Review of The Song of Roland by Michel Rabagliati

Review of The Song of Roland by Michel Rabagliati

The Song of Roland
Michel Rabagliati
Conundrum Press

We’ve waited three long years for the English translation of Michel Rabagliati’s internationally acclaimed Paul à Québec, his sixth album in this semi-autobiographical series. As in Rabagliati’s previous stories, the author addresses a milestone in Paul’s life.

Our protagonist is your average middle-class nice guy, a husband to Lucie, and a father to Rose. In short, Paul is someone readers can readily identify with. Paul, now almost 40, moves with his family from their urban apartment to a modest home, just as he is hitting his stride in his career as a graphic artist. In other words, life is good. But on a long holiday weekend with Lucie’s parents and extended family, Paul inadvertently discovers that his father-in-law Roland is sick.

While The Song of Roland is about Roland’s life and legacy, this intergenerational portrait is also about family, love, and coping. Of course, the story will bring many readers to tears, but Rabagliati expertly negotiates the theme of death by adding moving family memories and generous doses of humour to keep things light and the narrative moving.

The old-school federalist and quintessential self-made man, Roland is also a likeable character. Born into poverty, he came of age in the prosperous post-war era and achieved relative wealth through hard work and determination, back in the day when success did not require a higher degree. His political views differ from those of his offspring, who came of age at the height of Quebec nationalism. But for all his hard work in life, Roland’s new rank among the dying is unbearable for the former executive, and true to the Kübler-Ross model, Roland proves to be a stubborn, difficult patient for hospice staff at the beginning of his three-month stay.

Rabagliati’s treatment of time in The Song of Roland is nothing short of masterful. As anyone who has lost someone can attest, the final months and days are excruciatingly long, and time indeed moves very slowly. To illustrate this, the author decelerated time segments by increasing his number of frames. In his beautiful broad ink brushstrokes, Rabagliati shows us Paul’s final drive to bid farewell to his father-in-law in no less than 22 frames, adding highly realistic yet extremely banal detail, such as Paul fastening his seatbelt, turning right onto Sauvé East, taking the Louis-H.-Lafontaine tunnel, and even passing by IKEA. The author successfully draws out the sequence while maintaining the reader’s interest.

The Original French Cover

In terms of graphic elements, the most stunning is Lucie’s nightmare, foreshadowing her father’s death. Rabagliati contrasts a sequence of luminous open spaces in which an adolescent Lucie and her father are clowning around on a summer’s day with that of Lucie walking alone in a dark dense forest with short teeth-like branches. Amid the darkness, Lucie comes across a small structure awash in light with a tiny Virgin Mary statue on the forest floor and then comes face to face with the shadowy grim reaper wielding a shot gun. Another poignant visual is the floral pattern created by Roland’s final injection of morphine.

The Song of Roland has been hailed as Rabagliati’s mid-career masterpiece and with good reason. This is his best yet. But the dramatic change in title for the English version will certainly raise some eyebrows. Why the sudden shift in emphasis from Paul to Roland? Could it be the new publisher? Anyway, diehard Paul fans who have patiently waited for the translation will not be disappointed. Once again Rabagliati, the storyteller, gives us another highly realistic and riveting chapter in Paul`s life, while Rabagliati, the artist and craftsman, skilfully brings his readers close enough to the action to make them feel personally involved in the story.



This review was first published in the summer 2012 edition of the Montreal Review of Books.



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Graphic Novel: Paul Goes Fishing by Michel Rabagliati

Graphic Novel: Paul Goes Fishing by Michel Rabagliati

As a child growing up in English-Canada, I read more than a few comic books, but none past age 10. Comic books or graphic novels, "les bandes dessinées or BD," as they are known here, occupy a prominent place in pop culture in the French-speaking world. Comics are not cast aside after childhood. Nor is it unusual to hear adults make a cultural reference to classic BDs, such as Asterix, a reference often lost on English-speakers.

I was reluctant to read a graphic novel because I initially found them too pricey. There was a fair bit of buzz several years ago about Michel Rabagliati's Paul series. I tried to find copies in used book stores to no avail. People do not give them up....

I read a few of the Paul series and enjoyed them immensely, but thinking that they could not get any better, I didn't buy anymore.

I recently bought Rabagliati's latest effort, Paul à Québec, as a gift for my husband. He read it the same day, and I read it the next. Emotional tally: laughing out loud (lol) - three times; the waterworks (tears) - twice. Rabagliati expertly steers his reader through some tricky content, which never comes off as maudlin or trite. In this novel, Paul and his immediate family experience the demise of a much-loved family member.

Rabagliati's use of recognizable Quebec landmarks in his drawings gives the reader a real-time experience. However, it's the author's use of flashback and his attention to the cultural details of the day that really add to the book's realism and further draw the reader into the story.

After finishing Paul à Québec, I was curious about the English translation of the Paul series. Would English readers get the full Paul experience? I picked up Paul Goes Fishing, a title, which I admit did not interest me in the least, to see how the translation measured up.

However, once again, I was pleasantly surprised. Fishing merely serves as a backdrop for the story, and it is through this theme that we learn more about Paul, his past and his city ways. It is also through the fishing trip that we learn more about his in-laws Monique and Clément. In fact, it's the fishing trip which leads us to the main storyline, the trials and tribulations of Paul and his wife Lucie in their quest to carry a child to term.

Rabagliati draws us in with the familiar. Paul is short and thin. He is neither rich nor powerful. We learn he was a poor student, and a short-lived high school drop-out who later works in graphic design--an average guy. And that is what is so compelling about Paul and the rest of the characters. They're real...like so little in today's mass media. It's easy to identify with the characters, and their actions and reactions are both refreshing and reassuring.

Paul's fishing trip eventually leads us back to Montreal. A flashback takes the reader with Paul through the impoverished Centre-Sud area and to the Jacques-Cartier bridge. There are also heart-wrenching trips with Lucie to the hospital, and finally Paul's stop at St. Joseph's oratory.

This book ran the gamut of emotions, and they were just as intense in English as in French. Initially, I found it odd to read Paul and Lucie in English, but after about 20 pages, I was completely drawn into the book.

If you're curious about Montreal or already know and love it, then you will be enamoured with the Paul series. I highly recommend Paul Goes Fishing in both French and English.

(If you had a chance would you read Paul Goes Fishing?)

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