Atonement

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French Studies at the University
of Guelph. She is the author of Courts métrages et instantanés and La
Soupe.

Wittgenstein’s question about how memory distinguishes the past from
the present is Soucy’s motto for this novel. How indeed? In Proust’s
case, much of remembrance of things past emerged from a cup of Linden
tea. Baudelaire stated that sounds, scents, and colors—what he called
correspondences—do not distinguish between past and present.

Soucy’s protagonist, Monsieur Bapaume, is plagued by his
simultaneously sharp and foggy memory, which forces him to return to his
past to repent for what he perceives as crimes then committed.

Do we ever find out what these crimes really were? No. We just know
that Bapaume wishes to alleviate himself of them. Should this not be
fairly easy for a Québécois who, one would imagine, can go to church,
confess his sins, and be told what his penance will be?

But here is the problem. For Bapaume, confession no longer exists. It
is with the people he knows or knew that he must deal, In other words,
he will forever carry within himself the burden that he himself has
created. Atonement can be tried but seems impossible.

Sheila Fischman, the eminent translator of Quebec fiction, has
introduced us to yet another writer of great importance.