eugène and Phillip and Emmanuel would be an adorable beau, if he wasn't as stupid about love as Florentine, in his own way. He becomes her husband, even though his friend, Jean attracted her by being the first to kiss her. We want Florentine to wizen up, whom we admire as her family's sole breadwinner! WWII sees the poorest still reeling from the 1930s. Going to war in aid of England in France, well before Americans, provided jobs and family allowance cheques.
The most poignant example of a negative being a boon is Daniel in a hospital. His Mother saw him with colouring books, blocks, and a tin flute he wanted; thinly-matched English title of “Bonheur D'Occasion”. He received in one day, more toys than he ever had. Imagine a hospital being superior to a home life! In their rental homes, one or two kids had rooms, everyone else slept on cots, stowed by day. I forgive Florentine vanity about how she appears and dresses, after doing without. I was too young to remember this film, shown in my French school. It abounds in great discussion fodder, grasped best by adults. I only recalled that it was grim and dreaded reading it all these years. I am happy to discover that it is a highly readable story, that carries you along, outside of unlikeable characters. It concludes with hope, growth, and improvement. However the original title's meaning is more apt, for a book that isn't about music. It means: “occasional happiness”.
The other reason for moderately grading an admirable, complex literary coup is that we never like the eldest daughter, Florentine. Gabrielle gives voice to everyone's thoughts, even the awful Jean Lévesque, whom Florentine asininely wanted to impress because he wasn't a lover's type. When a story solidifies, after a few chapters of snapshots, she and her Mother are the protagonists. We loathe her sons Eugène and Phillip and Emmanuel would be an adorable beau, if he wasn't as stupid about love as Florentine, in his own way. He becomes her husband, even though his friend, Jean attracted her by being the first to kiss her. We want Florentine to wizen up, whom we admire as her family's sole breadwinner! WWII sees the poorest still reeling from the 1930s. Going to war in aid of England in France, well before Americans, provided jobs and family allowance cheques.
The most poignant example of a negative being a boon is Daniel in a hospital. His Mother saw him with colouring books, blocks, and a tin flute he wanted; thinly-matched English title of “Bonheur D'Occasion”. He received in one day, more toys than he ever had. Imagine a hospital being superior to a home life! In their rental homes, one or two kids had rooms, everyone else slept on cots, stowed by day. I forgive Florentine vanity about how she appears and dresses, after doing without. I was too young to remember this film, shown in my French school. It abounds in great discussion fodder, grasped best by adults. I only recalled that it was grim and dreaded reading it all these years. I am happy to discover that it is a highly readable story, that carries you along, outside of unlikeable characters. It concludes with hope, growth, and improvement. However the original title's meaning is more apt, for a book that isn't about music. It means: “occasional happiness”.
May 21, 2021
3.5. J'avais lu Bonheur d'occasion au Cégep et j'étais éminemment curieuse de le relire aujourd'hui, avec le bagage cumulé depuis toutes ces années. Le fait que ce soit une relecture a sans doute joué sur mon appréciation, mais j'ai trouvé que, oui, c'est certes un classique, mais en même temps c'est aussi un des moins bons livres de Gabrielle Roy: il y a, malgré sa beauté, des lourdeurs, des maladresses, des longueurs, choses que je ne retrouve pas dans "La montagne secrète" que je fais lire presque chaque année à mes étudiants.
Je n'y ai pas retrouvé non plus l'enchantement que m'ont fait éprouvé, plus tard, les écrits autobiographiques de Roy, en particulier "Rue Deschambault", "La route d'Altamont" et, surtout, surtout "La Détresse et l'enchantement". Je pense que c'est un livre qui, malgré toutes ses qualités et l'événement qu'il fut à l'époque, a plus ou moins bien vieilli - ou du moins répond beaucoup moins à nos sensibilités de lecteurs contemporains. Dans ce contexte, j'hésiterais beaucoup à le faire lire à des étudiants. Je ne crois pas qu'ils arriveraient à passer à travers! ;-)
Cela dit, comme la première fois que je l'ai lu, j'ai aimé de tout mon coeur le personnage de Rose-Anna, si bonne et si triste, jamais amère. J'ai l'impression qu'elle est quasi toutes les mères et grand-mères canadiennes-françaises et que nous devons, encore, nous rappeler d'elle et la célébrer. En ce sens, ça demeure un grand livre.
