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Chroniques du Plateau Mont-Royal #1
La Grosse Femme d'a côté est enceinte
Au coeur du Plateau Mont-Royal, ce quartier populaire de Montréal qui prend des allures de véritable microcosme social, une femme de quarante-deux ans, enceinte de sept mois, devient le centre d'un monde réaliste et fantasmagorique. Dans la journée du samedi 2 mai 1942, alors que tourbillonnent émotions et drames de la vie privée, le romancier met en place, avec un grand bonheur d'écriture, les acteurs du premier tome des "Chroniques du Plateau Mont-Royal".
288 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
61 people are currently reading
1361 people want to read
About the author
Michel Tremblay
137 books244 followersNé en 1942, Michel Tremblay grandit dans un appartement de Montréal où s'entassent plusieurs familles. Ses origines modestes marqueront d'ailleurs ses œuvres, souvent campées au cœur de la classe ouvrière, où misères sociale et morale se côtoient. En 1964, il participe au Concours des jeunes auteurs de Radio-Canada, avec une pièce de théâtre intitulée Le train, et remporte le premier prix. C'est à peine un an plus tard qu'il écrit l'une de ses œuvres majeures, Les belles-sœurs, dont le succès perdure. La pièce est jouée pour la première fois en 1968 au Théâtre du Rideau Vert.
Michel Tremblay est l'auteur d'un nombre considérable de pièces de théâtre, de romans, et d'adaptations d'œuvres d'auteurs et de dramaturges étrangers. On lui doit aussi quelques comédies musicales, des scénarios de films et un opéra. Ses univers sont peuplés de femmes, tantôt caractérielles et imparfaites, tantôt fragiles et attachantes, qu'il peint avec réalisme et humour. Vivant les difficultés du quotidien, ses personnages au dialecte coloré ont d'ailleurs contribué à introduire dans la dramaturgie et la littérature d'alors un niveau de langue boudé des artistes : le joual.
En 2006, il remporte le Grand Prix Metropolis bleu pour l'ensemble de son œuvre.
En 2017, le Prix Gilles-Corbeil lui est décerné pour l'ensemble de son oeuvre.
Michel Tremblay est l'auteur d'un nombre considérable de pièces de théâtre, de romans, et d'adaptations d'œuvres d'auteurs et de dramaturges étrangers. On lui doit aussi quelques comédies musicales, des scénarios de films et un opéra. Ses univers sont peuplés de femmes, tantôt caractérielles et imparfaites, tantôt fragiles et attachantes, qu'il peint avec réalisme et humour. Vivant les difficultés du quotidien, ses personnages au dialecte coloré ont d'ailleurs contribué à introduire dans la dramaturgie et la littérature d'alors un niveau de langue boudé des artistes : le joual.
En 2006, il remporte le Grand Prix Metropolis bleu pour l'ensemble de son œuvre.
En 2017, le Prix Gilles-Corbeil lui est décerné pour l'ensemble de son oeuvre.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 136 reviews
September 5, 2025
2025 take: Still my favourite. Comfort reading meets artistry meets unfairly neglected classic.
2020 take: This is my favourite book, probably. I’ve read it six or seven times, mostly in its English translation, once in the idiomatic quebecois French original. Objectively, I know that other books I like are as good as this one, but I love this one the most.
The story takes place over the course of a single day in 1941 in a working class Montreal neighbourhood, and follows a number of characters: three generations of one family, two prostitutes down the road, members of another family, the woman who runs the local shop, the retired high-class prostitute (the “she-wolf of Ottawa”) on a neighbouring boulevard, the neighbourhood cat. They get up, go about their day, come across one another, gossip and reveal things about the past… in a deserted house across the street, three fates, Rose, Violette and Mauve, and their mother Florence, knit boots for the children who will be born in the summer… seven women in the neighbourhood are pregnant; all will give birth at once, to a new generation in Quebec. A generation, Tremblay seems to suggest, that has a chance to break free from the repressive culture of Catholicism, ignorance and prejudice that makes everyone’s life miserable.
Tremblay came from a similar background to the one he depicts here; in fact, the eponymous fat woman is based on his mother when she was pregnant with him. But it’s far from a straightforward autobiographical piece. For one, the author is never born during this story, and there are clearly fictional or fictionalized characters, to say nothing of the light touches of magical realism in the form of the fates and the sentient cat. More than anything, it seems a love letter to a group of people who aren’t necessarily deserving of a love letter, which of course makes them wondrously deserving: snarly aunt Albertine, ferocious grandma Victoire, camp and feeble uncle Edouard, weak-willed father Gabriel, the drama-queen Guérin sisters.
In the French original, the book is written in the Montreal dialect of the time, something Tremblay did in many of his plays and novels, determined to shape a new theatre and language for budding Quebec culture in the 60s. This alone caused something of a scandal in his first plays. The joual doesn’t come across particularly in the English translation, but Tremblay’s skill with character does. Here’s Victoire:
She was an exhausted flickering candle, a dismantled gasping clock, a motor at the end of the road, a dog grown too old…a useless old woman, a beaten human being, his grandmother…Richard had heard her curse her daughter and daughter-in-law, cast impotent spells on them; he’d seen her stick out her tongue and pretend to be kicking them. From morning to night, she wandered [the house], a superfluous object of attention in this house where everyone and everything had assigned tasks or at least some use – except for her.
