Having watched your video (and bought the book) on "Ha!", I also bought and just finished reading "Next Episode" as a prelude to reading "Ha!". Its intenisty reminded me of Lispector. though maybe his is more around structure than hers being about expression of feeling states (I take the exquisite language of both as a givem). In its twistiness, it reminded me of "The Face on The Cutting Room Floor". On to "Ha!'!

A fifth one, Aquin's Shifting Sands, should also be available in a French-English parallel edition. From an article re: Blackout's similarity to Pale Fire: Aquin started working on his novel in 1962, at a time when he was engaged in the political struggle to achieve Quebec’s independence. The same year, Vladimir Nabokov published Pale Fire, one of his more complex novels from a structural point of view. In an entry of his Journal (October 26, 1962), Aquin shows himself deeply concerned, even disturbed, upon finding out that Nabokov had just published the novel he was planning and had already started to work on. In a way, he felt cheated by his predecessor, for whom he nourished a profound admiration, as if the great Russian-born American writer had in fact stolen his idea, recalling the case of anticipated plagiarism expounded recently by Pierre Bayard. To avoid the risk of he himself being accused of plagiarism, Aquin decided to take the project one step further, that is to surpass his model in writing a novel of greater invention, at least as regard to form. Olympe is from the Ivory Coast. Pumped you reviewed these.

Quebecois literature is superb. I am currently reading the 2023 winner of the Prix Medicis, 'Que notre joie demeure' by Kevin Lambert.

Just happy to be here

gm 🫖