Novel
Mémoires d'outre-tonneau
Not translated into English
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu · 1968
Synopsis
Satan Belhumeur, who claims to be alone in the world, has shut himself in a barrel on the outskirts of the village of Petit-Gibet. From there, he remembers: the asylum from which he fled, his house on rue Saint-Laurent, his women, his departure for Europe. Sometimes he comes out, naked, a lantern in his hand, and crosses the village shouting that he is looking for a man, like Diogenes, under the panicked gaze of the inhabitants. Between visions and insults against the world, he dreads what the village will do with him.
Context
Published in 1968 in Montreal by Éditions Estérel, when its author was twenty-three, the novel opens, according to Jacques Pelletier, the fantasmatic vein of his work, and its title parodies Mémoires d'outre-tombe. The author himself judged the book written too fast and “not beautiful”; he recast it in 1981 under the title Satan Belhumeur, then revised it in 1995 to open his complete works, where Petit-Gibet becomes Trois-Pistoles.
Who it is for
A short book, with no continuous plot, a delirious monologue in a literary and provocative language.
Prizes and reception
First book of a very prolific body of work; its author withdrew it from his bibliography for a time before reworking it.
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