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The Road Past Altamont
First published in French in 1966, The Road Past Altamont pierces to the heart of a child's world, craeting a delicate, yet substantial network of impressions, emotions, and relationships. In her writing, Gabrielle Roy allowed "nothing extraneous or false to stand," according to the translator, Joyce Marshall. The literary style of Roy, whose fiction reflects her childhood on the Canadian prairie, has often been compared to that of Willa Cather.
The Road Past Altamont takes a sensitive French-Canadian girl, Christine, from childhood innocence to maturity. Four connected stories reveal profound moments during her early years in the vastness of Manitoba. Christine's testament to Grandmother's creative power, her great adventure with an old gentleman at Lake Winnipeg and her clandestine one with a crude family of movers, her journey through time and space with aging Maman—all these characters and events convey Gabrielle Roy's preoccupation with childhood and old age, the passage of time and mystery of change, and the artist's relation to the world.
The Road Past Altamont takes a sensitive French-Canadian girl, Christine, from childhood innocence to maturity. Four connected stories reveal profound moments during her early years in the vastness of Manitoba. Christine's testament to Grandmother's creative power, her great adventure with an old gentleman at Lake Winnipeg and her clandestine one with a crude family of movers, her journey through time and space with aging Maman—all these characters and events convey Gabrielle Roy's preoccupation with childhood and old age, the passage of time and mystery of change, and the artist's relation to the world.
154 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1966
12 people are currently reading
264 people want to read
About the author
Gabrielle Roy
55 books114 followersGabrielle Roy was born in March 1909 in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, the youngest of eleven children. Her mother and father, then, were relatively old at the time of her birth -- 42 and 59 respectively. Like Christine's father in Rue Deschambault (Street of Riches), Léon Roy worked as a colonisation officer for the Department of Immigration, a position he held between 1897 and 1915. His politically motivated dismissal occurred six months before his retirement, thus leaving Roy with no pension to support his family. The family's financial predicament during Gabrielle's youth precluded any chance of her attending university, despite having earned stellar marks throughout high school which put her as one of the top students in the entire province. In 1927, after graduating from grade twelve, she enrolled at the Winnipeg Normal Institute where she completed her teacher training.
After teaching in the rural communities of Marchand and Cardinal, where she taught for a year, Roy returned to Saint-Boniface. There she accepted a teaching job at the Académie Provencher boy's school, a position she held from 1930-37. During this period, Roy began actively pursuing her interest in acting and joined the Cercle Molière theatre troupe. Her experiences as an actor inspired her to leave her teaching position and travel to Europe to study drama. Spending between 1937 and 1939 in Britain and France, the fluently bilingual Roy studied acting for six months before concluding that she did not desire to pursue a career in the theatre. In the meantime, she had also begun to write articles about Canada for newspapers in Paris and pieces on Europe for newspapers in Manitoba and came to realize that writing could be her vocation.
Over the course of her lengthy and prolific career, Gabrielle Roy received many honours, including three Governor General's Awards (1947, 1957, 1978), the Prix Fémina (1947), the Companion of the Order of Canada (1967), the Medal of the Canada Council (1968), the Prix David (1971), and the Prix Molson (1978).
After teaching in the rural communities of Marchand and Cardinal, where she taught for a year, Roy returned to Saint-Boniface. There she accepted a teaching job at the Académie Provencher boy's school, a position she held from 1930-37. During this period, Roy began actively pursuing her interest in acting and joined the Cercle Molière theatre troupe. Her experiences as an actor inspired her to leave her teaching position and travel to Europe to study drama. Spending between 1937 and 1939 in Britain and France, the fluently bilingual Roy studied acting for six months before concluding that she did not desire to pursue a career in the theatre. In the meantime, she had also begun to write articles about Canada for newspapers in Paris and pieces on Europe for newspapers in Manitoba and came to realize that writing could be her vocation.
Over the course of her lengthy and prolific career, Gabrielle Roy received many honours, including three Governor General's Awards (1947, 1957, 1978), the Prix Fémina (1947), the Companion of the Order of Canada (1967), the Medal of the Canada Council (1968), the Prix David (1971), and the Prix Molson (1978).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
May 8, 2025
This is a wonderful old-fashioned coming-of-age-themed group of stories about a young francophone girl - her name is Christine - growing up in lonely, windswept, pioneering Manitoba at the turn of the twentieth century.
Her soul is so sensitive and her little life so harrowing at times, that she knows in her heart that she has someday to WRITE about it. Put it ALL out on the table!
For Christine IS the late, greatly-esteemed author - and her own creator - Gabrielle Roy.
I read this book one summer on our front porch as my wife busied herself with her beautiful flower and veggie garden.
From time to time we’d talk, or greet passing neighbours with a smile and a wave, and then I would once again lazily dip into this sad heart-full-of-soul book - and think how our lives were now so swiftly passing.
My eyesight is growing dim, so the bright sunlight helped my reading enormously.
