Ralentir le rythme de la vie moderne – Jacques Poulin, un écrivain québécois postmoderne, marginal et alternatif
Decelerating the Rythm of Modern Life – Jacques Poulin, a Postmodern, Marginal and Alternative Quebec Writer

Author(s): Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, French Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Quebec literature; postmodernism; reading; deceleration; literary canon; marginality
Summary/Abstract: This contribution treats the novels of the Quebec writer Jacques Poulin (born in 1937) from a twofold perspective: pointing out in the first part the main characteristics of Poulin’s biography and literary work, it then focuses on the central importance of reading, writing and, more extensively, of the book culture in his novels. The perception of reading and writing, in novels like Les Yeux bleus de Mistassini (2002, My Sister’s Blue Eyes) is characterized first by the valorization of intense and repetitive reading, second by a specific literary canon where US American and Canadian authors like Hemingway and Gabielle Roy play an important role, and third the therapeutic role of reading and the important role of literature for the human existence. Poulin’s work can be thus considered as a radical counterpoint to the evolution of contemporary societies and cultures characterized by the technological turn to visual life and digitalised media, but also by a rapidly accelerated rhythm of life and communication.

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