Je n'y ai pas retrouvé non plus l'enchantement que m'ont fait éprouvé, plus tard, les écrits autobiographiques de Roy, en particulier "Rue Deschambault", "La route d'Altamont" et, surtout, surtout "La Détresse et l'enchantement". Je pense que c'est un livre qui, malgré toutes ses qualités et l'événement qu'il fut à l'époque, a plus ou moins bien vieilli - ou du moins répond beaucoup moins à nos sensibilités de lecteurs contemporains. Dans ce contexte, j'hésiterais beaucoup à le faire lire à des étudiants. Je ne crois pas qu'ils arriveraient à passer à travers! ;-)
Cela dit, comme la première fois que je l'ai lu, j'ai aimé de tout mon coeur le personnage de Rose-Anna, si bonne et si triste, jamais amère. J'ai l'impression qu'elle est quasi toutes les mères et grand-mères canadiennes-françaises et que nous devons, encore, nous rappeler d'elle et la célébrer. En ce sens, ça demeure un grand livre.
November 8, 2012
I should rather pull a toe off than read this book again. It's no more than a catalogue of misery without redemption, and while it may be realistic, it's nothing I need to be told about in careful detail. I had feared that this was an artifact of translation, but apparently it can move people the same way in the original language; I finish with the perfect summation from this review:
Livre obligatoire à l'école. C'est supposément un classique mais j'ai trouvé ça atrocement plate.
December 22, 2020
What an interesting dive into the slums of Montreal at the end of the Depression/beginning of the Second World War. Roy takes us into the lives of a family struggling to survive, constantly moving from house to house and working dead end, low paying or humiliating jobs. I loved that Roy didn't try and make poverty uplifting or a conduit to a life of noble purity. It's just grinding and terrible, and makes people hurt one another, and backs them into corners with no good way out. Yet her characters still retain their inherent dignity and humanity. I also appreciated the look into Quebecois politics around joining up, which were quite different than the rest of Canada.
January 19, 2008
I very much enjoyed this peek into life in a Montreal neighbourhood in the 1940s. Well-drawn characters (particularly Florentine, her mother Rose-Anna, and the elusive Jean). A simple story, but complex layers of emotion and enough depth to make it an engrossing read. I'm very surprised that I've never
heard of this book before; it really should be on all of our high school English reading lists. I wavered about the rating, almost gave it a perfect 5, then settled for a more comfortable 4. Well worth the effort.
QUOTE: “Jean was the hard, whipping wind, he was winter, the sworn enemy of the sudden softness you feel at the approach of spring. He and she . . . they’d recognized each other the night of the storm. But the storm and cold would come to an end. And although he had come into her life like a destroying gust of wind, perhaps when the first storms were past it would turn out that he had come to help her see more clearly all the ugliness and poverty around her.” [p. 113]
heard of this book before; it really should be on all of our high school English reading lists. I wavered about the rating, almost gave it a perfect 5, then settled for a more comfortable 4. Well worth the effort.
QUOTE: “Jean was the hard, whipping wind, he was winter, the sworn enemy of the sudden softness you feel at the approach of spring. He and she . . . they’d recognized each other the night of the storm. But the storm and cold would come to an end. And although he had come into her life like a destroying gust of wind, perhaps when the first storms were past it would turn out that he had come to help her see more clearly all the ugliness and poverty around her.” [p. 113]
August 30, 2023
I finally finished this beautiful story. First, thank you, Suzanica, for this book. It was a great journey.
It's the story of a poor family from Canada, during WW2. The prose is so beautiful, it's like I was there, with the characters, seeing, smelling and hearing everything they were seeing, smelling and hearing. Also, Gabrielle Roy is a master when it comes to her characters' psychology. They become real people, you get to know them, to empathize and even if you really, really dislike some of them or don't agree with their choices, you understand.
I'll definitely read more books written by Gabrielle Roy.
It's the story of a poor family from Canada, during WW2. The prose is so beautiful, it's like I was there, with the characters, seeing, smelling and hearing everything they were seeing, smelling and hearing. Also, Gabrielle Roy is a master when it comes to her characters' psychology. They become real people, you get to know them, to empathize and even if you really, really dislike some of them or don't agree with their choices, you understand.
I'll definitely read more books written by Gabrielle Roy.
October 29, 2021
This book is a wonderful combination of love, loss, deceit and misfortune. The author has an ability to make you really feel something about these characters… both love and hate.
Incredibly sad at points but so worth the journey.
Incredibly sad at points but so worth the journey.
November 27, 2023
An interesting, character based, compassionate, realistic novel set at the beginning of World War II in St. Henri, a poverty stricken district of Montreal, Canada. The main characters are Rose-Anna, a loving mother of a large family, and her eldest daughter, Florentine. Rose-Anna’s husband, Azarius, is an easy going man who struggles to keep a job. The family lives mainly off the income of Rose-Anna and Florentine, who works as a waitress, giving most of her earnings to her mother.
A novel about a poor family’s struggle for food, clothing and a place to live. All characters have their own internal struggles, each dreaming and hoping for a better life.
The characters are very well developed. A recommended read.
This book was first published in French in 1945. This novel is regarded as a classic of Canadian literature.
A novel about a poor family’s struggle for food, clothing and a place to live. All characters have their own internal struggles, each dreaming and hoping for a better life.
The characters are very well developed. A recommended read.
This book was first published in French in 1945. This novel is regarded as a classic of Canadian literature.
December 15, 2021
EXCELLLLEEEEENNNT
September 25, 2022
I hate French books. Tell me why the main chick is a broke gold digger?
October 2, 2024
Un classique qui mérite d’être un classique!
November 1, 2024
It sure is hard being poor and Quebecois in the 30's. In the Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy paints a brutally realistic painting of people desperate to escape the Montreal suburb of St Henri one way or another. Sad, funny, gripping, visually stunning.
July 30, 2016
Gabrielle Roy réussit à bien rendre la misère de l'époque. Saint-Henri, la guerre, la dépression, la pauvreté sont bien dépeints. Le roman aurait été excellent, si ce n'eut été des personnages, qui ne sont pas aimables du tout. Florentine est bête comme tout, Jean est inintéressant et Emmanuel est ridicule. Rose-Anna est probablement le personnage le plus intéressant, mais elle n'a qu'une seule dimension: celle de la pauvre femme encrassée dans la misère.
November 24, 2018
Haha this book took me two months to read! Why? Because it’s terrible!!!
April 17, 2025
J'ai intentionnellement pris mon temps avec ce roman. Je l'ai laissé m'envahir, m'habiter, m'émouvoir d'une façon où je m'en sens transfigurer. Je crois qu'à ce jour, Bonheur d'Occasion est le meilleur roman que j'ai lu.
Plusieurs raisons m'amènent à cette conclusion, mais pour faire bref, j'ai été énormément toucher par la sensibilité féminine de ce roman québécois des années 40. Je suis surprise comment la condition féminine a si peu évolué, ou comment les inquiétudes et les difficultés demeurent les mêmes aux fils des décennies. Les rapports de pouvoir, les enjeux de maternité, les défis de la pauvreté : le tout a se lit encore avec une résonnante actualité. Sans oublier que ce premier roman réaliste du Québec est de la haute voltige littéraire. C'est si bien écrit, j'étais émue à chaque ligne. Je crois que Bonheur d'Occasion devrait être une lecture obligatoire dans le corpus collégial et universitaires.
Merci Gabrielle Roy de nous avoir laisser avec ce bijou.
Plusieurs raisons m'amènent à cette conclusion, mais pour faire bref, j'ai été énormément toucher par la sensibilité féminine de ce roman québécois des années 40. Je suis surprise comment la condition féminine a si peu évolué, ou comment les inquiétudes et les difficultés demeurent les mêmes aux fils des décennies. Les rapports de pouvoir, les enjeux de maternité, les défis de la pauvreté : le tout a se lit encore avec une résonnante actualité. Sans oublier que ce premier roman réaliste du Québec est de la haute voltige littéraire. C'est si bien écrit, j'étais émue à chaque ligne. Je crois que Bonheur d'Occasion devrait être une lecture obligatoire dans le corpus collégial et universitaires.
Merci Gabrielle Roy de nous avoir laisser avec ce bijou.
October 28, 2024
very cool to gain an insight into what montreal was like in a post-war setting; but ultimately everything that i liked about this book from an analysis standpoint was also everything that made me unable to enjoy it for the sake of reading
December 15, 2021
This is another book I read years ago, first in university, then again a few years later, and the tragedy of it always stuck with me, not least for its truthfulness.
This book, published in the 1950s and set in Montreal in the early 1940s,bwas considered one of the precipitating factors of the Quiet Revolution in Québec in the 1960s and 1970s. It was one of the first widely-published books to so starkly show the plight of poor French-Canadians, sandwiched between two overarching and rigid institutions - the Catholic Church, and the English government.
The Church's influence permeates every aspect of the Lacasse family's lives (like much of French literature, the family's name is meant to have significance - suggesting they're "boxed in" or "trapped"). Mother Rose-Anna would never dream of divorcing her useless husband, nor turning him away in bed, nor of using any sort of birth control. So she births one baby after another into increasingly straitened circumstances, and occasionally manages to clean a home or make a few dollars some other way between babies and annual moves to ever smaller and shabbier apartments as they constantly fall behind on the rent. One of her daughters, Yvonne, becomes increasingly pious and plans to join a convent.
The English government is shown as more and more French-Canadian men - including eldest son Eugene and aforementioned-disaster father Azarius - discuss enlisting for the paycheque and muse on the idea of "Fighting for the English". The men consider the English to be occupiers and overlords. At the same time, when Rose-Anna finally visits their ill son Daniel in hospital, she can't summon up enough schoolgirl English to speak to the Anglophone nurse at all, let alone discuss her boy's illness, care, or prognosis. The idea that medical staff in Montreal ought to perhaps be able to speak French didn't cross anyone's mind in those days.
