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Mad Shadows
A harrowing pathology of the soul, Mad Shadows centres on a family group: Patrice, the beautiful and narcissistic son; his ugly and malicious sister, Isabelle-Marie; and Louise, their vain and uncomprehending mother. These characters inhabit an amoral universe where beauty reflects no truth and love is an empty delusion. Each character is ultimately annihilated by their own obsessions.
Acclaimed and reviled when it exploded on the Quebec literary scene in 1959, Mad Shadows initiated a new era in Quebec fiction.
Acclaimed and reviled when it exploded on the Quebec literary scene in 1959, Mad Shadows initiated a new era in Quebec fiction.
128 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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718 people want to read
About the author
Marie-Claire Blais
91 books76 followersMarie-Claire Blais naît à Québec en 1939. Elle publie à l’âge de vingt ans un premier roman, La Belle Bête, dans lequel elle analyse avec une âpre lucidité les ressorts psychologiques d’une relation violente, pleine de haine et d’envie, entre une jeune femme trop laide et son frère, simple d’esprit mais si beau que l’on ne voit que lui. Cette violence, cette sauvagerie resteront présentes dans tous les livres et le théâtre de Marie Claire Blais. Son lyrisme très personnel permet à l’auteur de traverser les apparences pour révéler les monstruosités de la vie.
Aussitôt remarquée, Marie-Claire Blais reçoit une bourse de la Fondation Guggenheim et se met à écrire Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel, ouvrage pour lequel elle obtiendra le prix Médicis en 1966. Dès lors, son œuvre se déploie à une vitesse surprenante et compte à ce jour plus de vingt romans, cinq pièces de théâtre et plusieurs recueils de poésie. Des séjours prolongés aux États-Unis, en France et en Chine notamment, des bourses et de nombreux prix, dont le prix France-Québec en 1976, ont aidé Marie-Claire Blais à s’adonner entièrement à une œuvre authentique et exigeante. Citons pêle-mêle, Tête blanche (1980), L’Insoumise (1966), David Sterne (1967), Manuscrits de Pauline Archange (1968), Une liaison parisienne (1975), Visions d’Anna (1982), Pierre (1986), Un jardin dans la tempête (1990), Dans la foudre et la lumière (2001), Naissance de Rebecca à l'ère des tourments (2008) et Mai au bal des prédateurs (2010).
Enfances solitaires, innocences bafouées, révoltes, inusable tendresse sont autant de thèmes qui jalonnent l’œuvre d’un auteur qui n’imagine pas de réalisme sans transfiguration poétique. Québécoise dans l’âme, Marie-Claire Blais est une militante convaincue pour la francophonie. Ses ouvrages ont été traduits en de multiples langues et publiés au Canada anglais, aux États Unis, en Angleterre, en Espagne, en Allemagne, en Italie, au Danemark, en Hongrie, au Japon, en Norvège et en République tchèque.
Deux fois boursière de la Fondation Guggenheim (1963 et 1965), Marie-Claire Blais a reçu, pour l’ensemble de son œuvre, les Prix France-Québec (1966), Prix Canada-Belgique (1976), Prix Athanase-David (1982), Prix Duvernay (1988), Prix Nessim Habif de l’Académie royale de la langue et de la littérature françaises de Belgique (1990), Prix international de l’Union latine des littératures romanes (1999), Grand Prix littéraire international Métropolis Bleu (2000), Prix W.O. Mitchell (2000), Prix littéraire de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (2002), Prix Gilles-Corbeil décerné par la Fondation Émile Nelligan (2005) et le Prix Matt Cohen du Writer’s Trust of Canada (2007).
En marge des prix littéraires reçus, elle a été élue en 1986 à la Société royale du Canada (Académie des lettres et des sciences humaines) et, en 1992, à l'Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique devenant la première écrivaine québécoise à siéger dans une académie littéraire européenne. Elle a rejoint l'Académie des lettres du Québec en 1994 et, en 1999, elle a reçu les insignes de Chevalier des arts et des lettres (France).
Parallèlement à ces honneurs, elle a aussi reçu l’Ordre du Canada (1975), la Médaille commémorative du 125e anniversaire de la Confédération du Canada (1992), l’Ordre national du Québec (1995), a été nommée Woman of the year for services to literature and creative writing (1995-1996) par The International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England, et reçu le Degree of International Letters for Cultural Achievement fiction, creative writing (1997) par The American Biographical Institute.
Aussitôt remarquée, Marie-Claire Blais reçoit une bourse de la Fondation Guggenheim et se met à écrire Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel, ouvrage pour lequel elle obtiendra le prix Médicis en 1966. Dès lors, son œuvre se déploie à une vitesse surprenante et compte à ce jour plus de vingt romans, cinq pièces de théâtre et plusieurs recueils de poésie. Des séjours prolongés aux États-Unis, en France et en Chine notamment, des bourses et de nombreux prix, dont le prix France-Québec en 1976, ont aidé Marie-Claire Blais à s’adonner entièrement à une œuvre authentique et exigeante. Citons pêle-mêle, Tête blanche (1980), L’Insoumise (1966), David Sterne (1967), Manuscrits de Pauline Archange (1968), Une liaison parisienne (1975), Visions d’Anna (1982), Pierre (1986), Un jardin dans la tempête (1990), Dans la foudre et la lumière (2001), Naissance de Rebecca à l'ère des tourments (2008) et Mai au bal des prédateurs (2010).
