Return to Article Details Writers in Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes: Writing as a Way to Fight Solitude

There seems to be a consensus that the primary and most noted theme of Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes, “the first truly Canadian novel” (LaRue 15), is one that depicts “the French and English Canadian societies, which are aware of each other but live apart within one nation” (Völkl 130), unable to comprehend or to tolerate the other. On the other hand, to assess Two Solitudes as “an emblematic expression of the schizophrenic essence of the duality of the Canadian nationhood and culture” (Kolinská 163) might be both somewhat exaggerated and also opposed to the more traditional—and much less confrontational—appraisal of the novel as one whose “ambition […] is to define […] a specifically Canadian consciousness that is not merely the sum of its French and English parts but a completely different and brand new whole”. (LaRue 15) While most studies focus on the marriage of Paul Tallard to Heather Methuen as the symbol of a new Canada overcoming the linguistic, historical, and cultural divisions of the past, there are some aspects of the novel which have been analyzed much less often than they deserve. In this study, I would like to suggest following a thematic axis comprising four basic notions: (1) practically all characters in the novel are solitary; (2) thus, they have to deal with (i.e. either to fight with or come to terms with) their solitude; (3) some of them decide to fight their solitude through artistic creation, i.e. they want to become writers; and, last but not least, (4) the urge to write and the subsequent successes or failures of these writers have a specific message that the novel is meant to communicate to its readers. The article is thus an attempt at defining whether writing may or not fight an individual’s solitude as well as at assessing particular writers’ role and influence in society, as they appear in the novel.

Solitude(s)

The title of the novel mentions “two solitudes”. The same expression appears at the beginning of Chapter 1 in a few lines cited from Reiner Maria Rilke’s poem in Letters to a Young Poet (1929), translated by MacLennan himself:

"Love consists in this,
that two solitudes protect,
and touch, and greet each other"
(MacLennan 3)

The two solitudes mentioned in the poem tend to be generally understood as a depiction of a relationship between individuals, especially because of the mention of the word love. In the novel’s context, this refers to the only two individuals who are solitary but manage to overcome the differences between them as well as their individual “tribes” (MacLennan 159): Paul Tallard and Heather Methuen. The two youngest offspring of two leading families of the two language communities can be seen symbolically as role models and lighthouses showing a way for both the English and the French in Quebec to coexist peacefully.

Yet, while such conflict less cohabitation seems to be the only way forward for the gradually emerging future, many characters in the novel refuse to believe in such a new reality. With centuries of bad experiences resulting in an unbearable mental baggage of predominantly adverse emotions vis-à-vis the other, it is not surprising—though not justifiable—that most of the characters in the novel refuse to accept new models of behavior or attitude to the other. Or, in other words, their indolence to absolve the other from their “tribal guilt” of not belonging to the same nation is more convenient than trying to understand the mentality of the other nation. Thus, logically, the process of Canada turning into a modern society in the contemporary sense of the term needed a long time span as it had started with only individuals who inspired the others to undergo a similar process.

On the national level, it was—quite paradoxically—World War I which contributed both to the formation of the Canadian nation and to it gaining its national conscience and pride. At the same time, saying so is not meant to claim that this process was finished during or shortly after the war. The Canada of that period still had its own issues, the most problematic one being the incurable rip through the very center of the nation’s heart: one country composed of two “tribes” whose members were basically unable to understand the mentality of the other one.

It is perspicuous that such an issue could not be solved or cured in the lifespan of just one generation: let us recall that the Canadian Confederation had only existed for less than 50 years when World War I started. Yet, for the very first time in Canadian military history, Canadian troops fought as unified armed forces. Unfortunately, tensions appeared between English and French Canadians as the English population was convinced that the French did not provide an equal share of conscripted men. The French Canadians’ reluctance to conscription was one of the causes why the rip between the two parts of the country persisted, possibly even deeper than before the war. Twenty years later, Canadian troops invading Normandy in the final stage of World War II were one generation younger than the soldiers fighting in World War I, and they were also “one generation richer” as far as their life experience is concerned. They had seen their fathers’ generation’s incapacity to deal with the desired unity of the Canadian nation and wanted to act differently this time, to write their own history, not their fathers’.

Those who fought in World War II were the ones having experienced the changes in society happening in the previous two decennia, especially in the matter of acknowledging the other nation as their equal. These changes were the embodiment of countless anonymous individuals’ fight for this equality to come true. In this respect, the novel tries to be a truly Stendhalian mirror of reality. It does not show the result of the process as much and rather focuses on its beginning. Despite the fact that Paul and Heather are the most promising characters in the novel in terms of becoming true Canadians, they are not the first ones to try to create this new reality.

