The Manuscripts Of Pauline Archange

Paradoxes and insights, respect and compassion, satire, fantasy, and violence all perfectly blended by an extraordinary power for storytelling.

The Manuscripts of Pauline Archange is the story of Pauline and her world, a world in which people turn to violence or sink into quiet despair, a world as damned as that of Baudelaire or Jean Genet. In it we see Pauline and all the members of her family, her schoolmates, teachers, and friends – driven by tempestuous individual imperatives and the social deprivation they encounter – portrayed with a reality that neither poetry nor dreams nor Pauline’s fantasies can weaken.

This extraordinary story is characterized by paradoxes and insights, and the harshness of Pauline’s world is a blend of social, religious, and moral pressures that create the underlying texture of satire, fantasy, energy, and lyricism which makes this book a great and memorable read.

Durer’s Angel (Les apparences) was Marie-Claire Blais’ intended “third book” to follow the powerful and imaginative Manuscripts of Pauline Archange (which included the second book Vivre! Vivre!).