Autumn Rounds

 Hello Gentle Reader
 
Summer burned bright but has now burned out. Summers gradual extinguishment became increasingly noticeable as the nights arrived and settled early. By August’s end and September’s arrival, summer had all but waved goodbye; all the while autumns hold is acknowledged as the apparent reality. The season is punctuated with turned leaves. Formerly filled with the rejuvenate qualities of green, their waxy life swaying and swooshing in the breeze; they have now been reduced to the sickly burning colours of absence. They scatter with paper scratches echoing down the streets. They tumble away carelessly. Lawn mowers have been retired to the garden sheds. Garden hoses are hung up for the season. They have been replaced with the rake dredging and collecting the leaves on the grass. Piles of stiff and wispy leaves scatter the lawn like bales after harvest. In time they are bagged up and hauled away off to some compost facility. Frost glints in the morning. It stiffens the grass straight back and alert, while icing up the windshields. The forecast foreshadows the transient nature of autumn may conclude. As the days recede and the nights extend, winter is bound to bellow down with an extended stay. Regardless, of what the foreshadowed forecasting future holds with blizzards, snowbanks, snowsqualls, and whiteouts—autumn is by far the more agreeable season of the quartet. Much like life, spring is a messy affair. As the earth thaws it grows wet with mud. Though as the sun and the days extend, the trees bud then leafing out, while the blooms burst open. The birds return and rejoice with the spring as the season that renews. Summer on the contrary is the most blistering, scorching, and sweltering tyrant. Despite its tyrannical rampage, in the celestial dog days of summer revelry is to be expected. Holidays are to be taken; lakes are to be scouted; camping set to commence. In these long indolent days, everyone carelessly tosses their woes and worries aside. Despite this, summer has its own capricious side as well. The storms are as fierce and ill-tempered as its winter counterpart. Hail beats and batters. Rains that last for days and weeks. Winds that howl and wail without hesitation. Thunderstorms that produce tornadoes that whip and whirl, ripping up the world in its path. Droughts that deprive and scorch the world, leaving tinder and fuel to ignite and devour. Perhaps it’s a disposition found within the northern hemisphere, but there appears to be an unquestionable love affair with summer, when compared to the other seasons. With summer gone within the blink of an eye, there is apparent attempt to hold on to the few moments the season has to offer and take full advantage of them. Autumn is looked upon with begrudged resentment. As the trees are coloured in the shawl of fall, glaring glances are shot to the change. There are grumbles of resentment as summer has concluded. Autumn is only viewed as the threshold to winter. The patron of the harvest, and the red carpet to the frost bitten wolfpack that will herald from the north. On its own, autumn has no joy or love attributed to it. Despite its colourful posturing, it has little in personification because once it ends the cold sets in; the snow drapes around and the previous summer lost in the past.
 
It is disappointing as a Canadian to see how little the two official languages engage in dialogue with each other. English is by far the most dominate language within the country. It can be heard and seen from the east coast to the west coast and into the north. While French is limited to Quebec and those rich linguistic locales peppered outside of the province. Translations from French into English—specifically French-Canadian authors—is limited. As if the politics of linguistics being a sole division between the two. After all language and heritage influences perspective. One can only imagine the selected reading between the English language children and their French language counterparts. Young readers in the English language will be fed a diet of Beatrix Potters’ “Peter Rabbit,” & Co; “The Wind in the Willows,”; “Anne of Green Gables,”; “White Fang,”; “Sherlock Holmes.” While the French language children would have feasted on “The Little Prince,”; “Le Petit Nicolas,”; “The Three Musketeers,”; “Tin Tin,”; and Maurice Leblancs’ “Arsène Lupin.” These early reading habits certainly provide an overview of the intrinsic viewpoint of the world. Take for example the differences between Sherlock Holmes and Arsène Lupin as characters. Lupin is the archetypical gentleman thief, whose morals are in line, but whose actions are illegal though upstanding, making Lupin a debonair antihero. Whereas Sherlock Holmes is the almost fantastical forensic genius, who is called on as a consulting detective to aid law enforcement agencies in solving complex and perplexing crimes, while maintaining an adamant respect for the law, deduction, and logic. Holmes does not posses the mercurial morals of Lupin; and Lupin does not necessarily share Holmes grandiose devotion to forensic science and logical deduction. Reading initiations are from being the cornerstone testament between the dichotomy of perspectives of Canada; linguistic mother tongues, lengthy heritages, ancient histories and even different judicial processes, are but a few notions that further show the absolute difference in character between English Language Canadians and the French Language Canadians/Quebecois. Sadly, the two rarely meld well by obstinate choice. They prefer to waltz in their own linguistic company, then to converse. There is frustration on the Quebecois side, who often feel denied their unique identity by the more common tongue of English, which pollutes their linguistic autonomy. Legislative concessions have been levied to soothe these wounds and have superficially succeeded. Talks of separatism still circulate. Though any notion of an independence movement has all but dwindled to the waning flicker of a dying candle. Meanwhile the more dominate English perspective views the other with less keen eye; seeing the other language as merely priggish and petulant, making further demands to quell its threat of independence, while siphoning financial aid and support from the federal government. Identity and language politics aside; it is an absolute disappointment that a country of two languages does not translate enough within its borders, to share in a literary dialogue between the two languages and their respective perspectives. There are great translators at work within Canada seeking to bridge the gap between the two languages and identities such as the grand Sheila Fischman; there are still writers who are overlooked and under translated.
 
