26 - Wednesday, Nov. 11, 1992 - North Shore News

-

Convincing voice

Charming childhood stories of

Prayers of a Very Wise Child.
Roch Carrier, translated by
Sheila Fischman. Penguin

Books. 168 pp., paper.
my most favorite

| { short stories is The

Hockey Sweater, by French
Canadian writer and master
storyteller Roch Carrier.

The National Film Board's
animated version of the story
begins with Carrier's words,
spoken in a thick Quebecois ac-
cent, “) remembair very well da
weentair off 1946. We all wore da

» same costume off Maurice Reeshar

ANKED AMONG

Now whenever | read Carrier's
fiction, | can hear this quirky but
charming voice illustrating every
scene. .

Voice is what makes Carrier's
stories so convincing. This, com-
bined with a great knack for spin-
ning a yarn and developing it to an
irresistible finish have kept me in-
terested in his writing over the
years, especially in works that pay
homage to childhood.

In his newest book, Prayers of a

. Very Wise Child, Carrier again
_enters the mind of a child, reveal-
ing to the reader the child’s world
through the prayers he makes to
God. =~

Carrier won the 1991 Stephen
Leacock Award for Flumour for
this book.

itis a gentle humor that wafts up

from these stories, the amusement .

that comes of a child's skewed
perception of the world or his
ability to ask questions to which
nobody knows the answer.

Appearing in church sometimes
in his hockey skates or toting a
smelly fish, the narrator, a little
boy from small-town Quebec,
comes to chit-chat with God.

in a trusting, ingenuous fashion
he discusses his family and friends,
poses sticky questiéns and con-
fesses non-Catholic compulsions.

“You, God up in Your

Barbara Biack
BOOK REVIEW

Heaven,” he says, ‘You stick
Your ear against the point of our
steeple as if it was a telephone and
You listen to me.””

in Moon Prayer, the boy speaks
of the wonders cf the moon ‘‘so
high up in the sky, it would take
four hundred years to get there by
train.”

“But,” he adds astutely,

“that’s what the nun at school
told us. She didn’t say how long it
would iake to build the railway.”

Nuns really take a ribbing in this
book.

in a magical moment, with the
family gathered on the porch on a
moonlit night, he thinks his uncle
Marcel is giving him a handful of
the moon.

When it turns out to be a bunch
of leaves, he is devastated. The
adults laugh.

A specially delightful story is fn-
dians Prayer, in which the boy
puzztes over what ts actually his
mother’s pregnancy but what ap-
nears to him as a strange chain of
events that culminates in the tn-
dians coming.

“Apparently, the Indians beat
our mothers. All the mothers in
the village have been beaten. ...
When they leave again ... the In-
dians always leave a squalling
baby behind in the crib.”

It doesn’t help matters when the
adults simply ccllude with the
“visiting Indian’ version of birth.

Nothing is more enthralling to a
child as the discovery of various
body parts, especially those
located on other people.

In Titties Prayer, the seven-:
year-old boy talks with God ‘‘to

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confess that f saw titties, bui to tell
‘ou the truth, as soon as I’ve
inished my prayer ... I'm going to
run back and sit in the same place,
outside the general store, in case
there’s more titties on display.”

In the same breath that he con-
fesses his “‘titties sin’’ he prays to
God to please let him see more.

Carrier beautifully captures the
naivete and unintentional irony of
a child’s language in Prayers
(translated by Sheila Fischman) as
well as what must appear to a
child as the strange world of
Catholicism: “The nun didn’t

ive us any homework because it’s
the birthday of the little saint who
flogged himself with his belt when
he got undressed."

The prayers paint a picture of
life in a small village ir. Quebec:
the shock of a child’s death, the
secret parties held by neighbor-
hood kids, sleigh riding in winter,
infidelity leading to suicide and all
the puzziing, enthralling, sadden-
ing events that populate life.

Wisdom is not reserved for the
old. Prayers of a Very Wise Child
is a charming, warm book.

See Bogarde page 40

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