I mks in Yeview POSSIBLE STORMS - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWand as lover and creator of aural andverbal artifacts.For the anglophone reader, however,perhaps Beauchemin's observations abouthis role in Quebec society are even moreinteresting. Introduced in the descriptionof his father as working "pour les Américains,"the theme of cultural alienationcontinues in his designation of Montréalas becoming, because of the new constructionof the 1960s and 1970s, "un minablesuccédané de New York." It was Montréal,nevertheless, that made Beauchemindiscover that he was "québécois," and the1970s that gave him hope, with the riseof René Lévesque and the PQ victory in1976, of an independent Québec. InMarch 1985, when Du sommet d'un arbreconcludes, Beauchemin still admires Lévesque.Yet he worries profoundly aboutthe good faith of Mulroney as he negotiatesa new deal for Québec withLévesque and the "tendance aveugle" ofQuébec "à l'autodestruction développéepar trois siècles de colonisation." Becauseit is fundamentally a series of autobiographicalsnapshots, Beauchemin'sjournal does not place these politicalobservations in a fully-developed context.That is done deliberately, and for ananglophone Canadian, with much moresobering effect, in La visée critique.La visée critique: essais autobiographiqueset littéraires is a collection of twentyarticles, all but three previously published,prepared by André Brochu between 1974and 1987. For their new appearance,Brochu has organized them into fourparts — "Autobiographies" (3), "Circonstances"(5), "Positions" (5), and"Lectures" (7) —and added an "Avantpropos."In this he explains that "L'ordonnancedes matières reproduit le mouvementd'une visée : de l'alpha, qui est lasubjectivité critique, à l'oméga — l'oeuvre,le texte, l'infini des mots — par le jeudes circonstances et des positions qui confortentle sujet et l'objet." In "Autobiographies"Brochu reminisces about hischildhood in Saint-Eustache, describesthe writing of his first novel, Adéodat, asa kind of therapy for a serious bout of hischronic manic depression, and records hisdiscovery in 1961 of "la littérature canadienne-française"through his reading ofGérard Bessette's Le libraire."Autobiocritique," written in 1986 —his review of his career as a critic ofFrench and Québec literature from the1960s to the present — moves from innocenceto experience, from joy to melancholy,and from agitation to resignation.Transition structures many of the essays,each part, and the entire work. Sincethe cultural "circonstances" condition thecritic's "autobiographies," define his "positions,"and pervade his "lectures," it ismoreover both a personal pattern forBrochu as writer and critic and a publicpattern for Brochu as a Québécois. Thus,although these essays discuss many subjects,their central preoccupation is thefact, and fate, of Brochu as a Québécoiswho shares a culture with France and acontinent with the United States and whois dominated by both.In the essays this preoccupation takesvarious shapes. In "Le mimétisme culturelau Québec" (1975) Brochu presentshis "conception marxiste" that Québechas gone from a pre-industrial societyproviding raw material for export to apost-industrial society consuming imports,and that Quebeckers must find themeans to become productive and participatedirectly in the development of themeans of production if they are to achievean autonomous culture, "originale et accordéeà notre époque." In "Le nouveauconsensus," written in April 1977, Brochusuggests that the victory of René Lévesquein November 1976 allows for such a possibility.In "Littérature Québec," however,written in 1984 but not publisheduntil 1987, the bright hopes of the 1970s,through a combination of factors that158