Enfances solitaires, innocences bafouées, révoltes, inusable tendresse sont autant de thèmes qui jalonnent l’œuvre d’un auteur qui n’imagine pas de réalisme sans transfiguration poétique. Québécoise dans l’âme, Marie-Claire Blais est une militante convaincue pour la francophonie. Ses ouvrages ont été traduits en de multiples langues et publiés au Canada anglais, aux États Unis, en Angleterre, en Espagne, en Allemagne, en Italie, au Danemark, en Hongrie, au Japon, en Norvège et en République tchèque.
Deux fois boursière de la Fondation Guggenheim (1963 et 1965), Marie-Claire Blais a reçu, pour l’ensemble de son œuvre, les Prix France-Québec (1966), Prix Canada-Belgique (1976), Prix Athanase-David (1982), Prix Duvernay (1988), Prix Nessim Habif de l’Académie royale de la langue et de la littérature françaises de Belgique (1990), Prix international de l’Union latine des littératures romanes (1999), Grand Prix littéraire international Métropolis Bleu (2000), Prix W.O. Mitchell (2000), Prix littéraire de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (2002), Prix Gilles-Corbeil décerné par la Fondation Émile Nelligan (2005) et le Prix Matt Cohen du Writer’s Trust of Canada (2007).
En marge des prix littéraires reçus, elle a été élue en 1986 à la Société royale du Canada (Académie des lettres et des sciences humaines) et, en 1992, à l'Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique devenant la première écrivaine québécoise à siéger dans une académie littéraire européenne. Elle a rejoint l'Académie des lettres du Québec en 1994 et, en 1999, elle a reçu les insignes de Chevalier des arts et des lettres (France).
Parallèlement à ces honneurs, elle a aussi reçu l’Ordre du Canada (1975), la Médaille commémorative du 125e anniversaire de la Confédération du Canada (1992), l’Ordre national du Québec (1995), a été nommée Woman of the year for services to literature and creative writing (1995-1996) par The International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England, et reçu le Degree of International Letters for Cultural Achievement fiction, creative writing (1997) par The American Biographical Institute.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
March 31, 2025
The Great Canadian Writer Marie-Claire Blais, aged 82, passed away yesterday - 30 November 2021.
Whether you admire her or disdain her, Blais is one BRAVE author.
She leads her life on the edge. She doesn’t try to sugarcoat her own violent childhood family memories, from the sound of it - and how many of us can boast of that? - but she faces those tough memories square on.
One brave lady.
Marie-Claire Blais, with Margaret Atwood and others, was one of our first Canadian proponents of postmodernism. She began her writing career as a courageously candid and daringly individualistic voice in a country characterized by a sense of inferiority and compliance.
Such beginnings, though, were understandably shaky and unsure of their footing - as is evidenced in this novel - one of her earliest.
Finding one’s identity and defending it against all the inevitably violent reactions of the world is never easy. It certainly wasn’t easy in those staid former times for people like Blais and myself.
But with recognition comes ease.
Once Blais found her books hailed by Québec intellectuals as Canada’s answer to the nouveau roman and the unsparingly radical fiction of the existentialists, she felt comfortable enough in her own skin to produce a lifelong string of new age classics.
But the conservative voices ceaselessly tried to unseat her literary pre-eminence in the years of La Révolution Tranquil. And when I came across her as a settled middle-class twelve-year-old it was like descending into the maelstrom.
It was a lazy Saturday morning like so many others.
When I sat in my favourite armchair next to the living-room picture window overlooking a picturesque stand of mature Maples, at my parents’ house, this unassuming new book was sitting on the coffee table, left there certainly by my librarian bibliophile Mom.
I picked it up, always one for a good read!
The next few hours, spent completely wrapped up in the vicious head games of a pathologically dysfunctional Québécois family, left me utterly drained and appalled.
My first preteen literary initiation - by Fire - into the emotional undergrowth of my own childhood trauma.
For I, too, like the young girl in this novel - and like the young heroine of Nilanjana Haldar's remarkable new novel Quiet Screams to the Quiet Healer, a novel of intense childhood trauma much like my own - was beginning my own descent into its supernaturally choking undergrowth.
Some, as Blais here, call it pathological. But I personally - and correctly - would later come to understand that, grasped concretely, it is the long path to the Light of Self-knowledge. And Blais also has now come to that understanding. As has Haldar. We have each journeyed by a Hidden Path.
Now, I hesitate to dip into her early novels. You know, so many of our unpleasant memories tend to get plugged away behind a psychological firewall that we necessarily erect. Without tangible hope our lives really can become hopeless, in so many respects.
