The Blue Notebook
- Publisher
- Talonbooks
- Initial publish date
- Dec 2009
- Category
- Literary
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780889226197
- Publish Date
- Dec 2009
- List Price
- $24.95
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Description
When Fine Dumas’s notorious transvestite Boudoir is shut down after Expo 67, Céline is condemned to go back to working as a waitress at Le Sélect, attending to the frustrated appetites and exquisite pathos of its exotic clientele. Then a newcomer appears, the gorgeous Gilbert Forget, a musician who is not insensitive to her charms. Céline, a midget who has always thought she was unworthy, never having imagined the possibility of a mature loving and sexual relationship in her life, throws herself into a passionate affair with Gilbert, discovering the body’s thrills for the first time. Hanging out with his new crowd of artists and performers she gets a backstage look at a project that’s going to revolutionize Québec show business and become emblematic of its 1960's culture. Based on an historic event, Osstidcho as it was called both in life and in the book, is a play on the powerful Québécois oath hostie (the sacred host) which, like fuck in English, is used as a noun, adjective, verb, adverb, and in this production, as a punning, truncated form of hostie de show — one fucking great show.
As she has done twice before, Céline records the events and adventures of her life in a notebook. But now, inspired by the agony and ecstasy of first love, she reaches for the heights of romantic prose: while The Black Notebook, her first, is a simple daily journal; and The Red Notebook, her second, is a memory book, in which she records her life in retrospect embellished with rhetorical commentary; in The Blue Notebook Céline steps outside of herself, using a narrator to tell her story. Having finally discovered herself, she is now also finally free of that self. Will her tempestuous relationship with Gilbert endure? Will there be a fourth installment?
About the authors
Michel Tremblay
One of the most produced and the most prominent playwrights in the history of Canadian theatre, Michel Tremblay has received countless prestigious honours and accolades. His dramatic, literary and autobiographical works have long enjoyed remarkable international popularity, including translations of his plays that have achieved huge success in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East.
Awards and Recognition*
Prix du Grand (2009) La Traversée de la ville (Leméac Editeur Inc.)
Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix (2006)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Books (2003) Birth of a Bookworm
Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (2000) For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
Chalmers Awards (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1986, 1989, 2000)
Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (1999)
Molson Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts (1994)
Louis-Hémon Prize (1994)
Montreal Book Fair Grand Public Prize (1994)
Banff Centre National Award (1992)
Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France (1991)
Chevalier of the Order of Quebec (1990)
San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Festival Long-Standing Public Service Award (1989)
CBC Anik Prize (1988)
Athanase-David Lifetime Achievement Prize (1988)
Quebec-Paris Prize (1985)
Chevalier of Arts and Letters of France (1984)
John Van Burek
John Van Burek has been a practising theatre artist for over 20 years, in both French and English, throughout Canada. He has also worked in the fields of opera, film and television. He is also one of Canada’s leading translators for theatre, most notably of Michel Tremblay’s plays, including Les Belles-Soeurs (Talonbooks). Mr. Van Burek has received several awards and citations for his work, including the Toronto Drama Bench Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Canadian Theatre.
Bill Glassco
Born in Quebec, William Grant (?Bill”) Glassco was a Canadian theatre director, producer and founder of Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre. He then became the artistic director of the CentreStage Theatre Company which merged, in 1988, with the Toronto Free Theatre to become CanStage. In 1982, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Editorial Reviews
“Tremblay’s charters don’t merely exist, they live out complex, sprawling lives”
— Globe and Mail
Other titles by
A Great Consolation
Survive! Survive! & Crossing the Gulf of Misfortune
Twists of Fate
If by Chance & Destination Paradise
The Grand Melee
Rite of Passage
A Crossing of Hearts
The Red Notebook
Yours Forever, Marie-Lou
The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant
For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