She’s a larger than life character, adored by her son and brother but hated by the local shopkeepers:
Françoise, the head waitress, would tell at the drop of a hat about ‘the time that crazy bitch Ti’-Moteur ate three butterscotch sundaes and after every one, she told me I’d forgot to serve her and then she left without paying, shouting at the top of her lungs how she’d never set foot again in a place where you wait hours for your sundae and never even get a whiff of it!” That time, in fact, Victoire had realized she’d forgotten her change purse and, too proud to admit it, decided to gain some time…
Her daughter Albertine sleeps in a bed made by her husband as a wedding present:
She had been, and was still, subjected to this bed as to some inevitable catastrophe that might occur long after it has been announced and then go on to mark and direct an entire lifetime: disillusion at the small amount of pleasure – when she had been promised paradise – could be read there just beneath the surface.
The book flicks around between characters (over thirty of them) in short chapter-length paragraphs. Apparently the lack of paragraphs within these is an issue for lots of readers on here. What can I say? It never bothered me. Dialogue seems to tumble out like real speech. Occasionally you need to check back who is speaking but it’s not Finnegans Wake.
Despite the somewhat desperate lives of many of the characters, this isn’t a miserable book at all. Joy and darkness co-exist. Duplessis the cat risks death crossing a rival dog’s territory to see his beloved Marcel, the four-year-old boy who smells like peepee. Béatrice visits her aunt, the retired escort with an amputated leg, with the implicit understanding that she gets a nice lunch and her aunt can reminisce about her glory days. A twelve year old boy confides his troubles to a prostitute in the park, and she feels cleansed by the nobility of his problems compared with those of her clients. It’s a celebration of a messy family and a culture on the edge of transformation: hemmed in by religion and bursting at the seams to get out. There’s the language question: no one from the neighbourhood goes further downtown than Eaton’s: “West of the big store was the great unknown: English, money, Simpson’s, Ogilvy’s, la rue Peel, la rue Guy.” There’s politics – Quebec has voted against going to war in Europe: “France! France abandoned us. France sold us down the river. Save France so it can go on shitting on our faces afterwards, and laugh at the way we talk and think they’re better than us?… I don’t want to die for France and I don’t want to die for Canada either! And I sure as hell don’t want to die for England!” But this is spoken by a defensive man, terrified that others think he has gotten his wife pregnant to avoid the draft.
There’s no plot to speak of. It’s just characterization, setting, ideas and set pieces, and personal mythology made national. Near the end of the book a character tells explicitly mythological tales to a group who all take it differently. The fat woman loves the “mixture of true and false, of humdrum life and her own astonishing need for illusions and the marvellous.” I identify strongly with the fat woman in this need; it might be the reason I read, it is certainly why this book resonates so strongly with me.
“And how about you, Laura? How can you tell when your father’s stringing you a line and when he’s telling the truth?” Laura stopped drying the dishes and seemed lost in thought. When she did speak, it was with conviction: “I don’t really care, ma tante. In fact, I think sometimes it even helps me get on with my life, the way he spins his yarns.” Albertine plunged her hands into the boiling water. “Bon, okay. I get it. I’m the one that’s crazy. Go ahead and dream, the whole bunch of you.”
2020 take: This is my favourite book, probably. I’ve read it six or seven times, mostly in its English translation, once in the idiomatic quebecois French original. Objectively, I know that other books I like are as good as this one, but I love this one the most.
The story takes place over the course of a single day in 1941 in a working class Montreal neighbourhood, and follows a number of characters: three generations of one family, two prostitutes down the road, members of another family, the woman who runs the local shop, the retired high-class prostitute (the “she-wolf of Ottawa”) on a neighbouring boulevard, the neighbourhood cat. They get up, go about their day, come across one another, gossip and reveal things about the past… in a deserted house across the street, three fates, Rose, Violette and Mauve, and their mother Florence, knit boots for the children who will be born in the summer… seven women in the neighbourhood are pregnant; all will give birth at once, to a new generation in Quebec. A generation, Tremblay seems to suggest, that has a chance to break free from the repressive culture of Catholicism, ignorance and prejudice that makes everyone’s life miserable.
Tremblay came from a similar background to the one he depicts here; in fact, the eponymous fat woman is based on his mother when she was pregnant with him. But it’s far from a straightforward autobiographical piece. For one, the author is never born during this story, and there are clearly fictional or fictionalized characters, to say nothing of the light touches of magical realism in the form of the fates and the sentient cat. More than anything, it seems a love letter to a group of people who aren’t necessarily deserving of a love letter, which of course makes them wondrously deserving: snarly aunt Albertine, ferocious grandma Victoire, camp and feeble uncle Edouard, weak-willed father Gabriel, the drama-queen Guérin sisters.
