Space, Place, and a Race That Will Not Die - Literature and Painting in Quebec: From Imagery to Identity - page 176

a river at springtime: 'tel un fleuve de printemps, à pleine mesure
d'âme, l'amour de son pays' (26; like a river in spring, to the full mea-
sure of his soul, his love of country). This example, as well as most of
the novel's figurative language supports Anthony Purdy's observation
that Savard's metaphors are essentially 'metonymical,' in that they
arise from the spatial, temporal, and psychological context of the text
itself (71; see also Ricard, 62-72).
Throughout the novel the setting is interwoven metaphorically with
the character's emotions, and Savard even points to (and points out)
the nature of his own style by highlighting the woven tapestries of
Marie and her deceased mother, which capture the same landscape
seen throughout the chapter: 'Les lourdes catalognes barrées où, par
bandes, sa mère avait étalé la couleur des paysages et des saisons: du
bleu de montagne, du jaune de blé mûr et, entre eux, de larges quartiers
tout blancs comme les champs de neige de son pays' (32; The thick
striped cloth where, in bands, her mother had laid out the colours of the
landscapes and the seasons: the blue of the mountains, the yellow of the
ripe wheat, and, between them, large panels of intense white like the
fields of snow in her land).
Savard's highly visible style can perhaps be characterized by borrow-
ing a term the narrator uses to describe the log drivers' evening dance
- 'lyrisme sauvage' (43; wild lyricism) - which captures also the sense
of freedom Menaud feels before the fleeting riverside landscape: 'Il se
sentait libre enfin, humant l'air vif, et jouissant de revoir cette longue
bande de forêt riveraine. Cette fois c'était bien elle, sa vie, que tout cela:
paysages coupés de tourbières et de broussailles, lacs dorés du ciel,
pâtis de brouillards, grandes barres de lumière, grandes barres d'ombre,
jardins d'éricales, vasières gris bleu: et, sous le manteau d'apparence
immobile, toute une vie réduite par l'hiver et qui se libérait soudain, se
dilatait à l'aurore et s'exaltait en un vol aussitôt replongé dans la forêt
humide du matin.' (55-6; He finally felt free, taking in the fresh air and
rejoicing again at the sight of this long band of riverside forest. This was
really his life: landscapes cut by bogs and brush, lakes gilded by the
sun, pastures of fog, great bands of light, great bars of shadow, gardens
of arbutus, greyish blue swamps: and cloaked in apparent immobility,
an entire life subdued by winter that was suddenly freeing itself, ex-
panding with the dawn and exalting in a flight soon brought back to the
humid morning forest.) Savard's lyrical liberty stems from several
sources: the closeness of man and nature in the first sentence; the un-
broken accumulation of six nouns representing different segments and