Volkswagen Blues by Jacques Poulin ~ 1984. This edition: McClelland and Stuart, 1988. Translated from the French by Sheila Fischman. Paperback. ISBN: 0-7710-7158-2. 213 pages.
“It’s America. You start to read the history of America and there’s violence everywhere. It’s as if America was built on violence.”
I had mentally bookmarked that as a quote which reflected a lot of what is discussed in this novel even before seeing the news last night of the latest mass killing in the United States yesterday – 17 shot dead in a Florida high school.
Perhaps not quite the same sort of violence Poulin’s quoted character has in mind; he was referring in the main to general acts of warfare; but it felt a depressingly apt comment in light of current affairs.
Volkswagen Blues is a quirky, thoroughly charming, occasionally angry novel, and it’s a bit hard to slot into a neat category. It’s first and foremost a road trip novel, and there are shades of love story, and also, running through it like a blood-scarlet thread, an examination of the history of the Americas and the continual conflict between indigenous-indigenous, indigenous-colonizer, and colonizer-colonizer cultures.
The driving character (pun intended) is a forty-year-old Québécois writer, pseudonym Jack Waterman, who has embarked upon a journey in his old Volkswagen minibus to try to find his older brother Théo, last heard from fifteen – or maybe twenty? – years ago, sending Jack a mysterious postcard from Gaspé.
On the way to Gaspé, hoping to pick up Théo’s long-cold trail, Jack picks up a hitchhiker – well, two, really – a young Metis woman, Pitsémine, nicknamed La Grande Sauterelle – The Grasshopper – because of her long legs – and her small black kitten. The two (three!) click, and soon they are seen driving along, following an elusive breadcrumb-trail of clues, which leads them all the way (eventually) to California, to San Francisco, where they find (maybe?) what they are seeking.
The novel consists of small episodes described in detail and strung out like beads on a chain. Great narrative gaps exist, filled (we assume) with miles and miles of driving. The Volkswagen early on takes on a personality of its own, it is the fourth member of the travelling band, and though in the main it is a reliable sort of creature, it does have a few episodes of road-fatigue itself, echoing the occasional emotional breakdowns of its human companions.
At some point in the journey the man and the girl (for that is how Poulin refers to them most of the time) become lovers, though we are never told that they are in love; sex is kept in its place as not the be-all-and-end-all of the relationship, but as merely something shared, a physical pleasure coming naturally between two people once affection and trust have been established.
The journey ends, or perhaps it doesn’t. The companions part, though possibly not for good. Each has found something that was searched for, but each still seems to be on an as yet unfulfilled quest, perhaps best tackled alone…
A most interesting small novel, deeply Canadian, and even more deeply American in the continental sense.
Volkswagen Blues is a very slightly awkward read, though how much of the gentle stiltedness is by author’s intention and how much from its French-to-English translation I cannot tell. It was no trouble at all to follow, though. It’s a quick read, too, and one which will no doubt reward a subsequent re-reading with a deeper appreciation of all its many nuances.
I enjoyed it, and had many moments of wishing I could follow the (physical) route the journeyers took. I would cheerfully read another book by Jacques Poulin if one were to come my way.
An appreciative 6.5/10.
Can-Lit note: Volkswagen Blues was nominated for a Governor-General’s literary fiction award in 1984, and was selected as a contendor in the 2005 “Canada Reads” event on CBC Radio.
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