Jean-François BeaucheminRecensioni

L’écrivain a la soixantaine, il est marié et il a un chien et un chat. Et un frère schizophrène.

Et très simplement il raconte sa vie, son enfance, la maladie de son frère, la mort de leurs parents… Et ça semble tout simple et c’est pourtant beaucoup plus que ça. C’est toute la tendresse, l’amour, l’accompagnement, la vie, les oiseaux qui chantent, les crises, les peurs, le bonheur d’être là.

Un livre bouleversant

Lost in its own language and perhaps ultimately about the language of memory , meaning and loss this book is poetic and very beautiful in parts but struggles to decide whether it wants to be truly poetic and decoupled from reality as it tries to weld this poetry to a very loose plot line. Maybe should have pushed the limits of the language a bit more and/or grounded it in reality a bit more but instead floats half way between.½

To describe this text as a novel may send the wrong signal. It is perhaps better described as a long series of linked prose poems. The narrative is partial and discontinuous; anyone looking for a plot, adventure, and snappy dialogue will be disappointed. But for readers who enjoy meditative, carefully wrought literature, this text is masterful, outstanding.

TURKANA BOY follows Monsieur Bartholemé through the brief life of his son and the long residual of his loss. M. Bartholemé wanders the world, interacting with animals, the ocean, the sky and experiencing moments of reflection, insight, and piercing beauty. There are haunting lines on every page, phrases that are exquisitely precise and tender. The text itself is carefully presented, too, complemented by large white spaces in which to take a breath and by evocative images that interact wisely with the writing.

If you enjoy poetry, you may enjoy this book. I found it best read in small sittings, a few passages at a time: it is not a text that suits "power reading" but rather should be sipped slowly and cherished. I imagine myself returning to this book again in a few years when I am changed and older, and wonder, How will it speak to me then?

"He was born like this, with a brain inventing images. The world was multiple, stratified: beneath its surface was always another reality that came, unlooked for, to Monsieur Bartolome. He did not immediately understand this order of things. He had to decode it, like someone piecing together the fragments of an ancient vase broken by the centuries. He was the scribe of a scattered narrative, digging into the mud of omens."

Turkana Boy by Quebec-ianJean-Francois Beauchemin, and beautifully translated by Jessica Moore, is an Early Reviewer book that is described as a novel but really is a series of story-linked prose poems. Monsieur Bartolome's 12 year old son has disappeared, devastating his father. Monsieur B. begins to wander, first his town area, then the nearby woods, then the seaside. He sees all with a penetrating, lyrical vision. "For a long time, he had thought he would not survive the child's disappearance. And now here he was, taking inventory of centuries, with scratches from the sun's claws marking the corner's of his eyes, with foam and silver birch bark sprinkled through his hair."

At times this book reminded me of Italo Calvino and Mister Blue by Jacques Poulin. There is an occasional off-tune passage, maybe the result of faltering translation, e.g, "Prows walked on water. The sea prevailed over the sky." But these are rare, and quickly the entrancing qualities of the book return: "The sea stood up before him, foaming, torn by lightning bolts, opening terrifying mouths that gobbled up the dense, hard black rains unleashed by the sky like hate." The book's broad scope encompasses difficult issues of loss, death, and despair, but also love, revelation and the joys of sensation, of being in our spectacular world. I found myself in a pleasant reverie reading it, pulse slowed, like sitting in a boat, out on the water, gently bobbing.

The titular Turkana Boy was a 12 year old pre-Sapiens boy (Homo egaster) from 600 thousand years ago, discovered by Richard Leakey in the 1980s. Monsieur B. thinks of him, separated from his parents like his son. Time passes, and Monsieur B. becomes grateful to his son for inspiring "this vast movement, this existence composed of gestures and strides, this great march to the rhythm of things, objects, stones, animals, ponds, trees, and roads - in short, of matter." This great poetic march can, of course, be understood in a number of different ways - was there a son? Is Monsieur B. the son? Is this about our growing knowledge of ourselves and our world as we grow older, our deeper experience of life? It doesn't really matter. Just sit back in the boat, feel the sea beneath you (yes, if you're not careful, it can swallow you up with its terrible mouths), and let the gentle breeze of words slow you down, gently bobbing in another gift of a day in this world of ours.½

I agree with other reviewers who stress the poetic nature of Beauchemin's prose. Reminiscent of Annie Dillard's nonfiction essays or even some of Jeanette Winterson's more meditative fiction, Turkana Boy does not focus on plot so much as moments in succession, so I can understand others' frustration if they expected a typical work of fiction with tight storyline and action-based narrative. But I requested this book because it appeared to defy conventional fiction techniques and I was not disappointed. Turkana Boy is special precisely because it cannot be consumed. It must be experienced, at the narrator's pace, and accepted for the meditation it is. Readers looking for entertainment to meet them halfway or more--whether light beach reading or dense Russian literature--may be disappointed by Beauchemin's meandering. Those who delight in liminal exploration and/or savor language's immediate merits, built image by built image, are more likely to enjoy this work.