Already it was August, and in Central Canada we’d only had clement weather since early June. “Eheu, fugace, Postume, Postume!” Alas, the years pass by swiftly, my friend Posthumus (and, oh, what graceful irony there is in Horace’s great poems)!
So I read and read, those cherished and now-lamented late summer days, about Christine’s beloved grandmother, whom Christine’s mother confided was starting to lose it and HAD to come live with them.
A no-nonsense life, that!
And so Mom hauled Christine’s old bewildered Granny to their place one memorable day in early Autumn by trolley, when the first frost was on the apples...
Yes, it’s sad.
But Christine’s young life is also filled with remarkable adventures!
One day an elderly man, who is a stranger to the surprised Christine, is headed on a trip to the Great Sea (our enormous Lake Winnipeg, so perverse with its terrible springtime flooding habits)! And guess what? Christine tags along...
Well, it’s a long way, and of course Mom is frantic with worry - but Christine returns home safely, her head full of dreams.
You see why Roy is one of our greatest storytellers?
Why we’re so proud of her in this Great, still somewhat Uncharted, Northland?
And how every changing mood in Christine, her family, and the strangers she meets - is transmuted into the pure, evocatively plaintive, and nostalgic prose of a master?
You have to read this book, if you love to dwell on somewhat hazy and slightly-sad memories of your long-lost childhood, with all of its novel - and often brutally jarring - experiences of attaining maturity.
And this recent translation does Roy proud.
If you order it, delivery from Canada may be slow - but it’s eminently worth the wait.
And I recommend you do.
Her soul is so sensitive and her little life so harrowing at times, that she knows in her heart that she has someday to WRITE about it. Put it ALL out on the table!
For Christine IS the late, greatly-esteemed author - and her own creator - Gabrielle Roy.
I read this book one summer on our front porch as my wife busied herself with her beautiful flower and veggie garden.
From time to time we’d talk, or greet passing neighbours with a smile and a wave, and then I would once again lazily dip into this sad heart-full-of-soul book - and think how our lives were now so swiftly passing.
My eyesight is growing dim, so the bright sunlight helped my reading enormously.
Already it was August, and in Central Canada we’d only had clement weather since early June. “Eheu, fugace, Postume, Postume!” Alas, the years pass by swiftly, my friend Posthumus (and, oh, what graceful irony there is in Horace’s great poems)!
So I read and read, those cherished and now-lamented late summer days, about Christine’s beloved grandmother, whom Christine’s mother confided was starting to lose it and HAD to come live with them.
A no-nonsense life, that!
And so Mom hauled Christine’s old bewildered Granny to their place one memorable day in early Autumn by trolley, when the first frost was on the apples...
Yes, it’s sad.
But Christine’s young life is also filled with remarkable adventures!
One day an elderly man, who is a stranger to the surprised Christine, is headed on a trip to the Great Sea (our enormous Lake Winnipeg, so perverse with its terrible springtime flooding habits)! And guess what? Christine tags along...
Well, it’s a long way, and of course Mom is frantic with worry - but Christine returns home safely, her head full of dreams.
You see why Roy is one of our greatest storytellers?
Why we’re so proud of her in this Great, still somewhat Uncharted, Northland?
And how every changing mood in Christine, her family, and the strangers she meets - is transmuted into the pure, evocatively plaintive, and nostalgic prose of a master?
You have to read this book, if you love to dwell on somewhat hazy and slightly-sad memories of your long-lost childhood, with all of its novel - and often brutally jarring - experiences of attaining maturity.
And this recent translation does Roy proud.
If you order it, delivery from Canada may be slow - but it’s eminently worth the wait.
And I recommend you do.
March 11, 2008
I gave my mom a matching copy for Mother's Day. I am extremely fond of this book, as it manages to convey mother/daughter relationships in a manner much more poignant than any Lifetime special or copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul (and it's so easy for tales of this kind to devolve into these). Our narrator is reliable, grasping and understanding her own flaws with no concern for making herself unnecessarily sympathetic. And yet she is. Everyone can relate to her moments of youthful capriciousness, and everyone can follow her journey to make meaning of her history. It's difficult to for mothers and daughters to understand each other, but after a lifetime, these two manage. I gave it to my mom as a promise and perhaps a reflection on our own relationship. This book wormed right to my heart, and I couldn't recommend it enough.
February 23, 2012
Four interconnected short stories dripping with melancholy. The narrator is said to be a fictive character from an earlier novel "Street of Riches" but I haven't read anything else of Gabrielle Roy yet except her most famous work, "The Tin Flute."
The first story, "My Almighty Grandmother," has the narrator at six years of age. From her eyes we see her old grandmother with her dimming eyesight, failing memory and a host of other infirmities. The girl, her mother and her grandmother: three women of the same bloodline separated by generations. The girl hears her mother ask her grandmother, when the two thought they were alone--"When one reaches your age, Maman, what does life seem to be?" The old woman answers: "A dream, my daughter, not much more than a dream."
