Two Solitudes

Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction Canada Reads Selection (CBC), 2013 A landmark of nationalist fiction, Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes is the story of two peoples within one nation, each with its own legend and ideas of what a nation should be. In his vivid portrayals of human drama in First World War–era Quebec, MacLennan focuses on two individuals whose love increases the prejudices that surround them until they discover that “love consists in this, that two solitudes protect, and touch and greet each other.” The novel centres around Paul Tallard and his struggles in reconciling the differences between the English identity of his love Heather Methuen and her family, and the French identity of his father. Against this backdrop the country is forming, the chasm between French and English communities growing deeper. Published in 1945, the novel popularized the use of “two solitudes” as referring to a perceived lack of communication between English- and French-speaking Canadians. Content note: This book contains racial slurs that readers may find offensive or upsetting.

First time in the New Canadian Library “Northwest of Montreal, through a valley always in sight of the low mountains of the Laurentian Shield, the Ottawa River flows out of Protestant Ontario into Catholic Quebec. It comes down broad and ale-coloured and joins the Saint Lawrence, the two streams embrace the pan of Montreal Island, the Ottawa merges and loses itself, and the main-stream moves northeastward a thousand miles to sea.” With these words Hugh MacLennan begins his powerful saga of Athanase Tallard, the son of an aristo-cratic French-Canadian tradition, of Kathleen, his beautiful Irish wife, and of their son Paul, who struggles to establish a balance in himself and in the country he calls home. First published in 1945, and set mostly in the time of the First World War, Two Solitudes is a classic novel of individuals working out the latest stage in their embroiled history.

Answering the anti-Quebec rhetoric of Diane Francis, Barbara Amiel, and others, this book demonstrates to Quebecers and English Canadians alike that English Canada has a rich and unique culture, and concludes with a vibrant plea for a new Canada based on the recognition of three peoples or nations--English, French (Quebec, Acadia, French Canada) and native--with guarantees for minority rights.

George and Catherine Stewart share not only the burden of Catherine's heart disease, which could cause her death at any time, but the memory of Jerome Martell, her first husband and George's closest friend. Martel, a brilliant doctor passionately concerned with social justice, is presumed to have died in a Nazi prison camp. His sudden return to Montreal precipitates the central crisis of the novel. Hugh MacLennan takes the reader into the lives of his three characters and back into the world of Montreal in the thirties, when politics could send an idealist across the world to Spain, France, Auschwitz, Russia, and China before his return home.

One of the twentieth century’s enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race.

In this collection of essays the distinguished and internationally renowned philosopher Charles Taylor examines federalism and nationalism in Canada, emphasising issues surrounding the Canada/Quebec question in the last twenty-five years. He analyses the singularity of Quebec within the larger Canadian mosaic, providing a reasoned defence for the recognition of Quebec's distinctiveness within a reformed federal system.

A story of identity, connection and forgiveness, A Convergence of Solitudes shares the lives of two families across Partition in India, Operation Babylift in Vietnam, and two referendums in Quebec. Sunil and Hima, teenage lovers, bravely defy taboos in pre-Partition India to come together as their country divides in two. They move across the world to Montreal and raise a family, but Sunil shows symptoms of schizophrenia, shattering their newfound peace. As a teenager, their daughter Rani becomes obsessed with Quebecois supergroup Sensibilité--and, in particular, the band's charismatic, nationalistic frontman, Serge Giglio--whose music connects Rani to the province's struggle for cultural freedom. A chance encounter leads Rani to babysit Mélanie, Serge's adopted daughter from Vietnam, bringing her fleetingly within his inner circle. Years later, Rani, now a college guidance counselor, discovers that Mélanie has booked an appointment to discuss her future at the school. Unmoved by her father's staunch patriotism and her British mother's bourgeois ways, Mélanie is struggling with deep uncertainty about her identity and belonging. As the two women's lives become more and more intertwined, Rani's fascination with Melanie's father's music becomes a strange shadow amidst their friendship.

That story takes place in the 90's, in multicultural Montreal. Bianca, a Quebecker "pure laine" and babyboomer, meets Toto, a young Haitian immigrant and musician. Immigration and integration to Quebec's culture will greatly confront Toto's values. And change Bianca's views of Quebec. Will their couple survive? It takes us into a journey through Quebec's and Haiti's history.