But I salute the young Mlle Blais for her unflagging courage.
This book represents, as I said, a youthful writer who was - at that distant time - desperately unsure of herself.
But isn’t that the way it is for all of us in our early years? We have to leave behind the comforting illusions of childhood for a mindset that is only at first unclear and embryonic. And it may remain that way for years. That doesn’t matter.
The only thing that matters is our faith that we’re doing the right thing by searching for a more comprehensive worldview. For with that faith we WILL find it.
A POV, perhaps, that represents at once our Deepest Self - and the world’s ultimate meaning...
Blais seems to have settled for second best - finding herself, but in a meaningless world. At least her compensation is her genius.
So, if you want to read Blais - and you should - take one of her more recent, self-assured and pre-eminently masterful novels, truer mirrors of our bizarre modern world, like Nothing For You Here, Young Man (see my review).
For she now expertly and steadily holds high her well-crafted and compassionate lens before this Fallen Dystopia of ours. And records it all so well.
Just don’t start with this one!
Whether you admire her or disdain her, Blais is one BRAVE author.
She leads her life on the edge. She doesn’t try to sugarcoat her own violent childhood family memories, from the sound of it - and how many of us can boast of that? - but she faces those tough memories square on.
One brave lady.
Marie-Claire Blais, with Margaret Atwood and others, was one of our first Canadian proponents of postmodernism. She began her writing career as a courageously candid and daringly individualistic voice in a country characterized by a sense of inferiority and compliance.
Such beginnings, though, were understandably shaky and unsure of their footing - as is evidenced in this novel - one of her earliest.
Finding one’s identity and defending it against all the inevitably violent reactions of the world is never easy. It certainly wasn’t easy in those staid former times for people like Blais and myself.
But with recognition comes ease.
Once Blais found her books hailed by Québec intellectuals as Canada’s answer to the nouveau roman and the unsparingly radical fiction of the existentialists, she felt comfortable enough in her own skin to produce a lifelong string of new age classics.
But the conservative voices ceaselessly tried to unseat her literary pre-eminence in the years of La Révolution Tranquil. And when I came across her as a settled middle-class twelve-year-old it was like descending into the maelstrom.
It was a lazy Saturday morning like so many others.
When I sat in my favourite armchair next to the living-room picture window overlooking a picturesque stand of mature Maples, at my parents’ house, this unassuming new book was sitting on the coffee table, left there certainly by my librarian bibliophile Mom.
I picked it up, always one for a good read!
The next few hours, spent completely wrapped up in the vicious head games of a pathologically dysfunctional Québécois family, left me utterly drained and appalled.
My first preteen literary initiation - by Fire - into the emotional undergrowth of my own childhood trauma.
For I, too, like the young girl in this novel - and like the young heroine of Nilanjana Haldar's remarkable new novel Quiet Screams to the Quiet Healer, a novel of intense childhood trauma much like my own - was beginning my own descent into its supernaturally choking undergrowth.
Some, as Blais here, call it pathological. But I personally - and correctly - would later come to understand that, grasped concretely, it is the long path to the Light of Self-knowledge. And Blais also has now come to that understanding. As has Haldar. We have each journeyed by a Hidden Path.
Now, I hesitate to dip into her early novels. You know, so many of our unpleasant memories tend to get plugged away behind a psychological firewall that we necessarily erect. Without tangible hope our lives really can become hopeless, in so many respects.
But I salute the young Mlle Blais for her unflagging courage.
This book represents, as I said, a youthful writer who was - at that distant time - desperately unsure of herself.
But isn’t that the way it is for all of us in our early years? We have to leave behind the comforting illusions of childhood for a mindset that is only at first unclear and embryonic. And it may remain that way for years. That doesn’t matter.
The only thing that matters is our faith that we’re doing the right thing by searching for a more comprehensive worldview. For with that faith we WILL find it.
A POV, perhaps, that represents at once our Deepest Self - and the world’s ultimate meaning...
Blais seems to have settled for second best - finding herself, but in a meaningless world. At least her compensation is her genius.
So, if you want to read Blais - and you should - take one of her more recent, self-assured and pre-eminently masterful novels, truer mirrors of our bizarre modern world, like Nothing For You Here, Young Man (see my review).
For she now expertly and steadily holds high her well-crafted and compassionate lens before this Fallen Dystopia of ours. And records it all so well.
Just don’t start with this one!
October 18, 2011
I know that I'm supposed to consider the author's flat, detached, distant style, and the resulting incomprehensibility of the characters, to be a mark of depth, even genius. But I am a big girl now, and Lawrence Perrine is not the boss of me, so I will say without apology that this book left me cold. It's like the author is crouched at the lip of the abyss in which these characters are trapped, squinting down at them, inventing reasons for them to do what they appear to be doing, and occasionally poking them with a sharp stick.