The second story, "The Old Man and the Child," has the same girl, her grandmother already dead. This is now about an old gentleman neighbor who lives alone by himself, separated from his own kin, and the beautiful Lake Winnipeg (in Manitoba, Canada where Gabrielle Roy was born in 1909) he had seen countless times when he was much younger and how he made it possible for the girl-narrator to see it for the first time.
The third story carries a chess-sounding title, "The Move." But no, it's not about my favorite game. It's about going places, the oft-repeated story of the child's mother about her trips on a wagon, across the vast Canadian prairie, in the old days when she was just a child, then the child's own attempt to discover the same joy her mother had, her disillusionment that came afterwards, this "terrible distress of the heart." And when she confesses to her mother of what she had done and had found, the mother was in anguish. She knew, one day, her daughter too will leave to find her own place in the world.
The book's title is lifted from the last story, "The Road Past Altamont." The narrator is now a full-grown woman and her mother now old like her grandmother in the first story. They now live oceans apart but the daughter has come for a visit. Together, on a trip, they saw--or they thought they saw--the little hills the mother had known as a little girl. And there, seeing her mother painstakingly climb one of these hills with her 70-year-old legs, she asks herself:
"...(W)hy is it that a human being knows no greater happiness in old age than to find in himself once more the face he wore as a child? Wouldn't this be rather an infinitely cruel thing? Whence comes the happiness of such an encounter? Perhaps, full of pity for the vanished youthful soul, the aged soul calls to it tenderly across the years, like an echo. 'See,' it says, 'I can still feel what you felt...love what you loved...' And the echo undoubtedly answers something...but what?"
The first story, "My Almighty Grandmother," has the narrator at six years of age. From her eyes we see her old grandmother with her dimming eyesight, failing memory and a host of other infirmities. The girl, her mother and her grandmother: three women of the same bloodline separated by generations. The girl hears her mother ask her grandmother, when the two thought they were alone--"When one reaches your age, Maman, what does life seem to be?" The old woman answers: "A dream, my daughter, not much more than a dream."
The second story, "The Old Man and the Child," has the same girl, her grandmother already dead. This is now about an old gentleman neighbor who lives alone by himself, separated from his own kin, and the beautiful Lake Winnipeg (in Manitoba, Canada where Gabrielle Roy was born in 1909) he had seen countless times when he was much younger and how he made it possible for the girl-narrator to see it for the first time.
The third story carries a chess-sounding title, "The Move." But no, it's not about my favorite game. It's about going places, the oft-repeated story of the child's mother about her trips on a wagon, across the vast Canadian prairie, in the old days when she was just a child, then the child's own attempt to discover the same joy her mother had, her disillusionment that came afterwards, this "terrible distress of the heart." And when she confesses to her mother of what she had done and had found, the mother was in anguish. She knew, one day, her daughter too will leave to find her own place in the world.
The book's title is lifted from the last story, "The Road Past Altamont." The narrator is now a full-grown woman and her mother now old like her grandmother in the first story. They now live oceans apart but the daughter has come for a visit. Together, on a trip, they saw--or they thought they saw--the little hills the mother had known as a little girl. And there, seeing her mother painstakingly climb one of these hills with her 70-year-old legs, she asks herself:
"...(W)hy is it that a human being knows no greater happiness in old age than to find in himself once more the face he wore as a child? Wouldn't this be rather an infinitely cruel thing? Whence comes the happiness of such an encounter? Perhaps, full of pity for the vanished youthful soul, the aged soul calls to it tenderly across the years, like an echo. 'See,' it says, 'I can still feel what you felt...love what you loved...' And the echo undoubtedly answers something...but what?"
March 18, 2019
The four stories in this short book are connected, not only by the main character at different points in her life, but also thematically with the exploration of change, aging and how we relate to and understand our elders. I feel like this is the kind of book that, were you to re-read it over the years, would reveal very different things each time. I was particularly moved by the second story, "The Old Man and the Child," and its combination of journey, the lake and a helping of beach-side philosophy. But the whole book is gentle and sad and sweet and poignant and lyrical. And the translation is excellent.
November 29, 2022
"Sometimes a strange question rose from within me, as if from the bottom of a well: What are you doing here? Then I would cast my eyes around me. I would try to attach myself to something, familiar to me yesterday, in this world that was fleeing from me. But the troubling sense persisted that I was here only by chance and that I had to discover the place in the world, as yet unknown to me, where I might feel rather more at home. The thought, seemingly so trivial and yet disturbing, accompanied me everywhere: This is over. This is no longer your place. Now you are a stranger here."
Found the story a little dry at times, but it had its striking moments. Overall, the strength of Roy's writing still made it a worthwhile read.
3.5/5
Found the story a little dry at times, but it had its striking moments. Overall, the strength of Roy's writing still made it a worthwhile read.
