A Matter of Gravity (eBook)

Hélène Vachon (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2014
256 Seiten
Talonbooks (Verlag)
978-0-88922-841-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Treading delicately between laughter and tragedy, Force of Gravity is a touching portrait of loneliness and the pursuit of happiness.

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A Matter of Gravity is about the forces that draw two men together. Hermann, an embalmer and doctor's son, devotes himself to the dead to mask his disappointment that, unlike his father, he cannot cure the -living. Hu is an ailing pianist who dwells in memories of past glory. Hermann displaces his drive for perfection and order onto his elderly neighbours. Hu, ashamed of his lame, knobbed hands, rarely leaves his airless room. Hermann contends he is eternally separated from the world by a "e;permanent cushion of air"e; that keeps him wavering between two women and hovering above humanity. Hu is bound to a nightmarish reality, shuffling between emphysema, rheumatoid arthritis, and Parkinson's disease.When a mysterious manuscript, possibly written by one of Hermann's centenarian neighbours, connects one man's routine with the other's, an extended afternoon at the park eventually leads back to Hu's piano. This marks the beginning of the men's tenuous relationship, which, while healing in nature, is made more fragile by the pianist's heightened -mortality.A Matter of Gravity is a sensitive, delicate, and humorous novel that unfolds in liminal spaces: between life and death, youth and age, earth and sky. By the end of the final, transformative meeting between Hermann and Hu, Vachon gently broaches the question that paralyzes each man and the people whom they love: When faced with terminal -illness, how do we embrace the unsatisfactory life we leave behind?

Autor

After studying French literature in Quebec and France, Hélène Vachon began working for the Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications. Since 1995, she has published two novels, more than twenty works of children’s literature, a number of translations. Her books, most notably the Somerset series, La tête ailleurs, Singuliers voyageurs, and L’arbre tombé, have been nominated for many prizes.Vachon won both the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Mr. Christie’s Book Award in 2002 for L’oiseau de passage. She lives near Quebec City.Phyllis Aronoff lives in Montreal. She has a master’s degree in English literature. The Wanderer, her translation of La Québécoite by Régine Robin, won the 1998 Jewish Book Award for fiction. She and Howard Scott were awarded the 2001 Quebec Writers’ Federation Translation Award for The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701. She is currently president of the LTAC.Howard Scott is a Montreal literary translator who specializes in the genres of fiction and non-fiction. He is a past president of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada. His literary translations include works by Madeleine Gagnon and Quebec science fiction writer Élisabeth Vonarburg. In 1997, Scott received the prestigious Governor General’s Translation Award for his work on Louky Bersianik’s The Euguelion. In 1999, his translation of The Eighth Register," a science fiction story by Alain Bergeron, won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for best short-form.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.5.2014
• Übersetzer: Phyllis Aronoff, Howard Scott
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: aging • dark humour • Death • Fiction • Liminal Spaces • terminal illness • Translation
• ISBN-10: 0-88922-841-8 / 0889228418
• ISBN-13: 978-0-88922-841-2 / 9780889228412