April 19, 2015
This gruesome novel published in 1959 about a dysfunctional family comprised of a narcissistic son, a spiteful sister and a nasty mother was the first cannon shot in a barrage that his continued ever since showing us the ugly side of domestic life in today's North America. A relative of Ms. Blais once told me that anyone who had ever know her family would be inclined to forgive her for the extraordinarily nasty tone that has characterized all her fiction.
This is a great pioneering work for a dubious genre of which Canadians are quite proud. I remember seeing the National Ballet Version entitled Mad Shadows choreographed by Ann Ditchburn and featuring Veronica Tennant and Karen Kain which I quite enjoyed. I hope that the National Ballet will continue to revive this work from time to time.
Read it if you are interested in Canadian literature. It is a landmark in our country.
This is a great pioneering work for a dubious genre of which Canadians are quite proud. I remember seeing the National Ballet Version entitled Mad Shadows choreographed by Ann Ditchburn and featuring Veronica Tennant and Karen Kain which I quite enjoyed. I hope that the National Ballet will continue to revive this work from time to time.
Read it if you are interested in Canadian literature. It is a landmark in our country.
January 20, 2025
"La belle bête" è una sorta di fiaba gotica. Ne verrebbe fuori un bel filmetto non dico horror ma insomma quasi.
Protagonista è una famiglia piuttosto allucinata. La madre Louise è concentrata solo sui suoi possedimenti e su se stessa. Ha una venerazione ossessiva per il figlio maschio, Patrice (la Bella Bestia del titolo), il quale è un bellissimo narciso piuttosto idiota e inconsapevole di ciò che gli ruota intorno. La narrazione però si concentra maggiormente sulla figlia maggiore, Isabelle-Marie, la quale non solo è nata brutta (davvero brutta, non è una sua convinzione) ma anche invidiosa. Invidiosa della bellezza del fratello ma soprattutto della considerazione esclusiva di sua madre che tende a tagliarla fuori o a parlarle solo per rimproverarla, alimentando ogni giorno il suo rancore.
Scritta così sembra quasi una roba leggera e infantile. L'avesse pensata una tipo Jane Austen ne veniva fuori un libro di lamentele da signorina che si concludeva poi con Isabelle-Marie che trovava l'amore della sua vita e tutto era bellissimo e rosa e a modo. Sospiri di sollievo, pasticcini e felicità.
Invece la Blais a 17 anni doveva averne lette di ogni. E quindi il tutto è un crescendo incalzante che sconfina nell'incubo: la sorella che fa di tutto per fare del male al fratello con scherzi sempre più crudeli (all'inizio prova a farlo morire di fame, robe così), il fratello che invece è troppo geloso del fidanzato della madre (provate a immaginare cosa può combinare), la madre...che ne fa di ogni pure lei ma non vorrei raccontarvi troppo.
Tre persone incredibilmente sole che si nutrono di gelosie, rancori e vendette in una folle corsa verso un destino che può solo avere un finale senza speranza.
Protagonista è una famiglia piuttosto allucinata. La madre Louise è concentrata solo sui suoi possedimenti e su se stessa. Ha una venerazione ossessiva per il figlio maschio, Patrice (la Bella Bestia del titolo), il quale è un bellissimo narciso piuttosto idiota e inconsapevole di ciò che gli ruota intorno. La narrazione però si concentra maggiormente sulla figlia maggiore, Isabelle-Marie, la quale non solo è nata brutta (davvero brutta, non è una sua convinzione) ma anche invidiosa. Invidiosa della bellezza del fratello ma soprattutto della considerazione esclusiva di sua madre che tende a tagliarla fuori o a parlarle solo per rimproverarla, alimentando ogni giorno il suo rancore.
Scritta così sembra quasi una roba leggera e infantile. L'avesse pensata una tipo Jane Austen ne veniva fuori un libro di lamentele da signorina che si concludeva poi con Isabelle-Marie che trovava l'amore della sua vita e tutto era bellissimo e rosa e a modo. Sospiri di sollievo, pasticcini e felicità.
Invece la Blais a 17 anni doveva averne lette di ogni. E quindi il tutto è un crescendo incalzante che sconfina nell'incubo: la sorella che fa di tutto per fare del male al fratello con scherzi sempre più crudeli (all'inizio prova a farlo morire di fame, robe così), il fratello che invece è troppo geloso del fidanzato della madre (provate a immaginare cosa può combinare), la madre...che ne fa di ogni pure lei ma non vorrei raccontarvi troppo.
Tre persone incredibilmente sole che si nutrono di gelosie, rancori e vendette in una folle corsa verso un destino che può solo avere un finale senza speranza.
February 17, 2020
Un libro sobre la maldad, el narcisismo, las familias quebradas y el amor. Las protagonistas tienen esa misma crueldad de Lady Macbeth de Mtsenk. Lo triste es que Blais sea una de esas escritoras perdidas.
September 12, 2012
I've probably read this book over half a dozen times. It's a quick read that always leaves me feeling uneasy. There is nothing beautiful in this world. The breadth of sorrow is breathtaking.