One writer Sheila Fischman has translated frequently into English is, Jacques Poulin. Previous titles translated are: “Mister Blue,” “Wild Cat,” “Spring Tides,” “Translation is a Love Affair,” “Volkswagen Blues,” “My Sister’s Blue Eyes,” and “English is Not a Magic Language.” Despite all these translations and publications into English (and three of them from the magnificent Archipelago Books), the average Canadian reader may not be aware of Poulin, despite the extensive translations available to them. However, these translations overtime become more difficult to acquire. Availability in these instances does not equate accessibly. Even with “Autumn Rounds,” it took a significant amount of time of searching and hunting in order to find the novel. The cover of course being the visually appealing aspect of the novel. Just as it was with “Wild Cat,”— “Autumn Rounds,” is graced with a stunning cover. The front a deep burgundy red, with a small window of a box in the centre looking onto a fog ridden road in an anonymous countryside, the ditches and fields have turned brown, while the trees insinuate autumn through the colour of their leaves’. 
 
 
The plot of “Autumn Rounds,” is nothing out of the ordinary for Jacques Poulin. Its riddled with his gentle laconic style. Mundane observations and daily routines of The Driver are acutely recorded. The Driver is a simple man who has converted an old milk truck into a mobile library, which is supported in its operation by the Quebec Government as a cultural initiative. One evening The Driver is stirred to the streets by a traveling troupe of performers, complete with jugglers, trapeze artist, a band and singer. From there begins a late in life road trip with the spice of forlorn romance. This late love romance rekindles The Drivers appreciation towards life. Age is an inevitability, but a horse pill to swallow, nonetheless. In ages one comes apparently self-aware how limited their life is. How age has taken worn down freedom and autonomy. It increases one’s sense of insignificance. Alienating them from their past and forecast the dreaded end. For The Driver in “Autumn Rounds,” this can all be put on hold for a brief moment, as a woman of similar age is able to renew the spark and thirst for life once again. What follows is a road trip through the Quebec Countryside—a autumn round—for both The Driver and the performance troupe. Where on puts on shows the residents; the other lends books to those communities indoctrinated into the library network, which is held together by the locales and the traveling bookmobile. There are no magnificent battles. No dramatic conflict. In lieu of anything egregiously spectacular what follows suit is nothing more than tender digression on aging, love, books, writers (specifically Hemmingway who Poulin has great admiration for) and the Quebec countryside.
 
“Autumn Rounds,” is a sweet novel. Its riddled with the gentle complaints of old age; the remarkable beauty of love, regardless of the time or age in which one is able to achieve it; the beauty of the Quebec Countryside; the devotion to literature, books and reading as a vocation as much as it is a pastime. “Autumn Rounds,” is not an epicist novel. It is not a novel of grand ideas or stalwart statements. It is not airy or melodramatic riddled with sentimentality. In the end all “Autumn Rounds,” amounts to is but a quaint road trip novel in those twilight golden years of one’s life. One of those ‘last journeys.’ Its poignant and sweet; difficult to find, though I am told that the amazing Archipelago Books has plans to reissue a new translation from Sheila Fischman in the future. Fingers crossed.
  
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary