Elle

by Douglas Glover

Winner, Governor General's Award for Fiction
Shortlisted, IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and Commonwealth Writers' Prize A 16th-century belle turned Robinson Crusoe, a female Don Quixote with an Inuit Sancho Panza — this is the heroine of the novel that won the 2003 Governor General's Award. Elle is a lusty, subversive riff on the discovery of the New World, the moment of first contact. Based on what might be a true story, the novel chronicles the ordeals and adventures of a young French woman marooned on the desolate Isle of Demons during Jacques Cartier's ill-fated third and last attempt to colonize Canada. In this new readers' guide edition, Douglas Glover's carnal whirlwind of myth and story, of beauty and hilarity brings the past violently and unexpectedly into the present. His well-known scatological realism, exuberant violence, and dark, unsettling humour give his unique version of history a thoroughly modern chill.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Canada, Historical, Literary Fiction, Book Club, Novels

226 pages, Paperback

First published April 2, 2003

About the author

Douglas Glover worked in the newsrooms of daily papers in Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec, before publishing Precious in 1984. His byline later appeared in the book pages of The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Boston Globe.

He is the author of two works of literary criticism, including The Enamoured Knight, a recent book on Don Quixote, and nine books of fiction, including 16 Categories of Desire, A Guide to Animal Behaviour, The Life and Times of Captain N., and the best-selling historical novel Elle, winner of the 2003 Governor General's Award for Fiction.

Elle was also a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and was on the short list of finalists for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The book is now available in a new, reader's guide edition. Born and raised in southwestern Ontario, Douglas Glover now lives near Saratoga Springs, New York.

Reviews

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1542, a young woman is abandoned on an island in the St Lawrence River along with her lover, Richard, and her nurse, Bastienne. And so begins a novel evoking Robinson Crusoe and the fantastic constructions of Rabelais. While also suggesting several other literary models, the novel probably is meant to function as an allegory for the culture shock of European-Amerind contact in the New World. Though I found the dreamlike middle sequence a little too kaleidoscopic for my taste, the opening is strongly naturalistic and authentic, and the last part, in which Elle returns to France and begins to reorient herself, thoroughly engaging. This final section is especially enlivened when Rabelais himself becoms a character. I liked the author's verbal energy and wordplay, and I liked that the novel is hilarious.

[Allegra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know, I know. It's been since August 12th. That's pretty abysmal. It's a combination of a tough time I had mid-August, a book that I had trouble getting through, and my procrastination when it came to writing the review. I knew it wasn't going to be a positive one.

"Elle", by Douglas Glover is heralded as many things in quotes from reviews on the back cover, to the description of the book. Glover's writing is "witty, smart and extremely funny". I definitely judged the front cover (as I am really trying not to do) until I flipped it over and read this as part of the description of the book on the back cover: "In a carnal whirlwind of myth and story, of death, lust and love, of beauty and hilarity, Glover brings the past violently, and unexpectedly into the present." Did I also mention that it's a GG winner? I put the cover out of my mind and dug in.

I'll set the scene: A young, rich French woman (Marguerite) is aboard a ship headed for Canada. She is part of Jacques Cartier’s last, ill-fated attempt to colonize North America. She accidentally kills the captain's dog so as punishment, is marooned on the desolate Isle of Demons with her old nurse and her lover, Richard - a star tennis player. (I know, right?)

This is a story of survival against the odds. As I'm sure you can imagine (slight spoiler here, but it's within the first 30 pages or so), the other two die and she's left to fend for herself. Up to this point in the story, the stage is set for an exciting adventure. What ends up happening to this early promise, however, is a series of encounters with indigenous people, animals, and nature all told through the eyes of Marguerite in a series of indistinguishable anecdotes. We are led to believe that she has an extremely high fever for a good period of her time on the island, and when she's not ill and awake she is dreaming. Marguerite thinks she's awake, but then sees that the woman caring for her has turned into a bear so she must be dreaming - perhaps not so. Then our heroine herself starts turning into a bear. It all got very confusing but I kept thinking that once her fever broke, or she got to know the people, the story would clear itself up and we would get some good... I don't know, hunting scenes, or learning herbal medicine from the bear/woman scenes. Not the case. Once things clear up, the story takes a different turn and then it basically ends.

I have a pretty good sense of humour and I did not find anything particularly funny about this book, or the writing. There were a lot of scenes with gratuitous sex, and having just read "Lullaby for Little Criminals", I shouldn't be saying that about a piece of historical fiction on the colonization of Canada. "Elle" was also billed as a novel "based on a true story". I understand that this is to mean that it was a tale told over and over again both in France and Canada and it's part of the history of both of these places - that a "bear-woman" was marooned on the Isle of Demons. It's quite a romantic story, but it just doesn't come across that way in the novel. I consistently felt like I couldn't relate to our heroine because I didn't trust her to truthfully tell me her story. I wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't.

At one point, there's actually quite a nice scene where she gives an indigenous man the mistaken image that she is born from the belly of a polar bear. (To give the guy some credit, it died, she was cold, she took off all her clothes, split open it's belly and got in.) If any of you have read "Galore" by Michael Crummey, you'll link that with the image of the main character, Judah, emerging mute and albino from the belly of a whale at the beginning of the book. When I started thinking more about "Galore", I realized how well Crummey had told a story dealing with very similar themes to "Elle", namely, magical realism. It made me realize, though, that in "Galore", the magical realism never got in the way of the story. It was simply a part of it. You would occasionally wonder how certain things were possible, but you believed the narrator and enjoyed the folkloric aspect of the story.

I wanted to like this book. I wanted to like all the books on the Canada Reads List. I am sad to say that I didn't like this one and I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. When I sat down to write this review and really thought about the bare-bones of the story, I see that it had potential to be all the things it claimed. I just don't think it worked that way for me. I would love to hear from someone who enjoyed this book. I think it might help me to see how it won the GG - something I am very curious about.

[John Hanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author states in his essay "Novels and Dreams" from The Attack Of The Copula Spiders that "The best novels are like dreams." Well, I beg to differ. I think a level of concreteness, at least some sense of reality, needs to be maintained to convince a reader the story is true, or the story's truths are true. I think I learned a lot about what I like in story. I need to be sold on a story's plausibility and I wasn't with Elle.

Tennis racquets? The woman knows (women didn't know anything in 1542) what M. Cartier does when she has never been in his presence, understands religious conflict and persecution of the day, is an expert on literature, politics, money, new world discovery, and tennis. A tennis player is on a voyage to the new world in 1542 for the sole reason of making us laugh when a savage shows up wearing tennis racquets. Even as the story, if I can call it that, unfolds, she cannot get it through her ursine head that these are snowshoes. She is painted as an illiterate bimbo. Smacks of artificialness.

The bear symbolism got sickening. She gets plopped by a bear, sleeps in a bear, eats bear, wears bear, dreams of bears, turns into a bear, sleeps with a bear, owns a bear, wants to be a bear and live in the new world? Bear, bear, bear. Dream, dream, dream. Lives naked on a sub-arctic island wearing only pillows and living in a hut made out of branches found on a treeless island. Any other human would be a popsicle. Dog jumps overboard -- stupid dog deserves to die -- but returns with a savage. Seriously? I am supposed to believe such nonsense? Fur or no, no land animal survives that water for more than minutes. Dream or no, these creations felt like something a middle-schooler would come up with. Ad hominem does not convince me it works.

DG's writing, otherwise, is delectable. It is a difficult read for someone three decades behind in his vocabulary. I jotted pages and pages of notes. But I learned a lot about writing, I hope. The lists and excessive parentheticals were fun, though somewhat distracting. The humor was mostly funny. Even in its dreamy parts it flowed forward. I rarely skimmed.