October 8, 2016
This book feels like a fairy tale. It is about a family that loves only beauty and is abhorred by ugliness. This leads to a hollow life for most members of the family. However, one person was perceived as ugly and was rejected. This leads to several violent events that destroy the family. I am not sure what I think of the story, but it will be discussed in class in a few weeks.
April 12, 2022
COVID Iso Livre #4
J'avais pris ce livre après le décès de l'auteure à l'automne dernier, moi qui n'avais auparavant lu que Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuelle.
Ai pu finalement profiter de cette jeune COVID pour traverser ce petit roman du terroir qui se lit presque comme une fable. Des personnages caricaturaux, aux traits presque grossiers mais toujours percutants, qui interagissent sur cette terre fermnière qu'on sait québécoise, mais qui est au fond universelle.
L'oeuvre m'a fait penser à Le Torrent d'Année Hébert par son contexte, et surtout la façon d'écrire dans une langue simple, mais pourtant si cryptique dans l'évocation, dans le non-dit. Les descriptions et les amalgames poétiques entre les descriptions de la nature et les agissements parfois violents des personnages.
Ce sont des beaux contrastes, de beaux tableaux, de belles interactions et au final une lecture qui semble intialement facile, mais laisse une marque assez profonde.
Merci à la grande auteure Marie-Claire Blais pour avoir été une si grande dame de la littérature québécoise.
J'avais pris ce livre après le décès de l'auteure à l'automne dernier, moi qui n'avais auparavant lu que Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuelle.
Ai pu finalement profiter de cette jeune COVID pour traverser ce petit roman du terroir qui se lit presque comme une fable. Des personnages caricaturaux, aux traits presque grossiers mais toujours percutants, qui interagissent sur cette terre fermnière qu'on sait québécoise, mais qui est au fond universelle.
L'oeuvre m'a fait penser à Le Torrent d'Année Hébert par son contexte, et surtout la façon d'écrire dans une langue simple, mais pourtant si cryptique dans l'évocation, dans le non-dit. Les descriptions et les amalgames poétiques entre les descriptions de la nature et les agissements parfois violents des personnages.
Ce sont des beaux contrastes, de beaux tableaux, de belles interactions et au final une lecture qui semble intialement facile, mais laisse une marque assez profonde.
Merci à la grande auteure Marie-Claire Blais pour avoir été une si grande dame de la littérature québécoise.
December 19, 2019
I read this slim, disturbing novella in one sitting during the middle of the night, partly because I could not tear myself away from the drama and partly because it was so twisted that I needed it to be over. This is a warped, dark fairy tale exploring themes related to family, love, beauty, and ugliness. It is mostly about mean people who do treacherous things to one another. It’s seriously impressive how much violence and hatred Blais packed into this short novella. It kind of kicks ass in the same way a Babes in Toyland song does: a short but concentrated burst of fury, distortion, and aggressive female rage. Maybe Blais is Quebec’s answer to Flannery O’Connor (minus the grace at the end). Even though this novella is almost 60 years old, it’s well worth checking out if you are looking for a bold, dynamic, and twisted example of how powerful the form can be.
September 22, 2023
I don't really know what to think of this book. Certainly, it's unique and I've never read anything quite like it. Then again, I can't say I enjoyed reading a single moment of it. If it wasn't required reading for school, I would not have finished this. Mad Shadows is morbidly dark and a muddled read. The descriptions are very complicated and the pacing is hard to follow, so that it take great focus to figure out what's happening. The characters aren't deep nor complicated, and are confined to simple traits of "ugly, beautiful, stupid, narcissistic" I can understand how some people may find this to be a literary classic, but I just don't see the appeal and wouldn't read it again.
June 8, 2024
I can't say I enjoyed reading this. This isn't a book you enjoy.
It is dark, gruesome, morbid, and twisted, but it isn't enjoyable in the least. It was an uncomfortable yet riveting read about narcissism and a family's unhealthy focus on beauty vs ugliness.
As this was the English translation, I'm interested in reading the original French version at some point - I'm curious to experience this macabre story in the author's original words.
It is dark, gruesome, morbid, and twisted, but it isn't enjoyable in the least. It was an uncomfortable yet riveting read about narcissism and a family's unhealthy focus on beauty vs ugliness.
As this was the English translation, I'm interested in reading the original French version at some point - I'm curious to experience this macabre story in the author's original words.
November 13, 2019
A thoroughly nasty, unpleasant, misanthropic delight. I loved it!
August 12, 2025
J'ai envie de tout lire Marie-Claire Blais et au plus crisse
October 6, 2025
Une lecture qui semble facile, mais quand on ferme le livre ça reste, vraiment.
Je pense que c’est la première fois que ça m’arrive de me sentir détachée en lisant (je trouvais ça bien mais sans plus), puis qu’après je pensais juste à ça.
🪞🥀🔥🌑
Je pense que c’est la première fois que ça m’arrive de me sentir détachée en lisant (je trouvais ça bien mais sans plus), puis qu’après je pensais juste à ça.