3.5/5
February 15, 2015
So this is one of those largely forgotten books that you read and then think, “why the hell aren’t more people reading this”.
It’s more than a coming of age story. It’s about life.
Go find it.
It’s more than a coming of age story. It’s about life.
Go find it.
February 13, 2023
This little 150 page book felt a dozen times longer than so many 800 pagers I’ve devoured. The author refuses to let readers draw their own lessons from the events and instead over-philosophizes absolutely everything. Overwrought, and dull as those endless prairies she discusses.
May 1, 2021
A sweet gentle book about life. The book goes into childhood and old age plus in between. The book is short, contains four sections about the life of Christine, from childhood until she is getting ready to go travelling to many places. It contains much philosophy about life and how one's philosophy changes as one grows old. Some very interesting and fascinating philosophy. How life changes, yet stays the same.
The book begins when Christine is six and is sent to visit her grandmother in her Manitoba village. Her grandmother wants Christine to visit, the little girl is worried, Grandmother believes in cleanliness, discipline, and order. Grandmother is living by herself, she has many grandchildren too busy to visit, very quick visits. The village is on the the prairie. Christine is bored as is Grandmother. But the two enjoy each other's company. Grandmother makes her granddaughter a doll. This doll is made from so many different pieces and parts. Grandma throws nothing away, but puts everything to use. Store bought stuff is just cheap junk. Christine is fascinated by her grandmother, so old, so talented. Mother, Eveline, worries about her mother living there all alone when she could be living with the family. She goes to the village, Grandmother has planted a garden, will have many vegetables, Eveline says at your age, mother, you should be resting not planting vegetables to feed everyone. Finally, Grandmother is talked into living with family. Christine thinks Grandma was wonderful, she can do anything. She was a beautiful woman when she was married, Maman tells Christine.
Two years later Grandmother is dead, Christine is disconsolate, unhappy. She plays around the neighborhood, meets an elderly gentleman. Christine is eight, the gentleman over eighty. A widower, children too busy to visit. The two become good friends. He has traveled much, Christine travels in her imagination. Then the elderly gentleman invites her to take a trip to Lake Winnipeg where she has never been nor has her mother who doesn't have enough time to go. Christine loves this big body of water, comes home and tells her mom how fascinating it is, so big, so great, so wonderful. She raves on and on.
Now eleven, Christine has a friend, Florence, who is a mover. Every Saturday Florence goes with her father to move people from one home to another. Christine is so envious. She would love to see different areas around the city. So early one morning she sneaks off to go with the movers She meets a poor family dragging one load of furniture to another old house. Christine sees what a sorry job this would be to have. Very depressing and dreary. Nobody looks happy. She finds she is so lucky to have a nice, big home to live in.
Christine is grown, she drives her mother to visit her brothers ranch. Christine loves the prairie country where she was born, she loves its wide, open spaces. Eveline misses the hill country where she was born. Christine feels it is too closed in. One time, when Christine was driving her mother away from her uncle's ranch, she comes across hill country in southern Manitoba, the Pembina Mountains, the tiny town of Altamont. Maman was delighted, so much like home, she got out of the car to climb around the hills.
I heard of this book from Fergus, a Canadian, who recommended the book as one of the best of Canadian women writers. I loved the characters talking of their philosophies of life. Ms Roy gets into the minds and hearts of her characters and of the world around them. This book needs to be read, it is hard to review. I read one of Ms Roy's books when I was very young, but never this one until now.
The book begins when Christine is six and is sent to visit her grandmother in her Manitoba village. Her grandmother wants Christine to visit, the little girl is worried, Grandmother believes in cleanliness, discipline, and order. Grandmother is living by herself, she has many grandchildren too busy to visit, very quick visits. The village is on the the prairie. Christine is bored as is Grandmother. But the two enjoy each other's company. Grandmother makes her granddaughter a doll. This doll is made from so many different pieces and parts. Grandma throws nothing away, but puts everything to use. Store bought stuff is just cheap junk. Christine is fascinated by her grandmother, so old, so talented. Mother, Eveline, worries about her mother living there all alone when she could be living with the family. She goes to the village, Grandmother has planted a garden, will have many vegetables, Eveline says at your age, mother, you should be resting not planting vegetables to feed everyone. Finally, Grandmother is talked into living with family. Christine thinks Grandma was wonderful, she can do anything. She was a beautiful woman when she was married, Maman tells Christine.
Two years later Grandmother is dead, Christine is disconsolate, unhappy. She plays around the neighborhood, meets an elderly gentleman. Christine is eight, the gentleman over eighty. A widower, children too busy to visit. The two become good friends. He has traveled much, Christine travels in her imagination. Then the elderly gentleman invites her to take a trip to Lake Winnipeg where she has never been nor has her mother who doesn't have enough time to go. Christine loves this big body of water, comes home and tells her mom how fascinating it is, so big, so great, so wonderful. She raves on and on.
