These Festive Nights, by Marie-Claire Blais

I'm going to look like a bad literary person (again). I picked up this book by Marie-Claire Blais for two reasons: because she is an important figure in Quebec literature, and because I had read with great pleasure an excerpt fromA Season in the Life of Emmanuel in a class. If I had liked it, it would have been great, because the cycle These Festive Nights, by Marie-Claire Blais contains ten novels. But I would have to be paid a lot of money to get through it.

Summary

I would have a hard time giving you a summary of my own. What I can tell you is that it takes place in a hot place. There are lots of characters that are probably related, but I'm not sure. I don't think there's a timeline, but I might be wrong. There are rich people, poor people. Not a big deal.

After a little research on Wikipedia, I realize that the central event of the book is supposedly a party thrown by some Melanie and Daniel, and that the party is overshadowed by several deaths that have occurred recently. I knew about the party anyway. That's something.

Impressions

It made me laugh to read in my little Wikipedia search that "the novel's dense character, as well as its literary quality, have prompted numerous academic studies seeking to identify its themes". Of course. This is the kind of book that you have to analyze for dozens of hours to understand. Except that I wasn't reading this in an academic context. So I'll let you in on a slightly shameful secret: I didn't finish it. I had about 50 pages left to read, and I didn't have the courage.

Why is that? First of all, the sentences are endless. Proust, by comparison, is an amateur. I thought at first that the concept of the book was that it was composed of a single sentence, until I noticed a period on the ninth page. And then I realized that there were no paragraphs either, nor chapters. On the practical side, if you want to take a break at some point, you have to plan ahead.

But personally, apart from destabilizing and frustrating the reader, I don't really see the point of these ten page long sentences. The author could very well have replaced some of those commas with periods. But it's true that it puts things in perspective: suddenly, you think that the periods are very important, and that's intriguing. But I didn't detect a pattern. Maybe they're random.

Second, I had no idea what was going on. I couldn't figure out if there was any kind of timeline. I didn't understand who the characters were or why they were being talked about. I didn't understand what the story was, if there was one.

And finally, the structure is peculiar, certainly, but redundant. Lots of enumerations, lots of questions, lots of metaphors. It becomes almost hypnotic (my polite term for "boring").

So there you go. I didn't understand anything, and I didn't like it. Bravo to those who understood it. But I have the impression that it is not the majority.