In the French original, the book is written in the Montreal dialect of the time, something Tremblay did in many of his plays and novels, determined to shape a new theatre and language for budding Quebec culture in the 60s. This alone caused something of a scandal in his first plays. The joual doesn’t come across particularly in the English translation, but Tremblay’s skill with character does. Here’s Victoire:
She was an exhausted flickering candle, a dismantled gasping clock, a motor at the end of the road, a dog grown too old…a useless old woman, a beaten human being, his grandmother…Richard had heard her curse her daughter and daughter-in-law, cast impotent spells on them; he’d seen her stick out her tongue and pretend to be kicking them. From morning to night, she wandered [the house], a superfluous object of attention in this house where everyone and everything had assigned tasks or at least some use – except for her.
She’s a larger than life character, adored by her son and brother but hated by the local shopkeepers:
Françoise, the head waitress, would tell at the drop of a hat about ‘the time that crazy bitch Ti’-Moteur ate three butterscotch sundaes and after every one, she told me I’d forgot to serve her and then she left without paying, shouting at the top of her lungs how she’d never set foot again in a place where you wait hours for your sundae and never even get a whiff of it!” That time, in fact, Victoire had realized she’d forgotten her change purse and, too proud to admit it, decided to gain some time…
Her daughter Albertine sleeps in a bed made by her husband as a wedding present:
She had been, and was still, subjected to this bed as to some inevitable catastrophe that might occur long after it has been announced and then go on to mark and direct an entire lifetime: disillusion at the small amount of pleasure – when she had been promised paradise – could be read there just beneath the surface.
The book flicks around between characters (over thirty of them) in short chapter-length paragraphs. Apparently the lack of paragraphs within these is an issue for lots of readers on here. What can I say? It never bothered me. Dialogue seems to tumble out like real speech. Occasionally you need to check back who is speaking but it’s not Finnegans Wake.
Despite the somewhat desperate lives of many of the characters, this isn’t a miserable book at all. Joy and darkness co-exist. Duplessis the cat risks death crossing a rival dog’s territory to see his beloved Marcel, the four-year-old boy who smells like peepee. Béatrice visits her aunt, the retired escort with an amputated leg, with the implicit understanding that she gets a nice lunch and her aunt can reminisce about her glory days. A twelve year old boy confides his troubles to a prostitute in the park, and she feels cleansed by the nobility of his problems compared with those of her clients. It’s a celebration of a messy family and a culture on the edge of transformation: hemmed in by religion and bursting at the seams to get out. There’s the language question: no one from the neighbourhood goes further downtown than Eaton’s: “West of the big store was the great unknown: English, money, Simpson’s, Ogilvy’s, la rue Peel, la rue Guy.” There’s politics – Quebec has voted against going to war in Europe: “France! France abandoned us. France sold us down the river. Save France so it can go on shitting on our faces afterwards, and laugh at the way we talk and think they’re better than us?… I don’t want to die for France and I don’t want to die for Canada either! And I sure as hell don’t want to die for England!” But this is spoken by a defensive man, terrified that others think he has gotten his wife pregnant to avoid the draft.
There’s no plot to speak of. It’s just characterization, setting, ideas and set pieces, and personal mythology made national. Near the end of the book a character tells explicitly mythological tales to a group who all take it differently. The fat woman loves the “mixture of true and false, of humdrum life and her own astonishing need for illusions and the marvellous.” I identify strongly with the fat woman in this need; it might be the reason I read, it is certainly why this book resonates so strongly with me.
“And how about you, Laura? How can you tell when your father’s stringing you a line and when he’s telling the truth?” Laura stopped drying the dishes and seemed lost in thought. When she did speak, it was with conviction: “I don’t really care, ma tante. In fact, I think sometimes it even helps me get on with my life, the way he spins his yarns.” Albertine plunged her hands into the boiling water. “Bon, okay. I get it. I’m the one that’s crazy. Go ahead and dream, the whole bunch of you.”
February 25, 2020
I read this book for book club.
And it definitely has to be lost in translation.
The style and type of writing make this book and it's characters difficult to follow resulting in me disliking the whole story.
The only saving grace was the cat.
And it definitely has to be lost in translation.
The style and type of writing make this book and it's characters difficult to follow resulting in me disliking the whole story.
The only saving grace was the cat.
April 3, 2009
Duplessis stole the show for me.
April 27, 2011
I really enjoyed this novel, much to my surprise. In fact, I was sad I finished it and wanted to read more about the characters. I did think there were a few too many of them, some even had similar names so keeping track was a little hard, but I enjoyed the little view into people's lives that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
It felt really authentic and I was surprised that it was written thirty years after it was set. For all the pregnancies for me it was obvious it was written by a man. The pregnancies were written from the outside in, by someone who had heard women speak about it but never really experienced it or anything. I haven't either, obviously, but it did make it harder to get into the head of some characters. I couldn't feel what they felt because the author only observed.
The only other thing I felt was really annoying, even though I got used to it, was the complete lack of paragraphs. I have no idea what the hell was up with that, but it sucked big time.
It felt really authentic and I was surprised that it was written thirty years after it was set. For all the pregnancies for me it was obvious it was written by a man. The pregnancies were written from the outside in, by someone who had heard women speak about it but never really experienced it or anything. I haven't either, obviously, but it did make it harder to get into the head of some characters. I couldn't feel what they felt because the author only observed.
The only other thing I felt was really annoying, even though I got used to it, was the complete lack of paragraphs. I have no idea what the hell was up with that, but it sucked big time.
