Là où je me terre ("Where I'm Hiding")

I challenge you to find a negative, or even lukewarm, review of Là où je me terre ("Where I'm Hiding"). I searched, I didn't find any. A bit like Kukum, it's a no brainer You can recommend it to quite a few people without taking any risks. Or at least, if the person finds it boring, he/she probably won't dare to say it.

Summary

Caroline arrived in Montreal at the age of 7, on Christmas Day. Her parents took their courage in both hands, fled the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and tried their luck in Quebec. Caroline recounts her journey as an immigrant, the effort to integrate, the mockery of her black hair and dark skin, the misery of the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood where she lived, the resilience of her parents who managed to raise their three children's standard of living by dint of cleaning and other hard work. Now a sociology professor at the CEGEP, she shares her life story, which is commonplace in many ways, but also extraordinary for those of us who were born here.

Impressions

I am like everyone else, I loved this book. It is sweet, beautiful, touching. I liked the view of an immigrant on the Montreal I have always lived in, especially on the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood, where I grew up. The author was able to convey to me her admiration for her mother, and for all the women who work so hard for their children's future. I will probably never see housekeepers in the same way again.

But I'm going to be a little annoying: this book was not devoid of what I consider literary clichés, i.e., poetic, cute phrases whose purpose is clearly, too clearly, to move.

I no longer had a mother tongue, only imitations of flaccid melodies. At night, my baby fell asleep for years to the slow and meticulous sound of the alphabet, repeated as many times as necessary. Night after night, as I rocked him on an old wooden chair gleaned from a garage sale, I softly sang to him in French the only thing I really owned, the alphabet song. Letters, all the letters, that's all I found to pass on to her to soothe her against my bosom as the day wanes.

– Là où je me terre, Caroline Dawson, p. 189-190.

It is beautiful. But do you understand what I mean by "cliché"?

I am aware that I am harsh on these things, and I am also aware of the emotions that necessarily come to the surface when you tell your life story. It's certain that, as an author, you want to share this emotion with your readers, and sentences like that are as good a way as any. But there's a fine line between touching and quaint, and for my part, when a childhood story falls into the quaint, I have to say that it makes me feel a bit unmoored. And my suspicion is that even if people don't like it, they won't dare criticize it because, after all, we're talking about the raw and sincere experience of a beautiful human being.

That said, many people, most even, love it. And most of the time, this book skillfully, even for me, balances on the line. That's why I say it's a no brainer.