But lets revisit the dream thing. This story does not follow conventional paradigms. It does not easily trace to the monomyth. I fight over such things; I claim all stories follow the majority of the hero's journey phases; stories that do not are flawed. For me, this story is flawed. I am not drawn forward by its conflict and progression but by its rhythms and images, by its dreaminess. I want to know the meaning of bears. I want to know how she exacts revenge on the uncle. I want to know if she has sex with savages -- she has sex with everybody else. But these desires of mine are not elucidated in the prose. They are broad, macr0-level objectives not born out by character action. The story is mumbled by the sleepwalking dreamer, and I want to say the story is overly MFA, sickeningly so, and forgets about authenticity, empathy, and plausibility.

I shook my head when I first read those words that the best novels are like dreams. Maybe they are, but maybe they merely need dreamlike sequels to examine truths being shown, but not like this, not an entire story as a dream. Even sleep-walkers have their feet on the ground.

[Lynne Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspired by the true story of a 16th-century society girl from France who gets dumped on an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence for being too much of a lusty handful. Brutal, poetic, surreal ... and funny.

[Michał Zygmunt · Rating 1 out of 5]

bełkot

[Aellirenn Czyta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oparta na prawdziwych wydarzeniach historia XVI-wiecznej awanturniczki. Kobieta zostaje porzucona przez hiszpańskiego korsarza na dzikiej Wyspie Demonów u wybrzeży Kanady.

Nic więcej o fabule nie powiem, żeby nie zdradzać szczegółów. A co więcej? No właśnie tu jest problem. Znów spotykam się z książką, która mnie rozłożyła na łopatki, a o której nie wiem co napisać. Bo jak ubrać w słowa zdarzenie światów? Jak opisać tak silną wolę przetrwania mimo braku, wydawać by się mogło, możliwości by przetrwać? Jak przekazać zmianę, która zachodzi i w bohaterce, i w tym „nowym” świecie, który ją otacza? Ja nie potrafię. Za to autor zrobił to fenomenalnie i przemówił głosem krnąbrnej Elle. To co najbrzydsze, najgorsze i obrzydliwe w człowieku podał na złotej tacy ozdobionej świeżym kwiatami. I ja to kupuję.

Zaskoczyły mnie dość niskie oceny na LC. Dla mnie to była książka idealna. Przeczytajcie!

[Saige · Rating 3 out of 5]

This felt - stylistically, not in content - like a more lucid version of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". Like walking around in a misty, misty, deeply religious jungle. I found myself drawn to Elle's fire at the beginning of the novel, but this characterization and many others fell by the wayside as she became a creature of desperation and little else. Maybe the fire was there in the way she refused to kill herself, but it was never portrayed that way. Instead, she spoke about not killing herself because she "simply couldn't" - giving no credit to her own agency or personality.

[Aleksandra Wawrzyniak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Książka jedyna w swoim rodzaju. Jednocześnie przeintelektualizowana i kompletnie dzika. Odkryła przede mną nowy sposób postrzegania świata, do której będę wracać myślami przez wiele lat. Nie wiem czy była to książka przyjemna, ale nie potrafiłam jej odłożyć na długo.

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished reading Douglas Glover's novel Elle. The book recommended to my by Robin after we had been talking about her love for Canadian literature and I had made one of my sweeping dismissive comments about modern literature and fiction in general. After asking Robin for recommendations on what to read she suggested Glover's book. I had heard about it before from Bryonny and had intended to read it so it was nice to be reminded about the book. Given the subject of the novel it is surprising that I hadn't read it before.

Glover's novel reconstructs the history of Marguerite de la Roche. An historical figure de la Roche was marooned on the Ile de Demons (later named St. Marthe's) off the coast of the Lower North Shore in 1541 by her uncle the Sieur de Roberval who went on to found a failed colony in New France. According to historical sources, which reinterprets in interesting ways as the basis for his retelling of Marguerite's story, she was marooned on the island for her sexual indiscretions with her lover, her nurse and her child and was able to survive for three years, after which she returned to France.