November 11, 2019
La première recommandation que l’on m’avait fait en arrivant au Québec, c’était de prendre un café à la brûlerie St Denis en lisant un livre de Michel Tremblay.
De passage chez Archambault, ce titre était une évidence, lire les chroniques du Plateau Mont Royal c’est entrer dans la vie populaire des Montréalais en pleine seconde guerre mondiale.
C’est bien ça, on rentre dans la vie de ce quartier ou toutes les femmes sont grosses (enceintes) pour éviter à leurs hommes de partir au combat.
C’est truculent, vu au travers des yeux d’enfants qui observent leur voisins, racontent leur vie comme des morceaux d’histoire: des suçons volés au dépanneur, à la gondole du parc Lafontaine, on passe un bon moment de lecture.
Le langage familier utilisé (le joual) nous fait adopter leur vie et encore mieux entrer chez la voisine d’à côté.
Ce premier tome est un must, à lire et relire.
4⭐️ sans aucuns doutes.
De passage chez Archambault, ce titre était une évidence, lire les chroniques du Plateau Mont Royal c’est entrer dans la vie populaire des Montréalais en pleine seconde guerre mondiale.
C’est bien ça, on rentre dans la vie de ce quartier ou toutes les femmes sont grosses (enceintes) pour éviter à leurs hommes de partir au combat.
C’est truculent, vu au travers des yeux d’enfants qui observent leur voisins, racontent leur vie comme des morceaux d’histoire: des suçons volés au dépanneur, à la gondole du parc Lafontaine, on passe un bon moment de lecture.
Le langage familier utilisé (le joual) nous fait adopter leur vie et encore mieux entrer chez la voisine d’à côté.
Ce premier tome est un must, à lire et relire.
4⭐️ sans aucuns doutes.
March 12, 2018
Chouette découverte. C'est drôle et sérieux et triste à la fois, un peu mystérieux, aussi, mais un mystère qui s'installe doucement. C'est plein de personnages (on s'y perd un peu parfois, je l'avoue) tous plus sympathiques et irritants les uns que les autres. Le tout enrobé dans un accent québécois irrésistible (mais un peu agaçant à force, je l'avoue). L'accent québécois rendu à l'écrit, c'est seulement pour les dialogues, c'est ça qui est drôle, la narration sinon est sans accent... (c'est un peu bizarre dit comme ça)
Et puis surtout, toutes ces relations humaines, ces crasses, ces peurs, ces colères, c'est chouette, vraiment ; avec des réflexions sur les méfaits de trop de puritanisme et d'ignorance, tellement sérieuses au milieu des dialogues décontractés! Elles n'en prennent que plus de poids...
Et puis surtout, toutes ces relations humaines, ces crasses, ces peurs, ces colères, c'est chouette, vraiment ; avec des réflexions sur les méfaits de trop de puritanisme et d'ignorance, tellement sérieuses au milieu des dialogues décontractés! Elles n'en prennent que plus de poids...
September 4, 2024
I've decided i'm gonna get a lil bitch apartment in plateau mont-royal in 5 years
Read
July 22, 2019I read this book as a challenge to myself to see if I could still read fluently in French. (It's my third language but I have a long history of studying it.)
Did I succeed in reading fluently? Yes, in fact, this book has very simple language that I think even a high schooler in French immersion could understand. However, I wouldn't recommend it for high schoolers because the plot is quite dull--a.k.a. practically non-existent and definitely non-linear/all over the place. I won't be rating the novel because I'm pretty sure that, while I speak French, I don't understand many of the Quebecois-centred references throughout it. If I were rating it on my own enjoyment, I would give it 2 stars.
If you're a Tremblay fan, I would recommend reading his plays before you venture into his novels, or skipping his novels altogether. So far, I've found his plays clever and funny, while his novels meander and never really "make a point," beyond making a few clever jokes and references to living in Quebec in the 1940s. I own a few more of his novels but I don't think I'll be reading them.
Did I succeed in reading fluently? Yes, in fact, this book has very simple language that I think even a high schooler in French immersion could understand. However, I wouldn't recommend it for high schoolers because the plot is quite dull--a.k.a. practically non-existent and definitely non-linear/all over the place. I won't be rating the novel because I'm pretty sure that, while I speak French, I don't understand many of the Quebecois-centred references throughout it. If I were rating it on my own enjoyment, I would give it 2 stars.
If you're a Tremblay fan, I would recommend reading his plays before you venture into his novels, or skipping his novels altogether. So far, I've found his plays clever and funny, while his novels meander and never really "make a point," beyond making a few clever jokes and references to living in Quebec in the 1940s. I own a few more of his novels but I don't think I'll be reading them.
April 16, 2021
J’avais envie de lire ce roman parce que mon copain vit sur le boulevard St-Joseph à quelques blocs de l’Académie des Saints-Anges. Tout au long de ma lecture, j’ai entendu ma grand-mère dire “du pauvre monde.” Même si le Québec de la Grande noirceur est bien connu dans l’imaginaire populaire, se plonger dans la pauvreté des familles ouvrières du Plateau demeure frappant ! J’ai particulièrement apprécié le traitement très sensible et le rôle central des personnages féminins et marginalisés. Albertine et la “grosse femme” sont particulièrement tragiques - l’une pour l’amertume qui la ronge, l’autre pour sa capacité à rêver et à s’évader. La touche de réalisme magique élève aussi le récit.