🪞🥀🔥🌑
September 22, 2023
I have no words for this. It was crazy and idk what was going on with that family, but it wasn’t good. Why did everyone just die in the last chapter of the book, and we didn’t even get confirmed deaths, just Isabelle Marie stepped in front of the train and Patrice went into the water, finally finding his soul! Like what was that. The book I feel focused on the wrong things. We didn’t really know anything major about the family besides there appearance.
Anyway I think the book is a good read for those in high school. It is educational but just not for me.
Anyway I think the book is a good read for those in high school. It is educational but just not for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 9, 2025
Je mets trois étoiles mais j’aurais mis genre 2.5 c’était correct, en vrai c’est pas vrai c’était bon mais c’était un peu genre plate desfois et y’a des mots je comprenais pas et c’est fuck up comme histoire un peu mais genre j’avais hâte de savoir qu’est ce qui allais arriver pareil
February 2, 2019
This is a horrifying tale of warped, damaged human beings doing damage to each other's souls in ways that only family members can do. The pace is brisk, the action is relentless, both physical and psychological, and while there is a certain inevitability to the ending, the author does an excellent job of throwing in enough unexpected plot twists and unsettling insights and passages to keep the reader engaged. I would say the book is Gothic, except that most of the settings are pastoral, so there is none of the claustrophobic feel of that genre, and in other respects (especially its brevity) it bears some resemblance to work of existentialist writers such as Camus, and in its exploration of self-love and self-loathing, to Dostoevsky. The writer of the afterward describes as something of a fractured fairy-tale, and that is also true. My only criticism of the book is that there is some measure of redundancy in some of the descriptions, and the repeated emphasis on the beauty of Patrice gets tiresome eventually, so it does have some of the marks of a first novel, which it is. My only disappointment was that I came to Blais hoping to learn something of Quebec, whence she hails, and this novel could be set virtually anywhere, so long as the setting is rural and has horses. A really riveting read for me nonetheless.
April 23, 2022
There are times when brutal and overstated themes delivered with flat affect and largely one-dimensional characters and circumstances can actually achieve striking impact and effect. A work employing such devices is striving to do something other than comfort or easily entertain. I expect Mad Shadows (and La Belle Bete before it) had that impact in 1959-1960. I imagine it also could have intrigued and challenged me as a reader at, oh, some other time.
Right now, the book just bewilders and annoys, even as the Daphne Marlatt afterword helps a bit to let me appreciate the work in a clinical, technical way. I very rarely abandon books when I start them, holding out to the last page for anything redeeming, if necessary - but I was almost convinced to drop this slim novel about halfway through. I did stick it out, though. Maybe at another time or in another context, this work would have captivated me.
In a book published in new editions in 1990 and 2008, I'm surprised the name of the translator, Merloyd Lawrence, did not get added to the cover or at least the title page. I'm glad that contemporary translators get more attention and credit nowadays.
Right now, the book just bewilders and annoys, even as the Daphne Marlatt afterword helps a bit to let me appreciate the work in a clinical, technical way. I very rarely abandon books when I start them, holding out to the last page for anything redeeming, if necessary - but I was almost convinced to drop this slim novel about halfway through. I did stick it out, though. Maybe at another time or in another context, this work would have captivated me.
In a book published in new editions in 1990 and 2008, I'm surprised the name of the translator, Merloyd Lawrence, did not get added to the cover or at least the title page. I'm glad that contemporary translators get more attention and credit nowadays.
November 4, 2007
This book I read in about 14 hours, 6 of which were in a bar where I was frequently paraphrasing the ensuing action to my companion. He would come back and say, "What's happening now?" and I'd say, "Well, the boy who is the personification of beauty is about to get in an Oedipal struggle with the father figure, who walks with a golden CANE, and the mother's vanity has given her face cancer that she is trying to conceal with makeup, and the "ugly" girl is beginning a relationship in the green world with a blind man who "sees" her as beautiful."
April 4, 2016
The children's fable, "The Ugly Duckling" is reinvented with disturbing complexity. The beautiful are at the mercy of the ugly here. The wicked soul, as the ancients would have believed, is visible on the outer case of the villainous sister. The superficial set up their own destruction here. A tragedy spun with the macabre to its memorable conclusion.
August 5, 2011
I find it hard to enjoy books in which I dislike every single character. You'd think that since I disliked all the characters in Mad Shadows I would be happy at the end, but seeing them self-destruct wasn't satisfying, it was just depressing.
October 29, 2017
French-Canadian author, Marie-Claire Blais, is acclaimed for her fresh approach to Quebec fiction. Also considered a feminist form of literature in 1959, torching the traditional fiction of mid-century Canada. The afterword by Daphne Marlatt is enlightening.
