The Immaculate Conception

by Gaétan Soucy, Lazer Lederhendler (Translator)

East-end Montreal in the mid-1920s. A popular restaurant is razed by an arsonist. Seventy-five people perish in the inferno. While strolling with his wheelchair-ridden father, a man furtively salvages a charred icon from the ruins. He is Remouald Tremblay, a self-effacing bank clerk whose pocket holds a treasured rabbit's foot and whose memory contains an unspeakable hell.

Originally published in 1994 as L'Immaculee conception , this is the novel that established Gaetan Soucy as a powerful new literary force in Quebec. In it, he echoes the writing of Edgar Allan Poe and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Immaculate Conception was shortlisted for the Giller Prize in 2006.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Canadian Literature, Novels

330 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Gaétan Soucy est né à Montréal, le 21 octobre 1958. Après des études en physique et en mathématiques à l’Université de Montréal, il termine des études littéraires à l’Université du Québec, puis obtient une maîtrise en philosophie par un mémoire remarqué sur la théorie transcendantale des sciences dans la philosophie critique kantienne. Enfin, il consacrera quelques années à l’étude exclusive de la langue et de l’écriture japonaises.

Il publie son premier roman, L’Immaculée Conception, en 1994. Il donne ensuite L’Acquittement (Boréal, 1997), qui remporte le Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. Toutefois, c’est son troisième roman, La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes (Boréal, 1998), traduit en une vingtaine de langues, qui établit sa renommée internationale. Il est le lauréat du prix Ringuet de l’Académie des lettres du Québec.

En 2002, il publie Music-Hall! (coédition Boréal/Seuil) qui remporte le Prix des libraires du Québec, de même que le prix France-Québec/Jean-Hamelin. En 2003, il reçoit également le Grand Prix de littérature française hors de France (Fondation Nessim Habif) pour son œuvre et plus particulièrement pour Music-Hall!

Il était également professeur de philosophie au Collège Édouard-Montpetit à Longueuil.

Écrivain exigeant, Gaétan Soucy laisse derrière lui une œuvre qui se distingue par la somptuosité de l’écriture et par la profondeur de la pensée. Ses personnages, souvent des marginaux, atteignent une résonnance universelle dans leur questionnement désespéré devant le mystère de la vie, dans leur soif de pardon et d’apaisement.

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Gaétan Soucy was a Canadian novelist and professor.

He studied physics at Université de Montréal, completed a Master's degree in philosophy, and studied Japanese language and literature at McGill University.

His third novel, La petite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes (translated as The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches by Fischman) caused a sensation in Quebec and was immediately translated into more than ten languages.

Soucy lived in Montreal.

Reviews

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do not deny that Soucy is a masterful writer and that he knows how to weave a twisted tale of horrifying events and even more horrifying consequences. I remember reading his The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches two or three years ago, and feeling assaulted by the language and the subject matter. The Immaculate Conception continues with the theme of matches and fire, but the sparks didn’t work for me this time. The main focus of the story, Remouald and his father Seraphon, are fascinating and detailed characters that drew me in for the first half of the book. But somewhere midway the novel fractured into multiple storylines that seemed only loosely connected to the main plot. The result, for me, was nothing more than a myriad of distractions from what I really wanted to know – the story of Remouald and Seraphon. I ended the book feeling frustrated and annoyed. I had spent too much time trying to understand how the divergent storylines connected, and not enough time paying attention to the only one that I liked.

[Siobhan Burke]

Just finished this one and I feel like I need a hot shower and some steel wool to scrub the masterfully insidious stench off of my body, my mind. So depressing. But so so beautifully written. As with all of Soucy's work, I can't help but read like a wild animal, starved and forced to eat one of my own, the aftermath of which is a grounded concern for my own soundness of mind. Again, a startling work of art.

[Mary Matias · Rating 3 out of 5]

”When I return from these roads, like a child at last Happy, we shall sow in my garden the traces of our eyes, my love, and the mysterious defeats of our hands.” — Clémanthine de Kléman

I feel like I read this book too quick or too soon for me to strongly appreciate it and its details. I feel like there have been enough details entangled within the text which foreshadowed the mystery behind the gritty case, but the text itself wasn’t enough to leave a strong impression for me to appreciate what I’m reading. Above all, it was a good quick read. It gave me more answers on the “why’s” rather than the “how’s”. Took me to a whole different place for the past two hours.

[SY · Rating 2 out of 5]

ZzzzZZZZzzzzzZZZZzzzzzzz 😴

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to know where to begin with this ultra-weird story. It has a deceptively simple plot line involving a tragic arson in which scores of people are killed, but it morphs quickly into multiple story lines that revolve around two main characters: an accountant who sees something involving three school boys in the ruins of the afore-mentioned arson fire, and a schoolteacher in whose class the three school boys attend school. Reading this novel though for me was a bit like watching the film Mulholland Drive, in which there are at least two narrative lines--one real, one dream-like--but it's not clear until the film is over which is which, as though the movie was designed not to be understood upon a first viewing, but would need to be watched twice at least, perhaps several times in order to be understood. This novel is like that, but you would first have to care enough about the action and the characters to want to do so, and I have to say that for me, that hasn't happened. The biggest mysteries for me and the ones for which resolution is at best hinted at is who is the little mute girl, Sarah, and what is the significance of the train ride to the supposed sanitarium? Perhaps other readers have ideas. I can understand why this crafty book was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, but in the end I found it too artful and too horrible to justify more than one reading.

