La Décennie charnière (1960-1969)
The Pivotal Decade
(excerpt, p. 3-6)
Foreword
For
a long time, we thought the title of this book would have to
contain some allusion to the Quiet Revolution, since it is so
impossible to dissociate that phase of the evolution of Quebec
society from the decade of the sixties. A title such as The
Quiet Revolution of Quebec Science Fiction and Fantasy seemed
somewhat too ambitious, though, given the purpose of this essay,
since it is intended only to recognize and comment on science
fiction and fantasy texts published from 1960 to 1969. Of course,
when you study these texts, it is impossible to ignore the impact
on Quebec society of the modernization of the structures of the
state and a new generation of politicians coming to power.
So why not The Quiet Decade? This title would have had the disadvantage of minimizing the undeniable importance of fantastic literature and science fiction in the general literary production of the period. It should be remembered that the authors working in these two genres during the decade included leading writers such as Yves Thériault, Michel Tremblay, Roch Carrier, Andrée Maillet, Claude Jasmin, and others who are less well known today but were nevertheless important, such as Jean Hamelin, Claude Mathieu, Jean Tétreau, Jean Simard and Maurice Gagnon.
"The Pivotal Decade" seemed to us more appropriate to designate the literature of those ten years. Pivotal, certainly, since the period had traces both of the literature written in the first half of the 20th century and features of a modernity expressing both new values and new narrative forms. This cohabitation of differing literary currents is particularly apparent in the field of monthly literary publications, which formed a veritable microcosm of a Quebec society undergoing profound changes.
On the one extreme, there was Le Bulletin des agriculteurs et La Ferme [The Farmers' Bulletin and The Farm], which catered to rural society, publishing traditional stories that promoted conservative values. On the other end of the spectrum, there was Chatelaine, with an urban readership, and MacLean to a lesser extent, tirelessly promoting progressive ideas and modern values. And what better genre than science fiction to embody this bold openness to the world? It is no wonder that seven of the eleven short stories published in Chatelaine and reviewed here were science fiction, a proportion very different from the numbers for all SF stories published during the decade (19% versus 81% for fantasy stories).
The novels, on the other hand, were mostly science fiction, though the genre has not yet managed to be accepted by the literary establishment. They made their first appearance as popular literature, in mass market pulp fiction selling for ten cents a copy. For instance, the series Les Aventures étranges de l'Agent X13 by Pierre Saurel, which enjoyed considerable success, would include eighteen episodes in 1960, with its hero traveling through space and to other planets. However, it was YA literature, which was just beginning in Quebec at the time, that spearheaded the genre. Series such as Unipax by Maurice Gagnon and Volpek by Yves Thériault (Lidec), not to mention the multiple-award-winning novel by Suzanne Martel, Quatre Montréalais en l'an 3000, had a crucial impact on the evolution of SF in Quebec. Of the seventeen titles that were published during the period, fifteen were novels written for adolescents.
The meagre presence of SF during this period can be explained by the fact that Quebec was just barely beginning to open itself up to the world, to forge a national identity and to make its presence known on the international scene. Before then, how could writers venture into a genre in which terrestrial borders were often meaningless when Quebec had been turned inward for so long? The sociocultural conditions of the first half of the 20th century simply were not favourable to the blossoming of science fiction in Quebec.
Meanwhile, fantasy writing was quietly invading the Quebec literary scene. Given its nature and its themes, no doubt, the genre corresponded better to the minority situation of Quebec within Canada: tendency to turn inwards, quest for identity, dispossession and victimization. Moreover, since the intellectual elite of the 19th century had given legitimacy to this literary genre by acknowledging the contribution of the oral tradition to the foundation of a national literature, fantasy literature did not have the same difficulties as science fiction in being accepted.
