Dumas to Brossard to the Victorians

I got first pay cheque last Friday, so I decided to buy myself a gift. Dumas’ book was my goal, but instead I stepped out of the bookstore with three books: Les trois mousquetaires by Dumas and Nicole Brossard’s Langues Obscures, a book of poetry, and Picture Theory, an experimental novel. For those who don’t know, Nicole Brossard is one of the biggest and definitely one of the most innovative Quebec writers. If people don’t know of her it’s because she seldom makes best-seller lists. Her writing is too difficult to please a general public. But in academia, especially in the fields of feminist and experimental prose, she is headwoman of Quebec letters. Embarrassingly, I had never read her. I had picked up Picture Theory at the library a few months ago but didn’t make my way too far into the novel. At that time I wasn’t much in the mood for an intellectual challenge. Can’t say I am now, but I wanted some of her novels on hand. She greatly influenced authors that I know and admire, notably Gail Scott, who was a big influence on Anne Stone. Basically, Brossard is the trailblazer of a movement of French Quebec women writers that began in the 70’s and resonated all the way to the other side of the language divide.

All that being said, I haven’t started either of the three. I browsed through Brossard’s poetry book (very very promising read) but I basically don’t have time. I am taking two classes at Concordia and have started counting the weeks. I am very careful not to overload myself and to remain focus. A new job + 2 classes + an article (that I’m supposed to be working on now instead of writing a blog) is a lot to handle. It’s already ten o’clock and I’ll be falling asleep at my keyboard in a matter of minutes. So what I read on the bus on my way to work is a book I started before Christmas; one with which I have accepted a slow relationship. Actually, it’s very interesting. It’s called The Victorian House. It’s a history book that recounts how the Victorian middle-class lived, room by room. It offers quite a different perspective and an amazing amount of insightful information on their day-to-day habits and customs. Very enlightening. It definitely gives the impression that London in 1850 was a very dirty and difficult place. When I get home in the evening and look at my tiny apartment (that doesn’t need to be a social statement), my three great cats (that I own because I want to and not because I have mice or rats), my washer and dryer (I might one day go into the details of their laundry habits, but let me just tell you that if they had a piece of clothing made up of different colours, they would un-stitch it, wash the colours separately and then re-sew it when it was dry, which they did because they had to use different techniques and soaps to preserve the different colours and materials) and, yes, even the vacuum cleaner, with a table spread with delicious and nutritious food, I feel amazing lucky. This look into the past has got me reflecting on how good we have it, and how much we have.