Written on Water [2004]
(Talonbooks, Vancouver, 2004)
Original
Résumé Torrential rains have descended upon a small isolated village and washed away everything in its path. The mudslide has gutted the writing room, the place where a group of senior citizens used to meet to record their memories. Now their papers are strewn around the countryside, along with the fragments of their community structures, homes, and memorials. To reverse this devastation, they have to put everything back in order. They have to remember, restore and rewrite. For some, the flood represents an opportunity to make an unspoken dream come true; for others, it's an opportunity to confess secret loves, and to talk about the future. Assisted by the only child who never left the village, Samuel begins to realize that these fragments can only be recombined into a narrative as fresh and new and real as the hopes and dreams of their original authors. Extrait « SAMUEL : What's left of our children for us? A phone call on our birthdays? Falling sick to force them to visit? The unnerving resemblance when they're around? The boring family get-togethers that drag on? You call that our children? My litle: "Traces of Children"!! Do you really think that by going to live near them, you'll make up for lost time? [...] Egotists who can hardly wait to impress their dinner guests by describing how they were finally there, when we drew our last breath [...] In their disposable world, we old people are at the bottom of the barrel. Not one of them has ever come to read our work. Not a single one! » |