Now eleven, Christine has a friend, Florence, who is a mover. Every Saturday Florence goes with her father to move people from one home to another. Christine is so envious. She would love to see different areas around the city. So early one morning she sneaks off to go with the movers She meets a poor family dragging one load of furniture to another old house. Christine sees what a sorry job this would be to have. Very depressing and dreary. Nobody looks happy. She finds she is so lucky to have a nice, big home to live in.
Christine is grown, she drives her mother to visit her brothers ranch. Christine loves the prairie country where she was born, she loves its wide, open spaces. Eveline misses the hill country where she was born. Christine feels it is too closed in. One time, when Christine was driving her mother away from her uncle's ranch, she comes across hill country in southern Manitoba, the Pembina Mountains, the tiny town of Altamont. Maman was delighted, so much like home, she got out of the car to climb around the hills.
I heard of this book from Fergus, a Canadian, who recommended the book as one of the best of Canadian women writers. I loved the characters talking of their philosophies of life. Ms Roy gets into the minds and hearts of her characters and of the world around them. This book needs to be read, it is hard to review. I read one of Ms Roy's books when I was very young, but never this one until now.
June 15, 2007
A little slow getting started, but the final story is exquisite and deeply moving.
How well I remember that year of my life, the last perhaps when I lived quite close to people and things, not yet somewhat withdrawn, as happens inevitably when one yields to the intention to set things down in words. Everything still existed simply for me that year, because of the precise and reasonable duties that stitched me to life.... Seldom since then have I been able to return completely to this or to see things and human beings otherwise than through word, once I had learned to use them as fragile bridges for exploration.... I became by degrees a sort of watcher over thoughts and human beings, and this passion, however sincere, uses up the insouciance that is needed for life.
How well I remember that year of my life, the last perhaps when I lived quite close to people and things, not yet somewhat withdrawn, as happens inevitably when one yields to the intention to set things down in words. Everything still existed simply for me that year, because of the precise and reasonable duties that stitched me to life.... Seldom since then have I been able to return completely to this or to see things and human beings otherwise than through word, once I had learned to use them as fragile bridges for exploration.... I became by degrees a sort of watcher over thoughts and human beings, and this passion, however sincere, uses up the insouciance that is needed for life.
December 11, 2014
Ethereal quality to some of Ms Roy's writing. Excellent wordsmithing. Qualities I enjoy very much.
Set in my home province of Manitoba, Canada, this is one of Ms Roy's classics. Featuring 3 segments of Christine's life - an emotionally evocative childhood stay with her maternal grandmother;
an affirming friendship with an elderly neighbour; reflective adulthood with her aging mother prior to leaving for Paris and the afterward.
Inspired to look for more by Gabrielle Roy.
Canada travelled for GiraffeDays.com
Manitoba Canada location 3/80 for AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BOOKS
Set in my home province of Manitoba, Canada, this is one of Ms Roy's classics. Featuring 3 segments of Christine's life - an emotionally evocative childhood stay with her maternal grandmother;
an affirming friendship with an elderly neighbour; reflective adulthood with her aging mother prior to leaving for Paris and the afterward.
Inspired to look for more by Gabrielle Roy.
Canada travelled for GiraffeDays.com
Manitoba Canada location 3/80 for AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BOOKS
January 8, 2013
I took an entire literature course this past semester solely on Gabrielle Roy's works and this was the only book out of the seven we read that I truly enjoyed. The first two stories were my favorite, although, emotionally speaking, they are extremely difficult to read. I couldn't get through either without crying.
I found these short stories to be brutally honest about difficult experiences we all have or will have and to portray the characters as utterly, vulnerably human. Yet Roy also beautifully writes of the personal growth the characters journey through as a result of these events.
I found these short stories to be brutally honest about difficult experiences we all have or will have and to portray the characters as utterly, vulnerably human. Yet Roy also beautifully writes of the personal growth the characters journey through as a result of these events.
September 21, 2020
Great book for intermediate French readers! Some challenging words and turns of phrases, but I still managed to get a clear understanding of the story, and a beautiful story it was! I genuinely looked forward to practicing my French everyday with this book as the cornerstone!
July 22, 2016
This book feels as if it holds a piece of me. A small, melancholy remembrance of a life I never lived but still resides close to my heart
July 1, 2022
Altamont, Manitoba is only 3 1/2 hours from my house as I found out on Google Maps. In this book, that is somewhat of a sequel to her earlier book, STREET OF RICHES, Roy tells four stories of Christine's exploring other parts of Manitoba beyond the street she covered in the earlier book. Both books would overlap and could both be considered coming-of-age novels. The four key longer stories in this book include Christine visiting her grandmother on her farm as a 6-year old; a visit as an 8-year old to Lake Winnipeg with a lonely 80 year old man who she often talks with as they consider life from their different perspectives; a day spent helping a neighbor helping a family move from one part of Winnipeg to another by horse-drawn cart; and finally, a day trip that Christine and her mother took to the Pembina Mountains and the village of Altamont as Christine gets ready for far wider travels. The book is a gentle exploration of place, family, and life in general. The two books have the same key personalities but can be read easily without the other.
