Friday 25 June 2010

In French with English words

I wonder if my blog is not a blog written in French, sometimes with English words. I was thinking about it reading The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi, which I blogged about recently. The play, a brilliant work, which owns to Beckett as much as it does to Kafka and Ionesco, has been qualified as a play "en français avec des mots anglais" (in French with English words). I am not trying to be immodest here. I understand perfectly that this blog doesn't own anything to the great writers mentioned above, it is not their heir, it has nothing of the genius of Larry Tremblay's play. But it has the same cultural background: it is written by a guy who grew up in Chicoutimi and now thinks (often) in English. The mistakes I make, the barbarisms, the clumsy expressions, it is all due to my culture. It is almost part of the style. Furthermore, my sensibilities, the things I care about, my vision of life, all these things influence my writing in a foreign language. So reading the play, I started forgetting the sense of guilt I sometimes have blogging in English. Because I do not blog in English. I blog in French, Quebec French, Saguenay French, Chicoutimi French even, using English words.

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