The first person to announce the changes is Paul’s father, Athanase Tallard. Through his attitude and convictions, it is possible to observe throughout the novel the change taking place in society: just as he praises the coming of the age of science (as a replacement for the world defined by faith and religion) and sees it as inevitable, this is not only so in the novel, but some change was also happening in the world at the time of the novel’s publication. Athanaseʼs actions, however, become the foundation of those very changes: He decides to put his younger son Paul to an English-speaking boarding school which enables Paul Tallard to thus become the first—and actually the only—truly bilingual Canadian in the novel. Athanase also tries to bring his community economic prosperity by participating in the “English project” of building a factory in his parish although, as his elder son Marius puts it, “[h]is political actions proved him a traitor to his race” (MacLennan 44).

Marius, on the other hand, represents the other extremity of solitude and sees his own father as a traitor because, in his opinion, a Frenchman should never form business relations with an Englishman. And if a French-Canadian does, they put their community at the peril of getting contaminated with, as well as that of being marginalized at, or driven away from, their traditional lands by the English element, turning themselves into a traitor of their own land, nation and tradition. The French Canadians—those in the novel as well as the real ones—were convinced that the only way for them to survive in the country dominated by the English Canadians was to dwell on their tradition and the support of the Catholic Church.

Yet not all families were united in this respect: the contradiction between father and son is not a mere depiction of a typical generational gap. It is a portrait of a change affecting both generations. In fact, the demarcation line between the generations is not at all clearly marked: despite the fact that the son is the bearer of new ideas in the political domain, it is his father who has modern views regarding the economic and social domains. The old generation does not automatically equal a defense of tradition and the past to the same extent to which young people may become ambassadors of conservative ideas.

Such a mixture of points of view across generations is expectable inasmuch as Athanase himself is, in fact, a rather surprising combination of personal traits: although he could symbolize tradition, he fights it; although he could have the support of the priest and the Church (and through them that of the whole community), he loses it over the false belief that he needs to fit his “new life standards”. This inner struggle makes him become a Protestant, hoping this would open doors for his new business in Montreal where nobody wants to do business with the French from Quebec. Yet changing his religious affiliation proves not to be the real key to his business success, nor to that of his community which, in his eyes, needs a new impulse towards the future.

Similarly, although he has all the prerequisites to succeed in all aspects of his life, Athanase Tallard is an illustrative example of failure. While he realizes this fact surprisingly early in the novel, he only does so in the context of his political career. Yet, although “[i]t was impossible to pretend that his political career was anything but a failure” (MacLennan 26), Athanase also fails even in his attempts to write: he never publishes his thoughts though they are meticulously elaborated and based on the ideas and concepts of the greatest minds of all times, he never even alludes to his attempts at writing. Yet, it must have been quite an effort for him to put together a text whose nature can be most accurately described as that of a political and philosophical treatise. Athanaseʼs failure, however, gains special importance for his younger son Paul on his way to becoming a writer himself.

The Inconspicuous Art of Writing

In fact, writing is omnipresent throughout the novel, although it is presented—at least in the initial chapters or, in fact, Part 1—as a rather discreet, slowly developed theme among others that might at first seem more important. Even though Athanase Tallard and his younger son Paul are the only writers in the story, writing becomes a very important feature in the novel as other characters are actually “driven” to define themselves—either positively or negatively—vis-à‑vis the two Tallardsʼ writing attempts. Unsurprisingly, those who support or symbolize the oncoming changes praise the Tallards for their texts while the other camp denies them any acclaim.

In Athanaseʼs case, the persons who are made to express their point of view once they learn about the texts are Father Beaubien and Marius Tallard. Sadly, they are Athanaseʼs only readers ever and, what is more, they are not qualified (nor are they willing) to judge his thoughts objectively. Yet, paradoxically, Paul’s view that his father’s thoughts are ahead of their time is confirmed by both Marius and Father Beaubien, rejecting his manuscripts as heretic. Reading his father’s words, Marius “frowned […], not sure that he understood the full meaning behind the words” (MacLennan 43). In fact, Athanaseʼs elder son suffered a terrible shock, thinking that his father’s treatise “was certainly heresy, suggesting that the motives of a priest of God were no better than those of a politician. He had for some time suspected that his father was a free-thinker. His fondness for the English was a part of it. So were the convolutions of his private life” (MacLennan 43). Without dwelling much on the very complex nature of issues hindering Athanase and Marius from keeping their father-son relationship within reciprocally acceptable limits (which is shown by the two last sentences of the citation above), Marius’s stubborn and retrograde attitude can exemplify the convictions ruling society, which might be the reason why Athanase himself decides to never publish his manuscript, being lucidly aware of the obscurantism of his community as opposed to his progressive beliefs.

