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Roger Lemelin, a Witness to His TimeMonique Ostiguy
A self-taught man, Roger Lemelin led a diverse career as an author, businessman and journalist. Born on April 7, 1919, in the working-class neighbourhood of Saint-Sauveur in Quebec, he attended school until the eighth grade, after which he worked for a greengrocer. The young Roger Lemelin dreamt of becoming an Olympic freestyle ski champion, but he was injured during a terrible fall at the age of 17 and for several years was either confined to a wheelchair or forced to use crutches. During this time, his father gave him the Underwood typewriter on which he would write all his works, until his death in 1992. With the help of family friend and neighbour Jean-Charles Bonenfant, Roger Lemelin was able to access the Bibliothèque du Parlement de Québec: a gold mine for a self-taught man. It was while working as an accountant for a forestry company that he became involved with the literary magazine Regards, headed by André Giroux. Lemelin devoted his spare time to writing his first novel, Les Grimpeurs, which he submitted for the Prix David in 1942. The prize was awarded to Ringuet for Trente Arpents, but one of the judges, Albert Pelletier, offered to help Lemelin revise his work, both in style and form. In 1944, the novel was finally published under the title Au pied de la pente douce. Lemelin was awarded the Prix David and the Prix de la langue française for his novel and also received the Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller grant. Roger Lemelin then made his debut in radio, devoting most of his time to discussing French Canadian literary and artistic events. From 1944 to 1952, he also worked as correspondent for the weeklies Time and Life, and for Fortune. He contributed to the magazine Amérique française and to the Parisian magazine Les Nouvelles littéraires. In 1948, he published his second novel, Les Plouffe, which earned him a membership in the Royal Society of Canada. The following year, his collection of short stories Fantaisies sur les péchés capitaux was published. In 1952, his novel Pierre le magnifique won the Grand prix de Paris and his film L’Homme aux oiseaux (The Bird Fancier) won the award for Best Canadian Short Film. It was also in 1952 that he brought his characters to life in the dramatic radio series La Famille Plouffe, which aired on CFB until 1955 and on CKVL from 1961 to 1967. In 1953, Radio-Canada’s second year of television programming, he created the weekly series La Famille Plouffe (The Plouffe Family). As of 1954, this program - whose feature actors are still greatly admired - attained a staggering audience rating of 4.4 million, an impressive record for that time. Presented live, the program would air until 1959 and would be performed by the same actors on the English television network from 1954 to 1958. Roger Lemelin then left the writing profession, dedicating himself to business. He established his own advertising company and purchased the Charcuterie Taillefer, which marketed "cretons" prepared using Maman Plouffe’s recipe. While on various business trips to Paris, he struck up friendships with French writers, including Hervé Bazin. In 1971, Lemelin accompanied Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s delegation to Russia and, when he returned, he published a lengthy feature about his trip. In June 1972, Roger Lemelin became president and publisher of the daily newspaper La Presse - a position he held until October 1981. We are pleased to announce that the organization and description of Roger Lemelin’s archival fonds, which are part of the National Library of Canada’s Literary Manuscript Collection, are now completed. A finding aid has been created according to the Rules for Archival Description (RAD), permitting easy access. The Roger Lemelin fonds contains over seven linear metres of textual records dating from 1936 to 1988, and reflects his entire literary, radio broadcasting and television body of work, as well as his duties as president and publisher of La Presse. Researchers will find manuscripts of his first works of fiction, many of which are tales and unpublished short stories. Also included are manuscripts from his novels that gave voice to his working-class characters from Quebec’s Lower Town, which, according to the critics of the time, reflect the emergence of urban French-Canadian literature. In addition, the fonds gathers 40 years of Lemelin’s writings for newspapers: reviews of concerts and novels, articles on political and social issues, trade unionism, journalism and the writing profession, as well as on the quality of the French language. Lemelin was a humanist, a man who analysed the social climate of Quebec and Canada. Numerous letters from readers of La Presse, even those he chose not to publish, supplement the articles dating from the 1970s. Lemelin kept virtually every script of the daily radio broadcasts that featured characters from his first novels: a reminder of the golden age of radio soap operas. Researchers will appreciate scripts of his on-air discussions about French Canadian literature that were broadcast on Radio-Canada or CKVL in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as later commentaries, several of which warn youth against nationalism and the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). Furthermore, the fonds allow us to retrace the evolution of the television series La Famille Plouffe (The Plouffe Family). The National Library of Canada kept all the scripts for the series as well as those from the programs The Plouffes, En haut de la pente douce, Le Petit Monde du Père Gédéon, Chez le Père Gédéon and Viva Valdez. There are also a few pilot programs, contracts, reports and a series of editorials. The fonds contains different versions of texts from many of Lemelin’s speeches on the role of writers and journalists, and on the cultural, economic and social aspirations that he felt Quebecers should possess. These texts illustrate Lemelin’s political stance: while emphasizing the tense dialogue between French and English Canadians, they unequivocally declare his federalist convictions. There is also a great deal of correspondence relating to the preparation for the events during which the speeches were made, and of both positive and negative reactions elicited from politicians, businessmen, journalists, teachers, doctors, lawyers and other notables who were present. Lemelin compiled many files on his favourite topics. One of these files shows the widespread outrage of Quebec publishers and booksellers when the novel Le Crime d’Ovide Plouffe was being sold through the food chain Provigo. It was the first time such a thing was done in Quebec. Another file provides information on Lemelin’s role in the debate over the words of poet Claude Péloquin, "Aren’t you sick of dying, bunch of suckers!" [translation], which were engraved on Jordi Bonet’s mural at the Grand Théâtre de Québec. The file offers first-hand information on the campaign headed by Lemelin to remove the famous statement… or the mural itself. Lemelin collected numerous documents that enable us to retrace the course of the trial of those convicted in the murder in Sault-au-Cochon (On September 9, 1949, jeweller Albert Guay, aided by two accomplices, blew up a DC3 plane, killing his wife and 23 other passengers.) The fonds contains the collection of interrogations, pleas and confessions that inspired Le Crime d’Ovide Plouffe. Another voluminous series of documents helps us relive the 1974 visit to Quebec by members of the Académie Goncourt - Lemelin had invited them to visit following his nomination as a member of the Académie. This series sheds light on the debates about French cultural colonialism that were taking place at the time. Researchers will be interested in Roger Lemelin’s correspondence - he kept a copy of every letter he mailed. Among other things, this correspondence shows Lemelin’s relationships with numerous Canadian, French and American writers and publishers, and with many personalities from the political world. Like the rest of the documents created and collected by Lemelin, this collection offers information on unpublished news items about events that punctuated the history of Quebec and Canada. The Lemelin fonds is an interesting corpus not only for literary studies but also for many other fields of research. It allows one to retrace the cultural, political and social evolution of Quebec society from the end of the Second World War to the end of the 1970s. For more information on the Roger Lemelin fonds, please contact the National Library’s Literary Manuscript Collection at: Telephone: (613) 947-0827 |