In addition to the rural media mentioned above, it was Le Nouvelliste, with its annual Christmas short story competition, that was the main promoter of conservative values and the triumph of morality and social order. With rare exceptions, the authors published have since sunk into oblivion. This traditionalist current was not, however, the only one prevalent in the fantasy literature of the decade. Writing in the genre was less monolithic that one might believe. Take, for instance, Claude Mathieu's short story collection, La Mort exquise, which drew from magic realism, and Roch Carrier's Jolis Deuils, which gave us philosophical tales out of time and place, with no traditional Quebec elements. Influenced by Lovecraft, Michel Tremblay's Contes pour buveurs attardés seems innovative, but nevertheless demonstrates the fact that the author wanted to break away from the fantasy canon popularized by Louis Fréchette, Pamphile LeMay and Joseph-Charles Taché.
Literary magazines such as Les Écrits du Canada français, Liberté and La Barre du Jour fostered the exploration of new themes and welcomed new voices, but the production of fantasy literature was concentrated in the collections of single authors, which accounted for 68% of all short stories.
Many publishers shared in the production of novels and anthologies during the 1960-1969 period. Lidec practically had a monopoly on YA literature, with ten out of fifteen titles, but the picture was very different when it comes to books for adults. Most of the publishing houses of the time (Fides, HMH, Beauchemin, Le Cercle du Livre de France, Éditions du Jour) had one or more titles in their catalogues.
The Éditions du Jour, born with the Quiet Revolution, was the main publisher of the genre. Its importance in rallying young authors until the mid-seventies is undeniable. Jacques Hébert published Roch Carrier's first story collection, Jolis Deuils, Michel Tremblay's first two books, Jean Tétreau's SF novel (Les Nomades) and his partly fantastic collection of short stories, Volupté de l'amour et de la mort, the YA novel by Suzanne Martel mentioned earlier and, most significantly, a book of short stories by Yves Thériault, Si la Bombe m'était contée, in 1962. This book was of great historical importance since it was the first Quebec collection that was essentially all SF stories. Not only did the themes seem daring, but the writing style too. Thériault alternated excerpts of works about the effects of radiation on the human race and on nature with his six SF short stories. Moreover, this collection, inspired by the Cuba missile crisis, reminds us of a crucial moment in global history and in a way crystallizes the fears and concerns of Quebec society at the time. Tétreau's novel and many short stories (e.g. "Un abri," by Jean Simard), were also concerned with this fear of the atomic threat.
Shortly afterward, with Expo 67, the Montreal World's Fair, Quebec society had a chance to mingle with people from around the world. The sexual revolution, counterculture and utopianism also provided material for many texts (by Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, Claude Jasmin, Chantal Renaud, for instance) published in Chatelaine.
Looking back at the production of this decade, however, it becomes apparent that no single writer can be seen as the leader in science fiction or fantasy in Quebec. Yves Thériault? Despite the innovative nature and significance of his SF collection, he mostly wrote realistic stories, and he tried his hand at all literary genres. Michel Tremblay? The success of Les Belles-Soeurs and his subsequent career as a playwright and novelist took him a long way from those two works of his youth. Roch Carrier? There, too, Jolis Deuils seems to be an isolated instance, an experiment with no follow-through in Carrier's work. Claude Mathieu? One short story collection, as good as it was, does not make its author a leading figure, especially when he is as unassuming as Mathieu was.
During this decade, sixty authors (41 men, 19 women), published as least one SF or fantasy story. In this group, there are writers who made remarkable contributions to the vitality of Quebec literature. And in this corpus (140 short stories, 20 novels, to which must be added a serial), there are works that are worth reading or rereading, since they deal with very serious themes and are attuned to the social and political climate of the period when they were written. However, another ten years would pass before a true movement came into being, before there was a magazine that could lay claim to being a forum for SF and fantasy writers, before a solid community formed, and before writers emerged who devoted themselves exclusively to one of these genres.
In any case, this essay is a reminder that literature is above
all an individual enterprise, that literary schools or currents
often identified only after some time has passed, precisely when
their existence is essentially over. This should not keep us
from finding in the works reviewed here all the tendencies and
ideas that were brewing in Quebec society during the decade 1960-1969.
Claude Janelle