A Young, Wasted Writing Talent

Marius’s disgust in reaction to the contents of his father’s writings may be the best illustration of the mental and emotional abyss between them. In a dialogue with Kathleen, his stepmother, Marius claims that his father is “too old to be killed” (MacLennan 47). Even though he is definitely alluding to the fact that his father cannot fight in the Great War due to his age (while Marius himself is an ideal acquisition for the army), this remark could also be seen as an unsuccessful Freudian attempt of a son to kill his father symbolically. Marius’s hatred does not stop at conscription: “I know my father sells us down the river to the English, but I’m not like him. I’m not fooled by him” (MacLennan 47).

Then there is also competition with his younger brother Paul. When Heather Methuen asks Paul why Marius does not like him, he replies honestly: “Because I’m half-English. Because I’m not the pure thing. He knows I feel both races stirring inside me all the time. The pure race is everything to him. I suppose that’s why he refuses to speak English” (MacLennan 385). Marius rejects anybody who is of “impure” (i.e. non-French) origin, anybody who disagrees with him. He is convinced that “[t]he English lessened him […]. Merely by their existence, they lessened a man. You could become great and powerful only if your own people were also great and powerful. But what could his people do when the English constantly choked them? What could the French do, alone against an entire continent, except breed children and hope?” (MacLennan 195) Marius thus remains blind to the possibilities a peaceful cohabitation of the two nations might bring in the future and, most importantly, he is blind to the possibility of himself becoming a writer just like his father and trying to “kill” him (in the Freudian way) by becoming a better writer than him.

Instead of choosing a scenario that might lead to freedom of creation and a much wider impact of his ideas, he chooses the more complicated (and less-efficient) way of giving speeches at political gatherings. Had it been anybody else than Marius, he might have given people hope. But the ability to give hope, to motivate positively, to be able to actually lead the masses depends on the particular person’s character. Unfortunately for Marius, he has always been consumed by his rage, his bitterness, and also by his inability to see things in a realistic matter:

"Economics? What did economics matter? A pure race, a pure language, larger families, no more connection with the English, no interference from foreigners, a greater clerical control over everything–with these conditions Quebec would reach the millennium. Scientists could split the atom and circumnavigate the globe in a week, but Marius had no difficulty reducing everything to race, religion and politics. At one time or another he had belonged to four different political parties; after quarrelling with all his former associates, he was now trying to found a new one of his own." (MacLennan 398)

Paul’s “consciously oratorical” (MacLennan 398) brother, convinced that he is the very representative of the future, actually falls behind his time, being unable to imagine a positive future development of the cohabitation of the two main Canadian “tribes”, drowning in his bitterness based on past convictions, as can be seen in his behavior during Paul’s visit whose aim was to try to reconcile them as they were only two elements of a single family that had been broken:

"Marius refused to talk of anything but politics. His bitterness had retained some of its fire, but now there was a querulous note in his voice. […] He criticized every other politician in Quebec: they had all betrayed the people, the whole lot of them had gone soft or been bought out. He kept repeating the same things over and over." (MacLennan 398)

The result of the visit is that Marius is “binding the strait-jacket tighter and tighter around himself” (MacLennan 398). Throughout the novel, this strait-jacket becomes the symbol of dwelling on the past. Paul is actually afraid of visiting his brother since “Marius would be bitter because [Paul] had married an English girl, a daughter of the woman who had informed on him during the war. Old arguments would be thrown in his face, and again he would have to fight for his identity” (MacLennan 395; actually “one of [MacLennan’s] main themes has been an exploration of the Canadian identity” ‒ see Laurence 129). Luckily for Paul, his identity—already that of a Canadian, a wise man who has experienced a lot in his life that makes him open to the future—does not need to be fought for. The visit to his brother only makes the abyss between the brothers more evident than ever before. Marius’s stubborn views make the damage irreparable just like between him and his father. Marius—having become merely “a tool in the hands of the Church and the fledging separatist movement” (New 194)—only looks into the past and thus has no future, nor does his writing as he only can give speeches, he can only preach.

