Bonbons Assortis/Assorted Candies

Ian C. Nelson, Librarian Emeritus, former Assistant Director of
Libraries (University of Saskatchewan) and dramaturge (Festival de la
Dramaturgie des Prairies).

With his uniquely intimate perspective of family life on the Rue Fabre
in Montreal, Michel Tremblay needs no introduction to Québecois,
Canadian, or international readers.

Bonbons Assortis / Assorted Candies is the fourth assemblage of
autobiographical stories of Tremblay’s childhood. The books, films,
and plays that were the focus of his previous “show and tell” tales
clearly informed the writer’s imagination even as his familial
observations shaped his own particular generational subject matter. The
title of the latest volume refers to the boxes of Lowney’s chocolates
that were a standard and perennial gift for his mother on special
occasions. In the stories contained in this gift box, the writer seems
quite content to let the natural dialogue of their telling work its
magic without having to insist that “these are a few of my favourite
things” or to underline these incidents as having been a step in his
formation as a writer. For that reason they may give the impression of
being a tad lighter or without consequence, but in their straightforward
and simple telling they reveal much more profoundly the sensitivity and
the growing sensibility of the writer.

In the first story (“The Wedding Present”), little Marcel is like a
Gьnter Grass midget hiding under the family table to observe his family
with its over-the-top emotions expressed in the immediately recognizable
maternal idiom that Tremblay captures so entertainingly (and which in
Linda Gaboriau’s translation garnered a 2006 Governor General’s
Award nomination). In “Sturm und Drang,” we get a rare glimpse of
closeness with the author’s father and the amazed perspective of a
small child suddenly seeing the world from atop his father’s
shoulders. Two stories regarding the “Irrefutable Proof That Santa
Claus Exist,” are narrative gems that could easily become Christmas
classics like Stephen Leacock’s “Hoodoo McFiggin’s Christmas.”
Indeed, like luscious chocolate centres, each story brings a carefully
crafted new delight. The volume is rounded off with perhaps the best
tribute to his mother’s sense and sensibility that one could imagine.

Tremblay has already adapted these stories into a hugely successful
stage version.