Glover has taken the bones of this story and woven together an exciting Rabelaisan tale of Marguerite's struggle to live in the Canadian wilderness. Not only is he able to present an interesting narrative story about Margueritte's survival on the island but in his telling we are given a window into what Glover imagines the experience of such a woman to be. He is able to use Margueritte, and her story as metaphor for the larger experience of contact between too distinct cultures and to create a narrative about the "Encounter."

[Caleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Umm ... wow. There is no way to adequately describe this bizarre book except to say that I loved every minute of it. I like historical fiction, but this is the most entertaining and funny (while being perfectly serious) historical fiction book I've ever read. And it inspires me to do more research on the people, places and eras it touched on.

From Quill & Quire:
"Loosely modelled after Marguerite de Roberval, the niece of French colonist Jean-François de la Rocque de Roberval, Elle is a young French woman bound for Canada on her uncle’s ship in the year 1542. In her own words, she is “a headstrong girl.” Despite an aristocratic upbringing and education, she is a hedonist at heart, with a fondness for sex. She is caught with her lover by her uncle, and the two, along with Elle’s nurse, are abandoned on the wild shores of the New World. The lover and nurse quickly expire, but Elle thrives in her own strange way."

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

sooooooo strange!

[Kaybee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really disliked this book.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hated this book, but some of the imagery just stuck with me so much that I keep going back and sharing parts of it with my students.

[Debbie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this book! It was an ugly, unpleasant waste of paper.

[Katarzyna Nowicka · Rating 4 out of 5]

🍁"Historia XVI-wiecznej awanturniczki"

🍁To jedna z dziwniejszych książek jaką czytałam w ostatnim czasie. Dziwna, ale jednocześnie wciągająca, zaskakująca i odważna.
Czytasz, otwierasz oczy i nie wiesz, co jest snem, maligną, a co dzieje się w surowej rzeczywistości.

🍁Autor oparł historię na podstawie prawdziwych, XVI wiecznych wydarzeń, mając do dyspozycji szczątkowe fakty. Z nich uknuł swoją własną opowieść o porzuconej, na pewną śmierć, dziewczynie i początkach francuskiej kolonizacji Kanady.
Mamy tu wspomniane historyczne postacie: Jacquesa Cartiera, korsarza, podróżnika i odkrywcę oraz szlachcica- podróżnika Jeana- Françoisa de Rocque de Roberval, kuzyna ojca Elle, który tak srogo ją ukarał.
Jest i ona, enigmatyczna bohaterka - awanturnica Elle, o której pisała sama królowa Małgorzata z Nawarry.
Czy historia jest prawdziwa, trudno to stwierdzić, gdyż wyspa na której wylądowała Elle została usunięta z map w XVII w., ponieważ nikt jej nie znalazł.
Ja zdaję się na wyobraźnię autora.

🍁Elle ma 19 lat, "wszystkie zęby oprócz trzech, no i tyłek..."jest wyzwolona, wykształcona własnym sumptem, swawolna , kocha książki, zakupy, zabawę, rozpustę, nigdy nie opuściła publicznego palenia na stosie ani dekapitacji😉.

🍁Za swe przewiny zostaje porzucona na Wyspie Demonów (Isle des Démons). Trafia tam razem z kochankiem - tenisistą i piastunką - emerytowana kurwą, stręczycielką, pornografką i aborterką. Wkrótce zostanie sama, a do tego okazuje się, że jest w ciąży.
A kanadyjski klimat jest surowy i bezwzględny.

🍁"Co robić z krnąbrną dziewczyną? To zawsze trudne pytanie.
Zabić, okaleczyć, amputować kończyny, polać twarz kwasem, wydłubać oczy, ogolić głowę, umieścić w burdelu albo klasztorze, albo po prostu zrobić jej brzuch i ją poślubić. A jeszcze lepiej zostawić ją na bezludnej wyspie, żeby nie zarażała buntem innych dziewcząt (...)"