[Anne Bergeron-Langlois · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livre étrange avec personnages étranges. J'ai eu un attachement particulier avec Remouald, auquel je me suis identifié et me suis sentie proche. J'ai beaucoup aimé les parts de surréalisme dans le roman, où on ne sait plus ce qui est vrai et ce qui ne l'est pas. J'ai aussi adoré l'inconfort, le dédin mêlé à l'attrait provoqués par la narration.Tellement de questions sont sans réponses et c'est très bien comme ça. Il y a une aura de mystère qui entoure ce livre. C'est le deuxième livre de Soucy que je lis et j'aimerais en lire d'autre du même auteur.

Cependant, je suis fâchée de l'importance donnée à certains personnages (exemple : Clémentine Clément !)...j'aurais tellement aimé qu'on s'intéresse, investigue l'histoire, le personnage de Remouald et par ricochet, Séraphon, sa mère et son père. Tous ce blabla entourant le frère Gandon, Clémentine, les trois élèves etc, me semblaient n'être pas rattachés à l'histoire qu'on nous racontait. Mais encore, jai l'impression que c'est l'un de ces livres qui ont besoin d'une deuxième ou même troisième lecture pour bien comprendre. Et peut-être que là seulement, toutes ces histoires vont former un tout cohérent?

[Ariane Savard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first mandatory book I had to read for my literature degree and yea, that was so depressing. The prof told us ahead it was not a pleasant read, but that it was beautifully written and he was right on both of these. Soucy managed to find beauty in many parts of a truly horrifying story, and managed to write it in such a way that we don’t know anything clearly until the very end. But, I just wish more of the many questions I had during my reading would have had an answer. What about the fake Sarah? What about what happens to Clémentine? I would have given a 3,5 stars so it gets three from me.

[Diana Welsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Soucy's novel The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is one of my all-time favorites, so I figured that it's time I gave more of his books a try. There was a lot going on in this book, and I have to say that there seemed like a lot happening that did not serve to move the plot forward at all. It was very evocatively written, but I could not make sense of a lot of things. Maybe it was because I was only reading this when I was very tired. At any rate, it expanded my vocabulary a lot. I doubt it it just the translator who is choosing the word "refulgent" instead of "shining brightly," and "mendicant" instead of "beggar." Really glad for the built-in dictionary on the e-book app.

[Lucinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely the strangest, most disturbing and rather unpleasant book I've read this year. I wouldn't recommend it to many people because some of the themes are unpalatable to the average person I would think, but I still found it strangely fascinating. It has a sort of fairytale-like quality mixed in with the grittiness.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad someone wrote books like these, but I'm glad not everyone does. Another real punch in the gut. The most simultaneously wonderful, horrible book that makes me want to reread it immediately. A fantastic book from a writer like none other.

[Lily]

Weird

[Kobe Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

doesnt really come together

[Yasmeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

How. HOW. How does this guy know exactly how to make your skin crawl?

This book isn't quite as...intense (?) as The Little Girl Who Was too Fond of Matches . If that one's a little supernova, this one is kind of like rain. Except, on Mars or something. And the rain's acidic. There's just so much crazy, that's right on the brink of so much normal. The results are unsettling and surprisingly engrossing. Aaand- ultimately heartbreaking and disgusting. Clementine. What even.

3.5 stars, and may have been more if the end of the semester hadn't sucked out all the brainpower that I may have otherwise spent on it.

oh ALSO cool thing that happened: late November, early December in Montreal. I start reading this book-- which turns out to also be happening in late November, early December in Montreal. FATE.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gaétan Soucy does it again. The beautiful language, the subtle hints, the warped characters, the constant questioning of "where is this going" then wham you reach the last sentence only to immediately flip back to the beginning to start all over again. An absolutely brilliant writer, that I just can't get enough of. Each of his books demands a re-read, and a re-re-read.

I read both the original French version and the English translation (done by Lazer Lederhendler), and I did not feel the translation was well done. Sheila Fischman did a better translation of his other books.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gaétan Soucy does it again. The beautiful language, the subtle hints, the warped characters, the constant questioning of "where is this going" then wham you reach the last sentence only to immediately flip back to the beginning to start all over again. An absolutely brilliant writer, that I just can't get enough of. Each of his books demands a re-read, and a re-re-read.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful, intense, beautiful.

[Heman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, disturbing and beautiful.

[Bruno de Maremma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich evocative descriptions of working class Montreal in the 1920s and the culture of the time. Interesting and almost surreal characters in a magic realism story. I will look for more from him.