November 30, 2025
La bella bestia è Patrice, adolescente tanto bello quanto ottuso, un narciso che si specchia affascinato dalla propria bellezza; Luise è la madre, una bambola quarantenne che si riflette nel figlio che ama incondizionatamente (fino a che rimane “bello”) e non sopporta la figlia Isabelle, che invece è brutta (o almeno si crede tale) e per gelosia punisce il fratello con scherzi e sgarbi sempre più crudeli. Una bella famigliola davvero che vive in campagna, in una fattoria: un mondo esclusivo dove i legami con l’esterno sono difficili: Isabelle trova l’amore in Michael, un ragazzo cieco a cui fa credere di essere bella, si sposano e hanno una figlia, poi lui recupera la vista… Luise, trova un nuovo compagno in Lenz, un dandy con la bacchetta dorata, ma lo scontro con la gelosia del figlio, che si vede escluso dalla madre, è tanto inevitabile quanto nefasto. Patrice, tra scoppi di rabbia e di pianto, cavalca per la campagna, rivelandosi per quello che è: un idiota incapace di rendersi conto delle conseguenze delle sue azioni. La bellezza sfiorirà ben presto sia per la madre, colpita da una malattia, sia per Patrice vittima dell’ennesimo scherzo crudele, la sorte non è clemente con nessuno dei tre.
Una storia di solitudini e di legami morbosi e perversi, gelosie, rancori in cui si dibattono i tre protagonisti fino a esserne travolti. Scritto nel 1959 da una ragazza di soli diciassette anni agli esordi letterari, sorprende lo stile con cui affronta una vicenda nerissima e a tratti immorale (specie per l’epoca): una narrazione veloce, permeata da un sottile senso di angoscia, in un’atmosfera sospesa tra favola e incubo, che non eccede mai troppo in manierismi dove i protagonisti, ben caratterizzati con poche e precise parole, corrono fin dalla prima scena verso il loro destino. Tre stelle e mezzo.
Una storia di solitudini e di legami morbosi e perversi, gelosie, rancori in cui si dibattono i tre protagonisti fino a esserne travolti. Scritto nel 1959 da una ragazza di soli diciassette anni agli esordi letterari, sorprende lo stile con cui affronta una vicenda nerissima e a tratti immorale (specie per l’epoca): una narrazione veloce, permeata da un sottile senso di angoscia, in un’atmosfera sospesa tra favola e incubo, che non eccede mai troppo in manierismi dove i protagonisti, ben caratterizzati con poche e precise parole, corrono fin dalla prima scena verso il loro destino. Tre stelle e mezzo.
July 30, 2017
Once upon a time there stood an evil farm where Hatred, Vanity and Vengeance ruled... Marie-Claire Blais's La Belle Bête reads easy, but offers its reader no comfort, as the world of this Quebec author is cold and frightening. The characters are torn away by their passions, but the only true feelings here are hatred and envy, any positive feelings are either fake or selfish or borne by people who are either blind or mad (i. e. mentally blind). Physical beauty is one of the central themes (as the title implies), but it is always accompanied by a physical or mental flaw, and always - by a flawed soul. Yes, in her novel Blais leaves no place for hope, no "crack" through which the light would get in. And yet it is an interesting work.
The novel was published in Quebec at the end of 1950s, but it without a doubt has a universal appeal because it is void of any local color, of any common details or social commentary. Like in Shakespearean theater with its stage set only by a board with a word "Forest" on it, here the author introduces places of action by naming them "farm", "forest", "lake", etc., but no further details are given. Any common objects that are mentioned play a symbolic rather than descriptive role (all those mirrors or a gilded cane...). There are no laborers on that farm, except the daughter works there when she has nothing else to do with her life (and no details of her work are given, she just "spends her time" there). And so we have a universal and poetic parable about a vane and unjust mother, her ugly daughter and a handsome son, that and a Shakespearean number of corpses by the final scene.
At this point I would like to mention that the novel was written by a 20-year old and I dare say it shows. I would be curious to read her later works.
The novel was published in Quebec at the end of 1950s, but it without a doubt has a universal appeal because it is void of any local color, of any common details or social commentary. Like in Shakespearean theater with its stage set only by a board with a word "Forest" on it, here the author introduces places of action by naming them "farm", "forest", "lake", etc., but no further details are given. Any common objects that are mentioned play a symbolic rather than descriptive role (all those mirrors or a gilded cane...). There are no laborers on that farm, except the daughter works there when she has nothing else to do with her life (and no details of her work are given, she just "spends her time" there). And so we have a universal and poetic parable about a vane and unjust mother, her ugly daughter and a handsome son, that and a Shakespearean number of corpses by the final scene.
At this point I would like to mention that the novel was written by a 20-year old and I dare say it shows. I would be curious to read her later works.
May 7, 2021
I’ve always been interested (obviously not too seriously) in Québécois literature, but I didn’t really know where to start. Last year I, mostly by accident, found out about and read two “classic” Québécois novels, The Tin Flute and Maria Chapdelaine. I’d never heard Blais before, but I guess naturally I was comparing Mad Shadows to those two books. My boring analysis is that it was probably closer to Maria than it was to the Flute. Because Roy’s novel is obviously so interested in the gritty reality of urban Montreal, which is definitely very far away from the focus of Blais’s novel. The working-class family in that novel loved each other so much, which is another pretty big contrast with Mad Shadows. On the other hand, Maria lives out in the country, just like Isabelle-Marie and her family. But I seem to remember that Maria and her family are pretty happy out in the country (in fact, she chooses to stay out there instead of moving to New York, or something), except for when her lover freezes to death. But I guess Maria Chapdelaine reflects a very different time in Quebec.