September 10, 2017
This is a slim little volume of classic Canadian short stories by Gabrielle Roy. It is translated from the original French and, although I am often leery of translated works, the fact that Roy worked very closely with the translator gives me tremendous confidence that the stories communicate the true intentions and craft of the author. The stories in this collection follow a single narrator from childhood to middle age. They all left me with a pleasant melancholy feeling, making me think of the people that have travelled in and out of my own life, from former close friends that have drifted away to those chance encounters with strangers that can stick with you for years. Most of the stories are firmly centred in Winnipeg and along the Lake Winnipeg shire, and even though I do not know those places very well personally, I believe that the stories are true to their setting. My favourite story of this collection is the one that gives its title to the volume, "The Road Past Altamont." It is also firmly set in its place, but it's place is not a locality, but the wide ranging western Canadian Prairies. The story makes me think of long drives on secondary highways and range and township roads across the prairies and the small communities and sometimes surprising landscapes that are encountered. Reminding me of the things that I have come to appreciate of the western Canadian geography was not likely Roy's intention with this story, but that is what it did for me and that is what makes that story, and the collection on the whole, very memorable to me.
April 24, 2021
La route d’Altamont is one of those quiet but profound books. It is fashioned as a book of memories, but it is a philosophical work centered around a theme dear to Roy’s nomadic heart: journey. Every character in this four-story cycle has le mal du départ.
We read memories of the narrator’s grandmother, then of the narrator’s childhood friendship with an elderly neighbor, then of a curious girl’s trip across town on a mover’s carriage and finally, the narrator’s travel across the plains with her now elderly mother. Each of these parts describes a travel experience in life’s extreme ends (the early and the late one) which of course goes beyond geographical: a child yearns to travel in order to discover the world, the old person - to go back to oneself, to what’s essential. These journeys frame human life and provide Roy with a way to look into the eternal questions of aging, death, life and love.
We read memories of the narrator’s grandmother, then of the narrator’s childhood friendship with an elderly neighbor, then of a curious girl’s trip across town on a mover’s carriage and finally, the narrator’s travel across the plains with her now elderly mother. Each of these parts describes a travel experience in life’s extreme ends (the early and the late one) which of course goes beyond geographical: a child yearns to travel in order to discover the world, the old person - to go back to oneself, to what’s essential. These journeys frame human life and provide Roy with a way to look into the eternal questions of aging, death, life and love.
May 1, 2015
Gabrielle Roy writes about Manitoba, the French immigrants and their families in the lovely, short novel. Really loved experiencing a girl's growing up years in a small town outside of Winnipeg and the older folks who were her family and friends. In translation it was very good, and in French it would be even better I bet.
December 11, 2016
Nostalgia & wanderlust fight a gentle yet relentless battle in this poignant, contemplative story. It slowly but inevitably traces the circle of life across four stories, offers no easy answers, but a great many poetic, soul-searching questions. There's a great deal of power in this little volume.
June 25, 2018
Poetic language accurately describing the Prairies and life on them. Gentle tender stories of Christine as she grows up. I truly enjoyed the writing. The stories for plot were not exciting but yet were rich with insight and delight with the simpler things in life. Highly recommend and I will continue to read more of her works.
August 6, 2019
Four connected stories that take Christine from her young childhood to maturity. I couldn't help but think that they must have been at least somewhat semi-biographical, reflecting the author's youth in French settlements in Manitoba, Canada.
I was enthralled by Roy's gentle storytelling.
Translated from French.
I was enthralled by Roy's gentle storytelling.
Translated from French.
August 28, 2020
A fantastic book with exquisite and vivid descriptions. I’m reading this book for a Canadian literature class.
I love how she describes the process of aging as cyclical. Each story can stand independently on its own, but as a whole, it builds upon each other to create the evolution of the narration.
I love how she describes the process of aging as cyclical. Each story can stand independently on its own, but as a whole, it builds upon each other to create the evolution of the narration.
November 18, 2015
I didn't know it was possible to say so much about so little.
The narrative is simple, but very contemplative. It leaves in you part of the author's sensitivity to the world and its mysteries. It took me a while to finish this book(over a year).
The narrative is simple, but very contemplative. It leaves in you part of the author's sensitivity to the world and its mysteries. It took me a while to finish this book(over a year).
February 21, 2018
Beautiful. So, so beautiful.
“All joy is so mysterious that I am always most conscious in its presence of the clumsiness of words and the impiety of wishing to be always analyzing, trying to take the human heart by surprise” (118).
“All joy is so mysterious that I am always most conscious in its presence of the clumsiness of words and the impiety of wishing to be always analyzing, trying to take the human heart by surprise” (118).
February 27, 2025
Coup de cœur. Larmes ici et là.
« Maman : Quand on arrive à votre âge, maman, comment donc apparaît la vie?