This beautiful portrait reads more as poetry than prose. Not easily described, the short volume has an elegiac sensibility. Evocative of Camus' L'Etranger in the mystery of the protagonist's inner life, other words come to mind: pantheistic, solipsistic, lyrical, detached. And yet we are conscious of what must be overwhelming loss, even if that loss is not directly conveyed. I found it quite wonderful, with lovely allusions and language. Calvino too comes to mind. It may not suit a need for a more traditional narrative form.

Incidentally, I came to the book from LT Early Reviewers, having a strong interest in paleoanthropology. Suffice it to say that Turkana Boy himself does not figure prominently in the book!½

I strongly agree with the review by janeajones that this book was beautiful but frustrating. The text itself flows like poetry and evokes colorful and vibrant imagery at every turn. On the other hand, there is hardly a plot, and the main character's actions and circumstances make little sense. There is a paragraph or two about the Turkana Boy in the very middle of the book, and I can see the relationship to the protagonist's situation, however (maybe I'm just slow) I did not see how TB relates to the story otherwise. At one point, the text says that the main character wished he had a dog, then years later he gets a dog. Why didn't he get the dog when he first realized he wanted one? Typical of the story; the main character wallows in self-pity, self-absorption, and inaction; kind of a dull guy really. Okay, so I am a literal-minded American reader who doesn't get into this sophisticated text. Anyway, it's a quick read, and flows smoothly from beginning to end, so if you find it in your hand, go ahead and give it a try.½

I had a hard time with this book. It was difficult for me to follow or to engage with. It was only when I took a step back from the meaning and instead tried to appreciate the lyrical movement of words, emotions and images that I was able to appreciate it at all. I am assuming part of this was due to it being a translation and part of it due to my preference for linear, strongly outlined stories. I ultimately enjoyed it, but more as an aesthetic excercise than as a story.

this just isn't my kind of book. the writing style isn't really to my liking and while the early reviews write up and the back of the book and the name of the book for that matter make it sound like there will be a strong connection drawn between monsieur barolome's missing son and the turkana boy, turkana boy is really only mentioned on one page. the book is really about barolome's thoughts on nature which wasn't what i was expecting. i will say that this seems to be a very good translation.

I found this book alternately beautiful and frustrating. It is the only book by the respected Quebecois author that has been translated into English, and I have no doubt that one reason for the lack of translation is the hybrid nature of Beauchemin's poetic-prose narrative, which is highly lyrical, philosophical and verges on the surreal. I'm sure the original French carries a somewhat different nuance than does the English translation -- which is not to take away at all from Moore's poetic rendering.

The work is divided into 3 sections: "The Escaped Island," set in the city, with 32 chapters; "Night Worn Thin Against Their Hides," set in the countryside, with 32 chapters; and "A Seahorse Ballet," set by the sea, with 29 chapters. No chapter is longer than 2 pages, most consist of simply one paragraph: each chapter is essentially a prose poem -- a meditation upon some aspect of nature from the point of view on the only real character in the work: Monsieur Bartolome, introduced at the beginning of the book:

"He took notes. All his life, Monsieur Bartolome had done nothing but take notes. He gave titles to downpours, produced chapters in which ordinary things occurred; in his stories, he always wrote birds onto the first page. Sometimes he made books of these stories, in which people said they recognized the glimmerings of childhood. But this was too easy to say -- he was not interested in childhood -- it had taken years for his won to hush a little, and anyway he preferred the bitter beauty of things."

The book follows Monsieur Bartolome from his early 30s until his death in his late 70s. At the beginning of the book, he has a young son who loves the large elm tree in front of their home, until it has to be cut down because of disease. When the boy is 12, in chapter 14 of the first section, he disappears -- a disappearance that remained a mystery and the most internal truth of Monsieur Bartolome's existence.

And perhaps here is the crux of my frustration with the work -- we learn very little of the boy -- not his name, nothing about his mother (she is never mentioned), not how he interacted with his father -- only that he loved the elm as a brother and was a silent child, as his father had been before him. Nor do we learn much about Monsieur Bartolome's life beyond his meditiations on nature, the essence of life, and omnipresence of death. This is book without people, and despite the declared preference for "the bitter beauty of things" -- the book is more about words, words used to observe and ponder and retreat inside oneself.

"The world was inexplicable, and yet, on certain days, Monsieur Bartolome understood many things. Few mysteries could not be unravelled through his science; worlds were caught in his eyes, and he christened these worlds with names. He drank from the rains as though from drainpipes, taught them which passages to follow, prepared riverbeds that he had swindled from rowboats to receive their runoff. The rivers, too, were tributaries of his veins, and the beats of his heart were a series of islands as are beans in a pod. And few mysteries could not be unravelled through his science, becuase he translated the precise dedication of the sun with ease. The world was inexplicable, but something of it carved out a path in Monsieur Bartolome."½

L'un des meilleurs récits que j'ai lu. J'ai relu ce livre trois fois... Toujours aussi émouvant.

Voir ce qu'en disait Suzane Giguère dans Le Devoir
http://www.ledevoir.com/2004/08/21/61910.html?217½