Elle mówi o sobie, że jest frywolna i płytka. Nie ma dla niej miejsca wśród francuskiej elity, nawet rodzina umywa ręce. Ten brak rodzinnych więzów przeraża.

"Popełniłam wiele błędów. Winą za nie obarczam drukowane księgi, niedawny wynalazek, który nauczył nas samotniczych rozkoszy: rozumu, własnego zdania, relatywizmu moralnego, luteranizmu i masturbacji."
Buntowniczka na miarę XXI wieku 😅.

🍁W historii Gloversa, Elle spędza w Kanadzie ponad rok, ta historyczna, 15 lat. Jakoś trudno jest mi to sobie wyobrazić.To koszmar- ale jak już wielokrotnie się okazywało, człowiek jest w stanie przetrwać nawet w najbardziej ekstremalnych warunkach.

🍁Mamy tu dwa odmienne światy. I zastanawiam się, który z nich jest bardziej dziki.
Kanada, choć dziewicza wydaje się mniej barbarzyńska niż XVI wieczna Francja.

🍁To nie jest tak lekka lektura, jakby się mogło wydawać - humor tu przewrotny, a przygoda nieobyczajna, pokrętna i szalona.
Ale mi się to podobało😉.

[Ania · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okładka głosi, że książka jest o XVI-wiecznej awanturniczce, ja niestety żadnej awanturnicy w tej pozycji nie znalazłam. To, że ktoś lubi seks i lubi czytać nie czyni z niego awanturnika, przynajmniej w mojej ocenie. Dalej na okładce czytamy, że jest historia oparta na faktach. Nie wiem czy mogę w to wierzyć, zwłaszcza po wcześniejszym, przytoczonym powyżej zapewnieniu. Ale to nic, bo mimo że książka nie wzbudziła we mnie chęci pogłębiania informacji o początkach Kanady, to gorsze jest to, że mnie to kompletnie nie obchodzi. Nie obchodzi mnie z dwóch powodów: po pierwsze, to nie jest żadna opowieść o tym jak powstawała Kanada, tylko mit oparty na wierzeniach w gusła, nadprzyrodzone moce i inne cuda-wianki. Gdyby nie było w tej historii tyle wulgaryzmów, a raczej obscenicznych, a jednocześnie zupełnie zbędnych, określeń seksu, dałabym to do czytania dziecku w podstawówce, na zasadzie bajeczki przed snem. Bracia Grimm, by się nie powstydzili. Dodatkowo zauważam i doceniam walory edukacyjne, a raczej ogólnie przyjęte prawdy i normy, które niczego odkrywczego nie przekazują, więc jedynie dzieci w początkowych klasach szkoły podstawowej mogą być pod wrażeniem.
Nie rozumiem, nie tylko, moim zdaniem bezpodstawnego użycia wulgaryzmów, ale także całych partii tekstu jak żywcem ściągniętych od Marqueza, które zapewne w zamyśle autora miały być głębokie, refleksyjne i alegoryczne, a mnie nużyły i usypiały. Brzmiały bardziej jak bajdurzenia upalonego dziada, niż jak realizm magiczny. Poza tym Drogi Panie Autorze Marquez już był, wymyśl coś bardziej nowatorskiego, a mniej odtwórczego, to może też zasłużysz na Nagrodę Nobla.
Według mnie książka jest nierówna: pierwsze 130 stron przeczytałam z zainteresowaniem, na kolejnych 130, czyli tam gdzie Autor zaczynał fantazjować, pod płaszczykiem wspomnianego wcześniej prądu literackiego, zasadniczo mnie usypiało i spowalniało moje czytanie zwłaszcza, że irytowała mnie nieustająca powtarzalność zdarzeń i sytuacji, o których dopiero co czytałam. Końcówka momentami była ciekawa, ale i tak najwięcej wniosło Posłowie, które wyjaśniło mi "co autor miał na myśli", gdyż w tekście właściwym sam pisarz nie umiał tego zrobić dostatecznie dobrze. Gdyby umiał, byłaby to o wiele lepsza książka.
Polecam tylko bardzo zdeterminowanym, albo posiadaczom dużej ilości wolnego czasu, którzy sam proces czytania lubią bardziej od poznawania ciekawej historii.