In this respect, Marius feels close® to Father Beaubien than to his own family because they have a lot in common: both preach, both only transform other thinkers’ or writers’ ideas to be accessible to ordinary people, which reduces them to mere readers (or interpreters) of others. They both thus prevent themselves from becoming inspiring personalities, continuing the tradition of the old nationalistic way of surviving next to the most bitter enemy living literally next door. Symbolically, Marius joins Father Beaubienʼs “camp” the very moment he runs for refuge to the presbytery, spending the night there, instead of seeking refuge in the warm atmosphere of his father’s house which is situated not far from the presbytery.

To Fail Is Necessary to Succeed

Paul Tallard is no exception to the “rule” that makes failure a recurrent phenomenon in his family. He constantly dreams of writing a novel and this wish is stronger than any other. But his path to actually becoming a writer is neither direct nor easy. Earlier in his childhood and teenage years, he was subject to an identity crisis: the son of a French-speaking Catholic in Quebec, his mother Irish (rejected both morally and linguistically by the French community), his father later on making the pragmatic choice of becoming a Protestant in order to fit better into the world of big affairs with McQueen, Paul was sent to an English-speaking school where he did not feel at ease because he was deprived of his favorite sport. This issue is best summarized in Paul’s own words: “It’s a tribal custom in Canada to be either English or French. But I’m neither one nor the other” (MacLennan 324).

A crisis can make one either drown or seize the opportunity to grow, seeing it as a chance. Luckily for Paul, he chooses the second option, forging the very best of him to become somebody new, somebody who steps out of the putrid atmosphere of a people only trying to recreate the second France on American soil. Paul chooses to know the world, possibly convinced that he will come to a better understanding of it just as Mr. Yardley, his ultimate role model, did in his time. Paul lives in many places and does multiple jobs. One of his dream jobs pursues him in his dreams, though, and it is that of becoming a writer. Despite all the conditions (especially his economical possibilities), he still tries to make his dream a reality.

And Paul’s dream indeed becomes reality in the end, even despite the economic insecurity that writing means for him: when he writes, he cannot earn his living. Unfortunately, however, something does not feel quite right about his novel. Paul is unable to find the source or the reason that makes him feel displeased with the result until his wife decides to speak to him openly. Wisely, she does not tell him how she thinks he should feel about the novel but guides him gently through the process of coming to understand the nature of the “faulty” result on his own, telling him: “Look […], I read somewhere that the novelist’s principal aim is to celebrate life. […] That’s what you do best of all. Every time. Your characters are all naturally vital people. But your main theme never gives them a chance” (MacLennan 387).

Having been asked why he did not set the scene of his book in Canada, at first, he exclaims hastily that “no world trends begin here” (MacLennan 388) and that he “thought of it, but–everything that makes the world what it is–fascism, communism, big business and depressions–they’re all products of other people’s philosophies and ways of doing things. A book about Canada–it would be like writing of the past century!” (MacLennan 388) When Paul realizes that it is impossible to write a book which builds on two old traditions at the same time, making the “essential Canadian clashes” (MacLennan 388) unintelligible for an external reader, he comes to understand that “[t]he background would have to be created from scratch” (MacLennan 388).

This is the moment Paul realizes what power lies—quite literally—in his hands: he is able to create a whole new (Canadian) world. He instantly becomes aware of the fact that he is not afraid to throw the old manuscript into the flames. Heather tries to rescue it, but Paul prevents her from doing so, convinced that one should “[b]urn the mistakes. Otherwise they’ll haunt [one] permanently” (MacLennan 389).

It is quite paradoxical that Paul had to experience the world, especially Europe, do numerous jobs that made him see everyday life as it was and yet he had been unable to see that “[a]n artist has to take life as he finds it” (MacLennan 389). Although the first manuscript did reflect his previous personal experience, which made it livelier than his father’s theoretical writings, it was as if it were not his own. Having internalized the realization, suddenly he could write the second version anew:

"Out of Marius, out of his own life, out of the feeling he had in his bones for his own province and the others surrounding it, the theme of his new book began to emerge. Its outlines grew so clear that his pencil kept moving steadily until three in the morning. He was not formulating sentences; he was drafting the design of a full novel." (MacLennan 400)

The heroic act of burning the first manuscript was worth it. But what makes Paul more of a writer than his father ever was? Barbara Pell suggests yet another interesting interpretation of both Athanaseʼs and Marius’s failure:

"[I]t is French-Canadian puritanism, Jansenism, against which Athanase rebels. As preached by Father Beaubien and sanctified by the late Marie-Adèle Tallard, it is a sexually repressive, life-denying doctrine that has perverted the natural instincts of both Marius and Athanase." (Pell 27)

A Writer or a Hero?

