Aaron

"A new generation of readers will now be able to read the evocative tale of a Jewish boy and his Orthodox grandfather's becoming irrevocably estranged in multicultural Montreal in the 1950s." -- David Lazarus -- The Canadian Jewish News, November 22, 2007, 200711
"A literary masterpiece, Aaron, a heartbreaking novel about tradition versus modernity by later French-Canadian author Yves Thériault, was recently translated into English....`The beauty of the book is in its balance,' [Paul] Socken [who translated it] explains. `I think Thériault wanted people to see what happens when there's no middle ground. There's right and wrong on both sides.'... `The tragedy is that there was no mediation.... It's a very timely cautionary tale.'" -- Atara Beck -- Jewish Tribune, September 27, 2007, 200709
"What an extraordinary novel this is! Why have we been so oblivious to its striking focus on cultural differences and to the marvel of its street-level urban vibrancy? Light years before Mordecai Richler's St. Urbain Street, and Michel Tremblay's colourful Plateau Mont-Royal, this is Yves Thériault's Montreal, a city of migration and encounters. First published n 1954, Aaron is a prismatic story structured by the intersecting voices of different faiths and different cultural traditions. This is a novel of intense questioning about the future of multicultural societies. For Aaron, Moishe, Malak, Viedna, and the other searching characters created by Thériault, the inexorable movement of the city offers a redeeming wisdom against the pervading melancholy of tradition. This excellent translation of a major Thériault novel is indeed a gentle and timely invitation to reconstruct the complex landscapes of our cultural nodernity." -- François Paré, University of Waterloo -- 200709