[Miguel de Plante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Douglas Glover nous livre un récit habilement construit, simple, mais que la poésie emporte dans un habile labyrinthe entre le rêve et la réalité. La première moitié du livre, ressemblant davantage à un récit d'aventure tel Robinson Crusoé, nous décrit les déboires de l'héroïne, jeune française en route vers la colonisation du Canada, qui tente de survivre seule, abandonnée sur une île déserte.

Puis, au fur et à mesure que l'histoire avance, et que la jeune femme découvre le Nouveau Monde, la réalité se dilatera, et nous sombrerons avec elle au coeur d'un habile mélange entre le délire et la spiritualité... Car Elle (ou Le Pas de l'Ourse, selon l'édition) est avant tout le récit d'une femme entre deux mondes, la France et le Canada, ou, comme elle se plaît à les nommer, le royaume des Morts et des Vivants. Cette confusion, cette dichotomie, sera palpable au coeur du récit alors que le lecteur se verra souvent pris entre le rêve et la réalité.

Si la première moitié du livre est plus lente et difficile à apprécier, le roman prend tout son sens vers le milieu, nous entraînant dans une fascinante spirale spirituelle jusqu'à la toute fin.

Glover surprend par son style d'écriture, certes, mais surtout par sa recherche et son intérêt. On ressent l'amour que l'auteur porte à la véracité des situations qu'il traite dans son roman, même si celles-ci sont empreintes de la métaphysique spirituelle des premières nations. C'est tout de même un plaisir de suivre les aventures de cette jeune française innocente, qui grandira au coeur des tribus sauvages, probablement plus humaines que tous les intellectuels qu'elle laisse derrière elle.

Bref, un roman difficile à apprécier pleinement au départ, mais qui en vaut franchement la peine!

[Sudip Rakshit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winner of the Governor Generals GG Award in 2003.
Set in the time period 1520 - it is before the French had settlements in what is today Canada

Story about;
"The girl had dreamed strange dreams. She was chased by a bear. It was rather nice being a bear until someone began to chase her. then she was sleeping in a cave; she was a bear dreaming a girl who was called Elle. Her dreams, her frustrations with her lover and the story she is composing all rattle around in her head. She is trying to write something about a North Shore folk tale she heard growing up, something about a girl who was marooned (left there by her uncle as punishment for her free happy go lucky not so virtuous life) on an island, left for dead with her fiance and her old nanny. This was when Canada belonged to the Indians. The lover died, the nanny died, and the girl had a baby, which according to legend, was carried off by a huge black bird."

The protagonist says,
" ..."If i learned anything it is that the universe gives no clear word as to its state, that our lives are bracketed in fog. And yet there is no holding back. We change ourselves by plunging into the thick of things (a wife, a lover a New World). We change ourselves or die." "

"There is a parallel story, written over and over again in sixteenth century France about a girl who was abandoned on an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence during one of the earliest attempts to colonize the country. But that was eighty years before the French came to live here for good. Did they bring the strange tale back to the colonists? Or did the Indians themselves remember enough to pas it back to the colonists? Or did the story simple inhabit the place like a ghost, letting itself nestle in the minds of the receptive hosts as they came by?"