September 9, 2025
Though I did not love this book, and combined with the fact I had to read it for school, I can still appreciate the mood it masterfully creates. Opening with Baudelaire is all the warning I needed, and even in the french edition the quote sets the entire mood before the novel begins. The novel is claustrophobic, and defines the word melancholic. Monsters, raw humanity, undeniable emotion, and even though it came across a bit surface level or easy there are distinct characters. It is a tragedy but the word is not as all encompassing as I like, a sickening and dark tragedy perhaps? A dive into the ugly and bad as Blais so obviously points out? I am not sure, I continuously asked “what is happening right now?” at every page but I will recognize that was likely part of its intention. So though it may not be a wonderful review my thoughts are all here, the few I could put into words.
November 8, 2019
While this novel may be old, the writing is timeless. Marie-Claire Blais wants for us to reflect on our society and how people are defined immediately by their beauty. Isabelle-Marie is deemed worthless because of her ugly face, while Patrice, who is not intelligent, is praised solely for his beauty. The characters are described as savages, and this is why body is more prevalent in this book. The father is described to be connected to the mind and soul, but with him gone, chaos occurs, as it leaves characters with only materialistic things. It is ironic that the characters and setting reflects one of a fairy tale, but this element is to reveal that real life is not a fairy tale, but rather something that is gory and viscous.
February 24, 2022
“Perhaps an animal deserves to be listened to when it cries. By the gods, yes, but by men?”
3.5 // This story reminded me a lot of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Not only in the way that it is written (which may be intentional or may be a byproduct of translation) but also in the way it shares a “life lesson” in an eerily morbid way.
The second half of this book (ESPECIALLY THE ENDING) was so so so much better than the beginning in my opinion. I think maybe I should reread this in one sitting because it feels like a book that shouldn’t be split up. Maybe it would’ve hit harder if I had done it that way.
All in all, if you ever need a book to analyze for an essay, this would definitely be the one. I could pick it apart for ages.
3.5 // This story reminded me a lot of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Not only in the way that it is written (which may be intentional or may be a byproduct of translation) but also in the way it shares a “life lesson” in an eerily morbid way.
The second half of this book (ESPECIALLY THE ENDING) was so so so much better than the beginning in my opinion. I think maybe I should reread this in one sitting because it feels like a book that shouldn’t be split up. Maybe it would’ve hit harder if I had done it that way.
All in all, if you ever need a book to analyze for an essay, this would definitely be the one. I could pick it apart for ages.
November 7, 2024
Un piacevole romanzo breve sulla vanità: di un fiabesco gotico, con un'atmosfera simile ai racconti dell'orrore vittoriani. Nonostante sia ancora uno stile acerbo (Marie-Claire Blais lo pubblicò a soli vent'anni) si avverte già il suo talento nel trasfigurare immagini di armonia, di piacevolezza, di godimento in vesti perturbanti, spesso in veri e propri abomini.
Io mi sono rivista particolarmente nel personaggio di Isabelle-Marie, in quell'invidia che spesso sfocia in rabbia, in quel senso di ingiustizia per non essere nata bella e per avere intorno persone che non fanno che ricordarglielo, coltivando in lei un atroce desiderio di rivalsa. Michael comunque omm e'merd, più di tutti gli altri.
Io mi sono rivista particolarmente nel personaggio di Isabelle-Marie, in quell'invidia che spesso sfocia in rabbia, in quel senso di ingiustizia per non essere nata bella e per avere intorno persone che non fanno che ricordarglielo, coltivando in lei un atroce desiderio di rivalsa. Michael comunque omm e'merd, più di tutti gli altri.
April 6, 2025
Told in the manner of a fables or perhaps a morality tale, it is thought provoking and somewhat disturbing. The central family consists of Louise, representing vanity, Isabelle-Marie representing jealousy and Patrice representing narcissism. Secondary characters include Louise’s lover, Lansing, a vane and pompous and cruel man and Michael, at first blind and innocent but later revealed to be superficial.
The only sympathetic character is Isabelle-Marie’s daughter Anne who represents truth, not yet contaminated by the prejudices of the adults.
The themes include the transience of love, that beauty is only skin deep (to quote a saying), family dysfunction, jealousy and the tole it takes.
The prose is beautiful, verging on mystical.
The only sympathetic character is Isabelle-Marie’s daughter Anne who represents truth, not yet contaminated by the prejudices of the adults.
The themes include the transience of love, that beauty is only skin deep (to quote a saying), family dysfunction, jealousy and the tole it takes.
The prose is beautiful, verging on mystical.
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