Photo by Marcelo Troche
by Marine Godfroy
September 25, 2011 will mark the two-year anniversary of famed Québec literary star Nelly Arcan’s death. Arcan left the world a body of published works now translated in a variety of languages, including Putain (2001; English: Whore, 2004); Folle (2004); and À ciel ouvert (2007), which all gained critical recognition. Putain was nominated for the prestigious French literary awards Prix Fémina and Prix Médicis, while Folle was also a finalist for the Prix Fémina.
In Exit (2011; French: Paradis clef en main, 2009), Arcan’s fifth and final project completed only days before she committed suicide, the novel’s narrator Antoinette Beauchamps grapples with overwhelming suicidal tendencies in a vaguely defined future where a paying service exists—Paradis clef en main (Paradise key in hand)—that is designed to help you put an end to your life on your own terms. Only after you’ve proved your death wish is strong and pure enough can you hire out these people. A strange and grueling screening process ensues, culminating in an interview with a panel, including Mr. Paradis himself, where Antoinette gains the right to stage her own exit and the assurance that all will be executed according to her wishes in a secure, hygienic and efficient manner. She chooses “decapitation by guillotine” for her custom-designed, “carefully considered, freely chosen and paid for” exit.
This “death factory” has a spotless record of corporate efficiency. However, when the story opens, we find out there is an exception to every rule. Something goes horribly wrong with the guillotine and Antoinette is left alive though paraplegic. The story that follows is a great example of Arcan’s raw and witty writing. Immobilized, bedridden and hooked up to machines that monitor her vital functions, Antoinette vents her rage and takes us into a Kafkaesque universe inhabited by the obscure and baffling characters involved with the company in a “not so distant future in Montreal”. The reader follows the examination of her deeply seated yearning for death and her subsequent rebirth when she realizes that her “profound impulse for self-annihilation” has disappeared. The unthinkable has happened—Antoinette wants to live.
Nelly Arcan ended her life at 36. Unlike Antoinette, she succeeded. Some want to see in Exit a message, something to explain the author’s final gesture. The fact is no one will ever really know what went through Arcan’s mind.
After Arcan’s death, her family chose to stay as far as possible from media attention; their mourning remaining a very private affair. Her death, so close to the completion of Paradis clef en main would not be construed as the glorification of suicide, and would not be exploited to any end, commercial or otherwise. Arcan was a public figure, a screen upon which a number of stereotypes and false representations of the artist were projected. She sometimes fed these tall tales, sometimes fought them or ignored them.
After a period of two years of mourning, Arcan’s family has decided to pay homage to Nelly, celebrating her legacy as an author and offering readers a small token of the family’s appreciation by giving them precious insight into her life and work. This is truly a rare initiative from a very media-shy family whose constant wish was that their daughter’s death remains a private affair. The official website is designed as a central living and pulsing hub for the author’s work. Much more than an ordinary gallery of writings and photographs, this evolutive website will allow readers to meander through Arcan’s thoughts via a selection of interviews, quotes, notes and even unpublished texts.
The idea behind the site doesn’t mean to sort through images and representations or to unequivocally define truth from falsehoods, but rather to favour the emergence of a multitude of interpretations. For Arcan’s work to stand the test of time, it is imperative that it not be subject to prejudice or simplistic interpretations. Nor does the website seek to resolve the Arcan mystery with a single key to magically unlock its secrets. No website will ever be able to solve the Arcan case, for if the author tried to communicate one thing in her writing it was that life was not always a simple, linear affair. Instead, the site sketches the contours and silhouettes of the complexities and paradoxes of the author’s work, mapping them and allowing readers to push their exploration further, ultimately arriving at their own meaning.
There is no doubt that as one of Canada’s major authors, Arcan’s literary work will continue to generate some controversy among communities of readers; her disturbingly autobiographical themes and her tone prone to being direct and raw, often spoke of pain and suffering.
Following the launch of the official website, Arcan’s latest volume titled Burqa de chair (Burqa of flesh) will hit French bookstores on October 13, 2011. There is no word yet on a release date for the English translation or for the website. An English translation for the site would require additional funding, and could come later according to sources close to the family.
Nelly Arcan’s legacy lives on, and women the world over identify with some aspect of her always witty, sometimes scandalous writings. The raw overtone of her characters and the issues she delved into will continue speaking to future generations of readers, and this website will hopefully constitute a lasting living memorial worthy of her talent, uniqueness and her importance in the literary landscape.
• Born March 5, 1973 in Lac-Mégantic in the Eastern Townships of Québec.
• Real name: Isabelle Fortier.
• Moved to Montréal in 1994 from the Eastern Townships.
• Published her first novel Putain in 2001, nominated for the Prix Fémina and Prix Médicis. (The book was initially intended as a piece of private correspondence with her psychologist.)
• Published Folle in 2005, nominated for the Prix Fémina.
• Published À ciel ouvert in 2007, her first novel written in the third person.
• Published Paradis clef en main in 2009.
• Died September 24, 2009 in Montréal.
• Burqa de chair set to hit French bookstores in October 2011
www.nellyarcan.com
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