Grand-mère : Un rêve, ma fille, pas beaucoup plus qu'un rêve. »
Mention spéciale à tous les « wow » que j'ai écrits dans les marges de ce livre.
« Maman : Quand on arrive à votre âge, maman, comment donc apparaît la vie?
Grand-mère : Un rêve, ma fille, pas beaucoup plus qu'un rêve. »
Mention spéciale à tous les « wow » que j'ai écrits dans les marges de ce livre.
December 11, 2020
Outstanding, unforgettable, and amazingly short for what it accomplishes.
February 16, 2023
This book came to me from a friend in Canada and spoke to me of my childhood on the Canadian prairies and of my Canadian mother. It also spoke to me to some extent of my paternal grandmother, whom I have only realized since they have both passed was much like my mother -- probably the reason they were often at odds with each other. This book is a collection of stories or vignettes from the life of Christine -- each capable of standing alone, but together creating a collage of a solitary soul.
The first story, My Almighty Grandmother, took me back to time I spent with my paternal grandmother as a child, one-on-one time when she created something out of nothing and when I was sent into the secret nooks and crannies of her house to find the scraps and remnants of previous moments in her life. It also took me to watching her care for her elderly parents in their own home, when they were old enough to be querolous and demanding and she was old enough to be patient and accepting but still young enough to be tolerant.
The second story, The Old Man and the Child, reminded me of the bond that can exist between the very young and the very old when both are seeing in each other what once was and what will be. I was reminded of time with my grandmother and her parents as a child, of their love of water and of the lake that was substituted in their middle years for the English Sea of their youth. I also was reminded of the flavor of the prairie, the breathlessness of summer heat when one longs for winter's chill and the frigid paralysis of winter when one longs for the summer sun, and of the scarcity of water and the need for careful husbandry of resources.
The third story, The Move, captured the restlessness within me of my parents -- my father having grown up between two homes and then some with divorced parents in the 1940s and my mother who left her Canadian roots to marry him before a brief return in my childhood and subsequent departure. My mother spoke often of being neither at home in Canada nor in the US and of the longing for the childhood memories and her impatience with the restless soul of my father that was inherited by her children.
The final story, The Road Past Altamont, took me back to the last time I visited my mother's Alberta childhood home and watched her walk the farmland and her emotional connection to those memories. I also was reminded of my childhood -- the Alberta foothills which had more variety than the flatter portions of the prairies; the way people exclaimed over our "view of the Rockies" although they were but an inch or so high on our horizon; the long miles of road between one remote location and another. The longing expressed by Christine's Maman for the hills of her childhood was an echo of the way my own mother often spoke of the prairie farmland of her youth which was also another world far away.
This book is lyrically written and full of powerful emotion which connects to some of the most sentimental images within my soul that I seldom take the time to look at. I cannot guarantee that another reader would feel the same connection to the world within these stories, but I feel fairly certain that they would feel something and would likely connect again with at least some of the deepest and dearest memories of their younger years.
The first story, My Almighty Grandmother, took me back to time I spent with my paternal grandmother as a child, one-on-one time when she created something out of nothing and when I was sent into the secret nooks and crannies of her house to find the scraps and remnants of previous moments in her life. It also took me to watching her care for her elderly parents in their own home, when they were old enough to be querolous and demanding and she was old enough to be patient and accepting but still young enough to be tolerant.
The second story, The Old Man and the Child, reminded me of the bond that can exist between the very young and the very old when both are seeing in each other what once was and what will be. I was reminded of time with my grandmother and her parents as a child, of their love of water and of the lake that was substituted in their middle years for the English Sea of their youth. I also was reminded of the flavor of the prairie, the breathlessness of summer heat when one longs for winter's chill and the frigid paralysis of winter when one longs for the summer sun, and of the scarcity of water and the need for careful husbandry of resources.
The third story, The Move, captured the restlessness within me of my parents -- my father having grown up between two homes and then some with divorced parents in the 1940s and my mother who left her Canadian roots to marry him before a brief return in my childhood and subsequent departure. My mother spoke often of being neither at home in Canada nor in the US and of the longing for the childhood memories and her impatience with the restless soul of my father that was inherited by her children.
The final story, The Road Past Altamont, took me back to the last time I visited my mother's Alberta childhood home and watched her walk the farmland and her emotional connection to those memories. I also was reminded of my childhood -- the Alberta foothills which had more variety than the flatter portions of the prairies; the way people exclaimed over our "view of the Rockies" although they were but an inch or so high on our horizon; the long miles of road between one remote location and another. The longing expressed by Christine's Maman for the hills of her childhood was an echo of the way my own mother often spoke of the prairie farmland of her youth which was also another world far away.
This book is lyrically written and full of powerful emotion which connects to some of the most sentimental images within my soul that I seldom take the time to look at. I cannot guarantee that another reader would feel the same connection to the world within these stories, but I feel fairly certain that they would feel something and would likely connect again with at least some of the deepest and dearest memories of their younger years.