J’ai choisi de donner 4/5 au roman parce que je n’ai pas été captivée, mais j’ai tout de même envie d’en découvrir plus - en particulier sur Nana, la “grosse femme”, et sa grande traversée du continent !
J’ai choisi de donner 4/5 au roman parce que je n’ai pas été captivée, mais j’ai tout de même envie d’en découvrir plus - en particulier sur Nana, la “grosse femme”, et sa grande traversée du continent !
Read
February 17, 2020This deserves ALL the zero stars. I tried reading, skimming, jumping around and after 2 weeks of pretty much a non-start I'm packing it in. The only thing I took away from this was that Montreal had streetcars prior to the 1960's. Born and raised there I really had no idea (perhaps my Mom might have mentioned) but I obviously never took that in. I was hoping that the Montreal connection would make this enticing but nah. Far too many characters one of which is Duplessis a CAT.
This was a bookclub read and while I typically don't post anything about our book prior to our meeting I just don't care enough about this one to keep my opinion in check till then. UG
This was a bookclub read and while I typically don't post anything about our book prior to our meeting I just don't care enough about this one to keep my opinion in check till then. UG
Read
February 19, 2020I only pick this book up because it was for my book club. The title was intriguing but it stopped there. But the cover left me flat. It amazing how important a good cover is to a book.
The writing was confusing. Conversations all jumbled up in one paragraph which didn’t allow for an easy flow with reading. I found it difficult to follow who was speaking the way the book was formatted. I tried several times to pick it up and get into this book and even though it was for book club I just couldn’t to it. I managed to wade my way through the first 50 pages and gave up. There are too many books I want to read to waste time reading something I’m not enjoying.
The writing was confusing. Conversations all jumbled up in one paragraph which didn’t allow for an easy flow with reading. I found it difficult to follow who was speaking the way the book was formatted. I tried several times to pick it up and get into this book and even though it was for book club I just couldn’t to it. I managed to wade my way through the first 50 pages and gave up. There are too many books I want to read to waste time reading something I’m not enjoying.
October 19, 2024
Listened to a discussion of this book on Overdue podcast. "It's time to read a prominent work by a preeminent Canadian (specifically Québécois) author! Join us in Montreal in 1942 and meet a family with lots of problems but lots of heart. Tremblay's known for insightful and whimsical character work, so it's fitting that we spend the bulk of the episode delving into the novel's deep roster of memorable characters. Also Canadian history is pretty interesting! Overdue podcast
October 16, 2020
A fantastic book from one of if not the best author Montreal has known.
December 31, 2020
Lu il y a plusieurs années
February 26, 2024
Ce n'était pas ce dont j'avais attendu, mais c'était un beau roman néanmoins
May 27, 2024
weird asf but i like the writing style
September 16, 2019
I loved this story (despite strongly disliking the technical writing style). A rich, emotional view into families in Montreal in 1942. The characters are rich and complex and very emotionally-developed by Tremblay. There are tons of characters, so it was hard to keep up, but I think in some ways, that was illustrating the same feeling as the neighborhood would have. This book is richly, richly set in place, and a perfect book to read before visiting Montreal. I will definitely keep reading this series! I can’t wait to find out what happens to each person next. (Note that the technical writing is not edited the way most books are; there are not really paragraphs, and some sections go multiple pages without a paragraph break. It’s very dense to read.)
“Albertine slept at the back of the double room, in a sort of boat, black in color and black on mien, that her husband, Paul, now off at war, thank God, had brought from the wilds of his native Laurentians as a wedding present 12 years earlier. Albertine had always hated that rancid-smelling box where the worst experiences of her life had caught her by surprise when she was scarcely more than an adolescent, when she was ignorant and pure beyond measure. She had been, and was still, subjected to this bed as some inevitable catastrophe that might occur long after it has been announced and then go on to mark and direct an entire lifetime. The whole existence of this rather fat but very beautiful woman was contained between the painted planks, on the worn-out mattress, in the thin, frayed linen sheets: disillusion at the small amount of pleasure—when she had been promised paradise—could be read there just beneath the surface.” p28
“She opened the door of Marie-Sylvia’s restaurant, humming one of those hymns for the month of May that we learn in school and that, for the rest of our lives become symbols of spring, of renewal, of grace, in fact, even if we lose our faith or forget everything else about our childhood.” p48
“In the dying rays of the sun that were red and orange, when all the west-facing windows in town where aflame, Ti-Lou saw all the nights of her life again: the superb ones, the ones that she willingly talked about because they were flattering, when the elite of Ottawa had crowded around her, along with the visiting elite from countries that she’d never seen, but where she’d imagined herself in black arms, or the yellow or brown or too white arms of one of its representatives whom she’d had to call “Votre Grace,” or: “Your Highness,” or: “Monsieur le President,” or simply: “Comrade,” men who were always intelligent and gallant, and who showered her with presents as they told her that she was Canada’s finest jewel, the only pearl ever created in the cold; and the far less glorious nights that she’d spent in hotel rooms, in the arms of drunken fat officials with fetid breath, whose requirements were as brusque as they were brief, who forgot her as soon as their hunger was