Paul’s father never made the one decisive step that would have made him a real writer: he remained a mere illusion of an author. In Paul’s case, it was also a question at first if he was predetermined to follow both his father’s steps and his mistakes. He began this journey as a regular man facing the challenges of everyday life. These included “fighting” to earn his living, since his father went bankrupt due to his bad business instinct. This made Paul a man of the crowd, disrespected, mocked at, and despised by people in the opposite camp, the owners, and men of big business, like Huntly McQueen.

The second stage of Paul becoming a writer is effectively that of him starting to write. Bringing his lifelong dream of writing to being equals realizing his dream, materializing it or, to put it another way, making it theoretically accessible to the public that the book is intended to affect. This is a stage Paul’s father reached as well. There is one difference between the father and the son, however. Given the external circumstances (and most probably also his personal diffidence), Paul’s father never intended to publish his notes. They only served to show the magnificence and the profusion of his thoughts and his ability to synthesize and remelt other people’s thoughts, making them his own. But this only made him a theoretician of life, actually taking his distance from it. What makes Paul different from his father is the fact that he is not afraid to leave his community, even his country, and go to gather experience in Europe, a continent which is supposed to be the cradle of the culture that gave life to the American continent, including Canada or Quebec. Yet this very same continent might become the grave for his country if Canada just imitates Europe—and there actually was a time when “Canada was imitative in everything” (Mac Lennan 388).

Paul makes one more step that separates him from his father’s misfortune, a step that is necessary for him to become a true writer (and also a true Canadian). When Paul gets rid of the first manuscript which was, in fact, close to his father’s, in the sense of being rather theoretical than based on real life, he becomes a hero. “[D]estroying his first novel set amidst the disintegration of Europe, Paul brings his vision home to Canada.” (Pell 29) This is the moment he refuses “the modern gods of nationalism (represented by Marius) and materialism (typified by McQueen and Sir Rupert Irons)” (Pell 29) as well as “the old Quebec” with whose convictions and obscurantism his father fought so much. Only when refusing to take both old and new false pathways does Paul become a master of his destiny, both as a man and as a writer. Through fully “commit[ting] himself to the unity of Canada” (Pell 29) Paul becomes a “spokesperson for Canadian society” (Creelman 39; allusion rather to MacLennan himself, but with Paul actually assuming the same mission.) and starts to create a space, a home where he can exist in the future.

Yet Paul’s first manuscript was based on real life. But, for a novel to be a truly Canadian one, it needs to be based in Canada and written by a Canadian. “Proust wrote only of France, Dickens laid nearly all his scenes in London, Tolstoi was pure Russian. Hemingway let his heroes roam the world, but everything he wrote smelled of the United States” (MacLennan 387). Only once Paul stops denying his new Canadian identity (which already is a reality) by setting the background of his book in Canada, can he become a true creator of a new world. Paul thus needs to take one more step that separates him from completing his transformation into an independent creator, into a master of his own world.

Man, Sage, God

Before Paul put together the first version of the manuscript, he had been living and working in Europe, getting to know it, gaining priceless life experience that was not available to everybody. Upon returning to Canada, he transformed this experience into the novel he had always dreamt about. However, the book was not a finished idea in his mind, much less one that appeared only after he came back, other vague motives must have been there even before he had left Canada for Europe. At the time of leaving Canada for Europe for the second time, he already finished half of the new version of the novel. This new revised novel becomes the basis of the new home that is supposed to come into existence after the war. Yet, it only seems to be half-built, as it is just “a pile of manuscript two hundred pages high, almost half his book” (MacLennan 432).

As far as Paul’s writing and more specifically the second version of the manuscript are concerned, there is a paradox to be resolved. Throughout the book, Paul seems not to have wanted to accomplish anything more than his book. He undertakes the adventure and the personal commitment to finish the book. Immersed fully in making his dream come true, he was, at first, “forgetting the war, the coming of which had given him the confidence to marry Heather Methuen” (MacLennan 400). His inner reasoning was telling him that “until war came, nothing here would outwardly change. It was just possible—not likely but certainly not inconceivable—that he could beat a world deadline” (MacLennan 400) finishing the book.