November 7, 2020
3,75!
J'ai bien aimé ce beau classique québécois. Gabrielle Roy est une auteure ma foi fantastique. Décrivant 4 moments importants de la vie de Christine, ce roman nous permet de comprendre la vie difficile, l'impact du passé sur notre futur, des gens que nous avons croisés, la famille.
"Ma grand-mère toute puissante" décrit l'importance de la famille, de par la relation entre une petite fille de 8 ans et sa grand-mère. Ensemble, elles fabriquent une catin avec des restes de souvenirs trouvés un peu partout dans la maison.
"Le vieillard et l'enfant" nous démontre l'importance d'avoir des relations avec des gens qui peuvent nous enseigner quelque chose. En fait, ça nous démontre que tout le monde à quelque chose à nous donner. Ici, c'est le rêve de découvrir le monde.
"Le déménagement" était l'histoire que j'ai le moins apprécié je crois. Or, elle nous enseigne que rien n'est comme il parait être. Il faut vivre pour comprendre une situation, il ne faut pas avoir peur.
"La route d'Altamont" est la dernière histoire et de loin ma favorite. On voit l'évolution d'une relation mère-fille. On réalise l'importance de se perdre pour se retrouver. On parle de solitude, de rêves, de besoins. On décrit l'amour. J'ai vraiment senti que ça l'aurait pu être moi et ça m'a beaucoup fait réfléchir sur mon parcours.
Bref, ce livre est excellent et mérite d'être lu.
J'ai bien aimé ce beau classique québécois. Gabrielle Roy est une auteure ma foi fantastique. Décrivant 4 moments importants de la vie de Christine, ce roman nous permet de comprendre la vie difficile, l'impact du passé sur notre futur, des gens que nous avons croisés, la famille.
"Ma grand-mère toute puissante" décrit l'importance de la famille, de par la relation entre une petite fille de 8 ans et sa grand-mère. Ensemble, elles fabriquent une catin avec des restes de souvenirs trouvés un peu partout dans la maison.
"Le vieillard et l'enfant" nous démontre l'importance d'avoir des relations avec des gens qui peuvent nous enseigner quelque chose. En fait, ça nous démontre que tout le monde à quelque chose à nous donner. Ici, c'est le rêve de découvrir le monde.
"Le déménagement" était l'histoire que j'ai le moins apprécié je crois. Or, elle nous enseigne que rien n'est comme il parait être. Il faut vivre pour comprendre une situation, il ne faut pas avoir peur.
"La route d'Altamont" est la dernière histoire et de loin ma favorite. On voit l'évolution d'une relation mère-fille. On réalise l'importance de se perdre pour se retrouver. On parle de solitude, de rêves, de besoins. On décrit l'amour. J'ai vraiment senti que ça l'aurait pu être moi et ça m'a beaucoup fait réfléchir sur mon parcours.
Bref, ce livre est excellent et mérite d'être lu.
April 22, 2018
If you love reading books just for the sake that they are beautiful combinations of words, sentences and paragraphs then this is the book for you. It is beautifully written and is basically 3 short stories about 1 girl at different stages of her life. However, it is almost completely character driven and I found the stories quite dull. There is an overarching lesson I did get out of it though. It is how past generations often sacrificed their dreams for future generations. In the first story, it is that the grandma sacrificed her life in Quebec and her home, for more prosperity for her family overall by moving to better farmland in the prairies. In the end it made her bitter although very resourceful. The next two stories are how the main character starts on her own travelling adventures, even as a girl going to lake Winnipeg. It becomes clear through it all that her mother had similar wanderlust, but dedicated her life to her family. Although they were not destitute, there was no money for mom to travel even to lake Winnipeg. In the end, the main character, the third generation is able to travel even to Europe. In summary; beautifully written, deep theme, dull and difficult to stay awake while reading.
August 7, 2022
Lu car je voulais lire des romans par les grands écrivains franco-canadiens, mais je n'avais pas le fortitude à tenter 'Bonheur d'Occasion' une deuxième fois... ou les Filles de Caleb. Je m'identifie avec beaucoup décrit dans ces livres (ma propre mère francocanadien m'a cousu des poupées, comme a fait la grand-mère dans ce roman; ma grand-mère néderlandaise à gardé beaucoup de bricoles dans sa maison). Mais, ce roman semble chargé avec un sentiment de perte--pour les aînés, le monde n'était jamais comme celui de leur jeunesse, ils perdent leurs competences, leur mémoire, leur conscience de soi. Ils perdent la route d'Altamont--sinon la vraie rue qui méne à Altamont, alors la merveille que cette rue a évoqué pour eux auparavant. Et si cette manque de merveille arrive à tous les vieux, est-ce que Roy suggère qu'il nous arrive aussi?
... bien écrit, mais vraiment trop sombre pour moi.
... bien écrit, mais vraiment trop sombre pour moi.
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