appeased, sometimes going so far as to show her to the door, calling her by the name of the thing they’d just done to her; all those nights that it ended with a humiliating douche; all the pale dawns, the hours of the wolf—but not the wanton she-wolf—spent erasing from her body the dried traces of love (love?), the odor of vomit from crowned heads, and even the sh*t of this great world. Those nights, those mornings so horrible that Ti-Lou sincerely believed she’d dreamed them. She believed that they were nightmares sprung from her own imagination; while the other dreams (a house of her own and cailles aux raisins) remained the truth for her, the only truth—the only acceptable bearable truth. Crucified at her window, Ti-Lou saw once more the kings, the cardinals, the presidents, generals, admirals—but she saw them with their clothes on. And when the last ray of light touched her brow, she began to howl: this lonely, crippled she-wolf remembering, before she died, all her progeny scattered to the four corners of the forest, though she was well aware this progeny knew nothing of her, that it even renounced her because she’d become useless and would die with no one knowing anything about her, a rotting carcass they would hasten to devour before it polluted the surrounding air. The howls of the she-wolf of Ottawa rang out like a gunshot, rose up the maple tree in the yard and echoed all over Plateau Mont-Royal—until Ti-Lou’s despair burst inside the houses, the churches, in the presbyteries where priests, being served by fat servants in love with them, ingratiatingly ate vegetable stews or boiled chicken, their heads in their plates like horses in their troughs; it even scaled the steeples of the Eglise Saint-Stanislas and made the great bell ring out once, dong! only once, one little ding for the dying she-wolf, who’d never be allowed inside the church on her final journey or be buried in consecrated ground, the b*tch!” p215-216
“Albertine slept at the back of the double room, in a sort of boat, black in color and black on mien, that her husband, Paul, now off at war, thank God, had brought from the wilds of his native Laurentians as a wedding present 12 years earlier. Albertine had always hated that rancid-smelling box where the worst experiences of her life had caught her by surprise when she was scarcely more than an adolescent, when she was ignorant and pure beyond measure. She had been, and was still, subjected to this bed as some inevitable catastrophe that might occur long after it has been announced and then go on to mark and direct an entire lifetime. The whole existence of this rather fat but very beautiful woman was contained between the painted planks, on the worn-out mattress, in the thin, frayed linen sheets: disillusion at the small amount of pleasure—when she had been promised paradise—could be read there just beneath the surface.” p28
“She opened the door of Marie-Sylvia’s restaurant, humming one of those hymns for the month of May that we learn in school and that, for the rest of our lives become symbols of spring, of renewal, of grace, in fact, even if we lose our faith or forget everything else about our childhood.” p48
“In the dying rays of the sun that were red and orange, when all the west-facing windows in town where aflame, Ti-Lou saw all the nights of her life again: the superb ones, the ones that she willingly talked about because they were flattering, when the elite of Ottawa had crowded around her, along with the visiting elite from countries that she’d never seen, but where she’d imagined herself in black arms, or the yellow or brown or too white arms of one of its representatives whom she’d had to call “Votre Grace,” or: “Your Highness,” or: “Monsieur le President,” or simply: “Comrade,” men who were always intelligent and gallant, and who showered her with presents as they told her that she was Canada’s finest jewel, the only pearl ever created in the cold; and the far less glorious nights that she’d spent in hotel rooms, in the arms of drunken fat officials with fetid breath, whose requirements were as brusque as they were brief, who forgot her as soon as their hunger was appeased, sometimes going so far as to show her to the door, calling her by the name of the thing they’d just done to her; all those nights that it ended with a humiliating douche; all the pale dawns, the hours of the wolf—but not the wanton she-wolf—spent erasing from her body the dried traces of love (love?), the odor of vomit from crowned heads, and even the sh*t of this great world. Those nights, those mornings so horrible that Ti-Lou sincerely believed she’d dreamed them. She believed that they were nightmares sprung from her own imagination; while the other dreams (a house of her own and cailles aux raisins) remained the truth for her, the only truth—the only acceptable bearable truth. Crucified at her window, Ti-Lou saw once more the kings, the cardinals, the presidents, generals, admirals—but she saw them with their clothes on. And when the last ray of light touched her brow, she began to howl: this lonely, crippled she-wolf remembering, before she died, all her progeny scattered to the four corners of the forest, though she was well aware this progeny knew nothing of her, that it even renounced her because she’d become useless and would die with no one knowing anything about her, a rotting carcass they would hasten to devour before it polluted the surrounding air. The howls of the she-wolf of Ottawa rang out like a gunshot, rose up the maple tree in the yard and echoed all over Plateau Mont-Royal—until Ti-Lou’s despair burst inside the houses, the churches, in the presbyteries where priests, being served by fat servants in love with them, ingratiatingly ate vegetable stews or boiled chicken, their heads in their plates like horses in their troughs; it even scaled the steeples of the Eglise Saint-Stanislas and made the great bell ring out once, dong! only once, one little ding for the dying she-wolf, who’d never be allowed inside the church on her final journey or be buried in consecrated ground, the b*tch!” p215-216
February 23, 2024
La grosse femme enceinte, aussi nommé The fat speaker lady.