As far as finishing his novel is concerned, Paul seems to be unsure about its fate: “‘It’s half‑finished. I may be able to complete it in spite of everything.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe not. I don’t know.’” (MacLennan 433). Yet, on the eve of another conflict that threatens to afflict literally the whole world, Paul’s priorities change and writing suddenly seems of lesser importance. Even though Huntly McQueen—alongside with many others, especially those of the “old generation”—“[has] been confident all along there’ll be no war” (MacLennan 429), the younger generation including Paul “knew that war was coming with the same certainty a flock of birds knows when it will rain” (MacLennan 400), being well aware of the threat swaying over the world, able to hear the rattling sounds of battles to be fought approaching, ready to pay off the “debt” that their fathers’ generation was unable to deal with in World War I. Yet, unlike Marius in World War I, hunted by the troops executing the forced conscription throughout the country, Paul does not have to enlist. He can quietly finish his manuscript back at home if he so wishes.

Paul’s later decision to enlist implies being unable to finish the book before he leaves. Another implication is decidedly that of Paul being sure he is going to get a chance to finish the book later on, after the old debts are paid, after another war, the one in which “Canada would be […] from the beginning” (MacLennan 400), the one in which his bilingual country would fight alongside with her allies as an equal in order to preserve a future for everybody, including himself. Not feeling the urge of finishing the book, Paul acts as a hero who is able to withhold his personal happiness in favor of something greater than his own wishes or his life. He can also be seen as a sage with a stoic attitude to history who feels the responsibility for the higher good, for the welfare of all. Paul thus may be conscious of the fact that, at this turning point of history, the second part of his book would have to be different from the first one, firstly to maintain the realism of the historical moment which gave it life, as “realism allows this time period to define, delimit and map a space then unknown on the international level” (Dodeman 16) and, secondly, to be able to “survive” in the after-war world which would definitely be different from the pre-war one.

The individual as well as the collective sacrifice—i.e. that of Paul as well as his country’s—mean that a new reality will be written, created there, in that Europe that Paul had known in its pre-war spirit, the freed Europe that is worth fighting for, in order to avoid any future needs to repair the damage made by the old generations: this old debt will already be paid off. As Barbara Pell puts it, “[i]n his novel MacLennan still is optimistic that Canadian salvation, like personal salvation, can be achieved through self-knowledge, integrity, and humanist love” (Pell 29).

In the light of what has been shown above, Madeline LaRue arguing that “perhaps the novelist’s god-like power is confined to the world of the novel alone and cannot be extrapolated” (LaRue 15) can be easily disagreed with. First of all, Paul ascends to the god-like position of the writer and although he is a “mere character”, he is able of Creation, just like other authors, or God himself, were before him. Secondly, his acquired wisdom gives him the certitude that he does not need to be afraid of enlisting and fighting in the war; though the idea is not expressed explicitly, he seems to be sure of coming back unharmed. Is that not an ability of old gods casting the present-day human minds back to the old mythical times (cf. Creelman 38–50) where the then gods not only created the world but also participated in wars and other typically human events of life?

God, Sage, Man

Paul might be sent to the war to become one of God’s many instruments to reconcile both sides of the conflict, breeding faith in the restoration of peace. With this God-like experience of a creator, the war hero will be coming home without the deleterious convictions of the past, looking forward into the free future (re)creation of the post-war world.

The circle of creation would thus become complete, as the novel’s character’s book would become parallel to its own writer’s creation: just as the second part of MacLennan’s novel could be seen as a “new solitude” in the novel’s structure, having little in common with the first part. The parallel might then be extended in the sense that if the second part of MacLennan’s novel is disconnected, to a certain extent, from the first part, separating the pre-World War I world from the post-war one, Paul’s novel does the same in the case of World War II. Passing for “a writer with an almost uncanny knack of catching the nation’s pulse at a particular moment in time” (Keith 172) in this sense, then is not only a characteristic feature of MacLennan himself but also that of his closest character, Paul Tallard.

Being a writer may be a solitary mission: despite having met a lot of people, Paul led, in fact, a solitary life. Upon his return, he is an experienced man who has witnessed a lot, possibly more than an average human’s mind can digest. As the hero or sage that he has become, he is able to give hope, share his wisdom and experience with people around him – both in the real world and, by means of writing, through the fictional world. In terms of his ability to fight his solitude by means of becoming a writer, Paul Tallard is decidedly the most successful character in the novel who now seems to understand the inevitability of the fate and thus accepts that there is a greater demiurge than himself. When this war hero crosses the ocean and becomes a regular man anew, he may, recalling his highly valuable “European experience”, finish the missing pages of the novel in making, this time in peace, enriched with experience, endowed with a mission to help create the new, post-war reality.

 

Works Cited


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