A Context for Conversation?: Reading Jeffrey Moore's The Memory Artists as Anglo-Quebec Literature

Quebec's English-language writers' deeper integration into, and often greater identification with, the cultural and political life of their Francophone milieu has led some critics to speak of an "Anglo-Quebec literature". The author points out, however, that the appropriateness of the designation has been contested by those for whom "la littérature québécoise" is necessarily Francophone, and by those for whom "Anglo-Quebec" either excludes Canadian or only designates writing explicitly responsive to local concerns. After reviewing definitions of "Anglo-Quebec literature" in terms of geography, theme, or form, the author proposes a conceptualization in terms of ad hoc conversations between English-language works and other Anglophone and Francophone Quebec writing. He then sketches such a conversation, using Jeffrey Moore's novel "The Memory Artists" as a test case. To the extent that a reading of this work illuminates, and is illuminated by, readings of such novels as Jacques Godbout's "Les Têtes à Papineau" as well as Robert Majzels’s "Hellman's Scrapbook", the author finds that there is pragmatic justification for thinking of Moore's work as belonging to the category of "Anglo-Quebec literature".

Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d'études canadiennes

Vol. 46

no. 3

204-224

Fall 2012

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