July 11, 2023
Un véritable trésor littéraire. Michel Tremblay réussit à capter l’esprit du Québec dans un court roman qui se passe dans un quartier de Montréal. A travers d’une journée, on apprend à connaître divers personnages complexes dont un enfant de 4 and et un chat. L’écriture est magnifique et l’utilisation du langage « Québécois » permet de donner un sens de familiarité aux personnages. Le roman est aussi très profond. Ça parle de plusieurs thèmes comme la guerre, la prostitution, le rôle de la femme dans la société, la relation entre le peuple et l’église, etc. Michel Tremblay représente bien les attitudes des québécois de l’époque. J’ai particulièrement aimé les aspects émotionnels du récit tels que les relations interpersonnelles ainsi que **SPOILERS** la mort d’un des personnages. Je recommande ce livre à tous les fans de lecture au Québec et aussi à ceux qui veulent apprendre plus à propos de la culture distincte du peuple québécois. 5/5
September 7, 2014
The prose in this book was thick and full of fantastic descriptions. I felt like I was part of the neighborhood, dropped in like a familiar visitor to these families, and with the same sense of uncertainty about where all this was going.
My favorite part of the book was getting an insight into the viewpoints of different people in Montreal in the 40s, particularly about the war that none of them wanted. The women having babies so that the men don't have to go to Europe, the negative feelings towards the rest of Canada and France, and just the general passionate detachment -- it was very interesting.
The book is full of many different characters, and it was easy for me to get attached to the most vivid ones. Duplessis, for example, the duplicitous cat from whose viewpoint part of the book is written, instantly caught my attention for how different (and yet how similar) his narrative was. Boy did this backfire when The others, especially those introduced only late in the book, did not catch my attention and their stories became paragraph after paragraph of rambling that did not seem to connect to anything else.
The dialogue is hard to read, because it is not marked by the speaker and is smushed together all in one paragraph. This made the long conversations nearly illegible, and there are a lot of these. On the plus side, I learned some lovely French slang and profanity for my next visit to Quebec...!
My favorite part of the book was getting an insight into the viewpoints of different people in Montreal in the 40s, particularly about the war that none of them wanted. The women having babies so that the men don't have to go to Europe, the negative feelings towards the rest of Canada and France, and just the general passionate detachment -- it was very interesting.
The book is full of many different characters, and it was easy for me to get attached to the most vivid ones. Duplessis, for example, the duplicitous cat from whose viewpoint part of the book is written, instantly caught my attention for how different (and yet how similar) his narrative was. Boy did this backfire when The others, especially those introduced only late in the book, did not catch my attention and their stories became paragraph after paragraph of rambling that did not seem to connect to anything else.
The dialogue is hard to read, because it is not marked by the speaker and is smushed together all in one paragraph. This made the long conversations nearly illegible, and there are a lot of these. On the plus side, I learned some lovely French slang and profanity for my next visit to Quebec...!
May 22, 2018
The first novel in Michel Tremblay's sexology, Chroniques de Plateau Mont-Royal, is one of his best. It recounts a day in the life of an extended working class Montreal family during World War II as the matriarch, Victoire, leaves the apartment for her first walk in months (and possibly her last), her grandchildren spend a day in the park, two streetwalker neighbors flee some sailors one of them robbed, and an aging streetwalker related to one of the younger prostitutes decides to end it all. Through all this the unnamed fat woman (modeled on Tremblay's mother) tries to survive another day of confinement in the apartment during a difficult pregnancy. All of this is watched over by a ghostly family next door -- three spirits who could be the fates -- giving the novel an element of magical realism. It's an amazing juggling act that Tremblay will carry through five more novels, weaving a mosaic of life among working class French Canadians during the last years of the Duplessis era of oppression by church and state. If you wish to follow the family's history through the novels and related plays, you might want to read his play "Past Imperfect" first, another day in the family's life, years earlier, when Albertine, Victoire's daughter and an increasingly important part of the sexology, gives up all hope of happiness.
April 7, 2021
"La grosse femme d'a cote est enceinte" est le premier volume d'un grand cycle de romans qui décrivent un quartier populaire de Montréal pendant les années quarante. Je suis ne durant les années cinquante. Cependant mes amis et parents qui vivaient à Montréal a l'époque où les événements des romans sont tous de l'avis que Tremblay donne un portrait très juste du milieu.
Néanmoins il faut reconnaitre que Tremblay était un bien meilleur dramaturge que romancier. Partout dan Les dialogues dans "La grosse femme d'a cote est enceinte" on voit un auteur qui s'adapte ma au nouveau genre. Les dialogues sont trop nombreuses et trop longues. L'emploi abusif du joual qui marchait plus ou moins sur la scène devient carrément ridicule sur les pages d'un roman. Les personnages manquent de profondeur et il n'y a pas de comédiens pour le fabriquer. Duplessis , le chat est le protagoniste le plus intéressent.
"La grosse femme d'a cote est enceinte" fait regretter le départ de Tremblay du théâtre. Pour apprécier Tremblay à son meilleure je vous conseille de lire: Les belles sœurs, Hosanna, Je suis toujours la, ta Marie - Lou, L'impromptu de l'Outremont, et ses autres pièces qu'il a écrit pour la scène.