Eldest child and daughter, Florentine, struggles to support the entire brood on a waitress salary while her father floats in and out of employment and Eugene kicks listlessly around town, reflecting a largely-unspoken truth of the Depression, that in many cases it was women supporting their families while men struggled for work. She struggles to maintain any semblance of a normal life around endless drudgery and obligation, and makes some disastrous decisions of her own even as she looks for a way out of her family's poverty trap. Florentine is not always likeable, but she is very understandable.
One last interesting thing I wanted to note, was the themes of isolation that permeated the book. For a large family living in tight quarters, the Lacasse family members have their share of private miseries and seem quite disconnected from one another. Rose-Anna still loves her husband, and they seem relatively happily married - but he spends most of his time out of the house, either working, looking for work, or spending money they don't have at a local restaurant shooting the breeze with other men. Rose-Anna, for her part, is so preoccupied with simply keeping the family fed, clothed, and housed, that she barely knows her own children. Eldest children Florentine, Eugene, and Yvonne all have their own private struggles. The younger children are treated by the narrative and the rest of the family as a largely nondescript mob, save for sickly Daniel. Florentine and Eugene interact rarely, and even as Florentine and Yvonne sleep side-by-side on a couch every night, they don't speak to each other at all throughout the book. Save for single visits by Rose-Anna and Yvonne, no one even seems to notice when Daniel is hospitalized, nor his eventual passing. Poverty and misery run so deep in this family, they can barely see one another above it.
Anyway, this has been a very long review , but this book just provides so many insights into a certain time and place, that I recommend it for any history buff.
This book, published in the 1950s and set in Montreal in the early 1940s,bwas considered one of the precipitating factors of the Quiet Revolution in Québec in the 1960s and 1970s. It was one of the first widely-published books to so starkly show the plight of poor French-Canadians, sandwiched between two overarching and rigid institutions - the Catholic Church, and the English government.
The Church's influence permeates every aspect of the Lacasse family's lives (like much of French literature, the family's name is meant to have significance - suggesting they're "boxed in" or "trapped"). Mother Rose-Anna would never dream of divorcing her useless husband, nor turning him away in bed, nor of using any sort of birth control. So she births one baby after another into increasingly straitened circumstances, and occasionally manages to clean a home or make a few dollars some other way between babies and annual moves to ever smaller and shabbier apartments as they constantly fall behind on the rent. One of her daughters, Yvonne, becomes increasingly pious and plans to join a convent.
The English government is shown as more and more French-Canadian men - including eldest son Eugene and aforementioned-disaster father Azarius - discuss enlisting for the paycheque and muse on the idea of "Fighting for the English". The men consider the English to be occupiers and overlords. At the same time, when Rose-Anna finally visits their ill son Daniel in hospital, she can't summon up enough schoolgirl English to speak to the Anglophone nurse at all, let alone discuss her boy's illness, care, or prognosis. The idea that medical staff in Montreal ought to perhaps be able to speak French didn't cross anyone's mind in those days.
Eldest child and daughter, Florentine, struggles to support the entire brood on a waitress salary while her father floats in and out of employment and Eugene kicks listlessly around town, reflecting a largely-unspoken truth of the Depression, that in many cases it was women supporting their families while men struggled for work. She struggles to maintain any semblance of a normal life around endless drudgery and obligation, and makes some disastrous decisions of her own even as she looks for a way out of her family's poverty trap. Florentine is not always likeable, but she is very understandable.
One last interesting thing I wanted to note, was the themes of isolation that permeated the book. For a large family living in tight quarters, the Lacasse family members have their share of private miseries and seem quite disconnected from one another. Rose-Anna still loves her husband, and they seem relatively happily married - but he spends most of his time out of the house, either working, looking for work, or spending money they don't have at a local restaurant shooting the breeze with other men. Rose-Anna, for her part, is so preoccupied with simply keeping the family fed, clothed, and housed, that she barely knows her own children. Eldest children Florentine, Eugene, and Yvonne all have their own private struggles. The younger children are treated by the narrative and the rest of the family as a largely nondescript mob, save for sickly Daniel. Florentine and Eugene interact rarely, and even as Florentine and Yvonne sleep side-by-side on a couch every night, they don't speak to each other at all throughout the book. Save for single visits by Rose-Anna and Yvonne, no one even seems to notice when Daniel is hospitalized, nor his eventual passing. Poverty and misery run so deep in this family, they can barely see one another above it.
Anyway, this has been a very long review , but this book just provides so many insights into a certain time and place, that I recommend it for any history buff.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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