The narrative begins one Christmas Eve. Hermann comes in embalming a corpse. It is embalmer, forty-six, is split between two cats. He attended Clotilde that he "tries to break for some time without success [...]" The building in which he lives "is inhabited feet at the head of old things quiet. Everyone here has at least one hundred ten years. " Elderly men and women, wear their last years in entertainment as they can. Among them, Hu agitated "little green man still [...]". During playback, it will cause some surprises, although its role, at first glance, is secondary. Hermann is an anxiety to the point of having a "cushion" to help him feel better. He cares not counting the living and the dead, until one day the harmless Hu assigned to him a manuscript. Hermann guess is his autobiography, he "thirteen lives to read and enjoy. "If Hermann dream to make his kind happy, he also dreams of Zita, a young colleague who claims to love it. In parallel, a man of forty-one, known as Number 32, learns from his doctor that he suffers from "active rheumatoid arthritis, emphysema and one early Parkinson 'disease dangerously jeopardizing his career as a pianist . Shaken, he walked into a vegetable market, and finds a lost manuscript on a stall. Suspecting some oversight, he takes it home. After many adventures funny or painful, it would be long and damage to enumerate, number 32 and Hermann will meet in port. They go together terribly tormented fail to Clotilde's favorite bar. One tell who he is the son, what was his career as a pianist deemed the solitude in which his disease the plunge. He will speak of Yseult, almost imaginary friend, like a nod to Richard Wagner, emotional neglect from his father, a collector of miniatures unbridled. The other entrust the failure of his medical studies, his empathy for the body inert, his compassion for aging women. Clotilde and Zita reflect the contradictions in which Hermann struggling, not better off than the people at the end of term with which he seeks to clarify its reasons to exist.
If the shadow of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece is projected onto some unusual scenes, all reminiscent Momo, the boy life ahead, novel by Emile Ajar . Momo grew, he became the man of forty-six superbly supported by the gift of self. His kindness, his tenderness, his uncertainties make him a bit as we côtoyons in Quebec literature present love with her navel. Integrity speaks does Helene Vachon does not without the knowledge of others, no tolerance is possible or permitted. Aging is not distinguish himself, to distance himself from his own youth skillfully? Is not differentiate, as the number 32 is characterized by its physical appearance and that alone will manage to Hermann tame until death. We can always save those who fear to melt into the perilous adventure of life. They chose the more circuitous route, the most sumptuous.
Roman who, in an impulsive light set with delicious finds stylistic conceals the face of excessive anxiety easements that shapes everyday life. Modest value Hermann actions, such as to accompany Madame de Valois in the park with its paraphernalia of a painter. The narrative is peppered with poignant sequences, confirming the loneliness and vulnerability of the characters to whom we all look a bit. We liked that no clutter moral history of the protagonists who, inevitably, continue their bumpy road, the fate favoring marginal rarely wanting out of the box. The embalmer and pianist no exception to this singular class of people, displaced in time and space, therefore universal. Hence the deliberate intention of the author not to locate the landmarks. Exceptional beings did they need them to be deported out of the immense power of gravity, settling in places where no one expects but, once there, show a generosity terminal. That may be the message conveyed by Helene Vachon: never turn away from a being who wishes us well and which afflicted its uselessness, is convinced he is useless. The more gum in his footsteps, he entered more in the wake of people huddled on themselves. Without this dose of humanism which bestows the great author, Hermann would he turned to the dead to mitigate the ravages of death? The number 32 would he have sacrificed his hands to an audience that was full of praise for his talents as a pianist?
State of Grace, a hymn to life that nothing novel human than human Helene Vachon. We recall that the author was a finalist and winner of several awards in 2002, the Governor General's Literary Award and the Mr. Christie's Book Award for his book Youth The bird of passage.
Attraction land Helene Vachon
editions Alto, Quebec 2010, 358 pages
Dominique Blondeau - dominblondeau@yahoo.fr 
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