Néanmoins il faut reconnaitre que Tremblay était un bien meilleur dramaturge que romancier. Partout dan Les dialogues dans "La grosse femme d'a cote est enceinte" on voit un auteur qui s'adapte ma au nouveau genre. Les dialogues sont trop nombreuses et trop longues. L'emploi abusif du joual qui marchait plus ou moins sur la scène devient carrément ridicule sur les pages d'un roman. Les personnages manquent de profondeur et il n'y a pas de comédiens pour le fabriquer. Duplessis , le chat est le protagoniste le plus intéressent.
"La grosse femme d'a cote est enceinte" fait regretter le départ de Tremblay du théâtre. Pour apprécier Tremblay à son meilleure je vous conseille de lire: Les belles sœurs, Hosanna, Je suis toujours la, ta Marie - Lou, L'impromptu de l'Outremont, et ses autres pièces qu'il a écrit pour la scène.
May 12, 2022
An intense look at the internal lives of everyone on a particular street with war, poverty, fertility and sex, familial bonds and responsibilities, anger and love overlapping and intersecting as Tremblay shifts perspectives. I knocked off one star for some supernatural stuff that I did not find necessary or convincing. I want to use both the words kaleidoscopic and crystalize, because the constant motion between characters really does let a shimmering composite reality come into solid being. A really great read.
October 11, 2020
Mon cher Michel, tu me parles droit au coeur! Un roman formidable qui me laisse haletante pour retrouver ces personnages si complexes mais attachants chacun à leur façon. Sacrifice que ça me donne le mal du pays!
June 23, 2014
What a treat this book was. I felt immersed in my mother's family, hearing their voices talking.
July 24, 2016
Set in a working class neighbourhood in Montreal, May 1942. It follows the lives of 7 Francophone women who are pregnant, with only "the fat woman" who is truly in love with her expected baby.
August 31, 2024
So different. Hard to follow at first but gains momentum and enjoyment.
July 13, 2025
Whew, Michel Tremblay can write a female character, wow. Some surprising elements to this. Really crowded writing style, which felt challenging sometimes, but overall worked.
February 11, 2022
D'habitude je laisse mes commentaires en anglais, même si le bouquin que je lis est en français mais fu qu'il ne semble pas y en avoir en fraçais (étonnemment) je change mon fuls d'épaule.
Une journée dans le Plateau Mont-Royal, le 9 mai 1942, avec les habitants de la rue Fabre (ou presque). J'avoue que c'est déconcernant de lire un livre sans chapitres avec seulement des espaces plus larges pour nous aviser qu'on changeait de groupe de personnage. Suis pas mal capable de parler joual mais le lire était tout un challenge - surtout au début. C'était tellement facile de s'imaginer au Parc Lafontaine de cette époque (le connaissant dans son était d'aujourd'hui) avec ces gens. De voir ces familles tous plus dysfonctionnel les uns que les autres! Mais humains. Tellement humains. Michel Tremblay nous ammène dans son monde avec les desciptions du quadrilatère, les ges qui y habitent et leur façon de parler (Même le chat a une voix!). J'ai adoré.
Normally, I leave my comments in English, even if the book in question was read in French. I was surprised to see no French reviews. Hmmm..
This book takes place in a borough of Montreal called Plateau Mont-Royal in one day, May 2, 1942. It was rather disconcerting to read a book with no chapters nor paragraphs, only extra spaces to indicate a change in group of characters! I can speak and understand the joual accent very well but to read it was quite the challenge until I got right into it. Michel Tremblay wrote it beautifully and I could easily imagine the Parc Lafontaine of those days (am familiar with this area today) through his words, descriptions and conversations between his characters. Even the cat has a voice! Each family, one more dysfunctional than the other was so very human. I loved it.
Une journée dans le Plateau Mont-Royal, le 9 mai 1942, avec les habitants de la rue Fabre (ou presque). J'avoue que c'est déconcernant de lire un livre sans chapitres avec seulement des espaces plus larges pour nous aviser qu'on changeait de groupe de personnage. Suis pas mal capable de parler joual mais le lire était tout un challenge - surtout au début. C'était tellement facile de s'imaginer au Parc Lafontaine de cette époque (le connaissant dans son était d'aujourd'hui) avec ces gens. De voir ces familles tous plus dysfonctionnel les uns que les autres! Mais humains. Tellement humains. Michel Tremblay nous ammène dans son monde avec les desciptions du quadrilatère, les ges qui y habitent et leur façon de parler (Même le chat a une voix!). J'ai adoré.
Normally, I leave my comments in English, even if the book in question was read in French. I was surprised to see no French reviews. Hmmm..
This book takes place in a borough of Montreal called Plateau Mont-Royal in one day, May 2, 1942. It was rather disconcerting to read a book with no chapters nor paragraphs, only extra spaces to indicate a change in group of characters! I can speak and understand the joual accent very well but to read it was quite the challenge until I got right into it. Michel Tremblay wrote it beautifully and I could easily imagine the Parc Lafontaine of those days (am familiar with this area today) through his words, descriptions and conversations between his characters. Even the cat has a voice! Each family, one more dysfunctional than the other was so very human. I loved it.
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