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powieść opowiada o przeżyciach Elle, która z powodu zawartego na statku romansu, została porzucona na odludnej Wyspie Demonów podczas nieudanej, trzeciej i ostatniej próby skolonizowania Kanady przez Jacques'a Cartiera. Elle znajdując się na obcym, dzikim terytorium, jest świadkiem śmierci swojego kochanka i opiekunki, którą znała od dziecka. Samotna i opuszczona na łonie dzikiej i surowej natury godzi się z myślą o nieuchronnej śmierci. I właśnie w ten sposób zaczyna się metafizyczna część książki, w której sny na jawie, omamy spowodowane samotnością i niedożywieniem przenikają się z tym, co realne. Niedźwiedzie, pradawne duchy, halucynacje, odnajdujący Elle tubylcy ze swoimi wierzeniami, rozumowaniem świata i zwyczajami tworzą mieszankę wybuchową, która sprawia, że nie możemy oderwać się od czytania i zastanawiamy się, co wydarzyło się naprawdę, a co było ułudą.

“Elle” to historia o wojowniczce, która w błyskotliwy i niejednokrotnie groteskowy sposób formułuje, wciąż aktualne, spostrzeżenia na temat świata. To też powieść o kolonializmie, o barbarzyństwie Europejczyków i o zetknięciu się dwóch zupełnie odmiennych światów.

Myślę, że “Elle” to świetna pozycja dla osób lubiących niebanalne historie, ukryte sensy i książki zmuszające do refleksji. Ja na pewno jeszcze kiedyś wrócę do tego tytułu.

[Heather(Gibby) · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this is a fictional account of a true event which the author discovered when reading Francis Parkman's history of New France. I was familiar with the basic story as I had seen this book as a play at the Prairie Theater Exchange a few years ago.

A woman is marooned on a deserted island for improper behavior while aboard her uncle's ship. Her childhood nursemaid is banished with her, and her lover jumps off the boat after her. Years later she returns to France. This is probably the extent to which the story is based on fact. Most of the story in between is full of allegory, symbolism, magical realism, and dream sequences. Not usually the type of read I gravitate towards, however there is such a thread of humor throughout that it is a very pleasant read, even if it suspends belief.

[Ed Scherrer · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you enjoy the satirical historical fiction found in the pages of Barth's Sot Weed Factor, Pynchon's Mason Dixon, or perhaps Andahazi's The Anatomist, or Vollman's Fathers and Crows ---you might enoy this taught historical fantasy / adventure set in New France with so many pre-enlightenment carnalities, morbidities, curios, natural histories, cosmologies etc. made into an exotic tableau. Aesthetics are prioritized over historical or scientific accuracy. For example: You cannot eat the liver of a polar bear. You will die of an overdose of Vitamin A. What a tremendous oversight!

[lenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

An account of a French woman marooned on a present-day Newfoundland island, who survives to return home and share the story. The book reimagines the tale, myth-making around the little-know facts. Although the story is captivating and the writing imaginative and witty, I struggled a bit to follow it at times… Also, I do acknowledge that I may be too harsh on it as I read it in a time when we are collectively rethinking the western colonization narrative and working toward reconciliation.

[Mary Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this book up from a shelf in the library of award-winning books. It had won a Canadian prize. It is about a young woman in the 1600's trying to settle on a Canadian island. She is highly sexual, and most of the book is about her sexual antics, which become quite boring.

[Weronine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finally managed to finish this one and well... not a big suprise. I expected so much from the story that was described as a ''16th-century society belle turned Robinson Crusoe'' story. It had some good moments but I was truly bored and the writing style just wasn't for me :(((

[Danielle Hines · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times it is hard to determine what is real and what isn't in this book. I loved the writing though and it was unlike anything I had ever read before. Elle, the character, is very frank and often quite funny. She is an unlikely heroine. This book is worth a read.

[Anastasia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first half of the book. The later half, when she started to see things, and when the speculation about 'The General' started, I lost interest. That is when the weird time jumps started, too.

[Judith Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very vivid and compelling historical novel. Well crafted, luscious detail.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for book club. Disgusting. 2 thumbs down.

[Norman Howe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a hilarious take on a true story. I would not expect stream-of-conscious irony from a woman in Jacques Cartier's time.

[Ella Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mythical and surreal. At times the story lost me; at other times the startling imagery and language brought me back. A highly original, eye- opening journey into early Canadian history.