The Carpathians - University of British Columbia

gothic genre; however, while the stark
details of the settings are appealing, her
characters are, for the most part, bare and
unformed. As a result, the stories seem to
blur together into one depressing canvas of
the alienation caused by urban life and by
the the oppression of female sexuality and
anger. An exception is the title story of the
collection, about a woman whose adult son
has gone missing in Vancouver while she
must wait helplessly in Stratford, Ontario
for any details of the police investigation.
The story is richly detailed, both in the
descriptions of setting and character, and
although this ending too is one of temporary
promise and reprise from "Hell," it is
thought-provoking and challenging
because it leaves the reader to weave the
strands of violence in 16th century England
and 20th century Canada together.
While female sexuality and rage are only
glimpsed in the urban settings of the characters
in Daurio's stories, in Three by Three,
a collection of three stories from each of
the Québécois writers Anne Dandurand,
Claire Dé and Helene Rioux, female desire
and anger are given complete rein. The collection,
from a new generation of
Québécois women writing very consciously
against the theoretically based writing of
authors such as Nicole Brossard and France
Théoret, claims to "represent a move away
from U écriture au féminin towards a more
urban-based narrative," as the translator
Luise von Flotow writes in her introduction.
Flotow suggests that "although feminist
elements are implicit in the work of
these three authors, in their strong women,
their assertive use of language, and the
angry treatment of the less savory aspects
of 'patriarchy,' their work is geared to a
wider public". While I think the project of
creating a new kind of experimental writing
which attempts to articulate female sexuality
and anger is exciting, the stories in
Three by Three are horrifying and disturbing
because the expression of female desire
is repeatedly tied to pain, suffering, and
death.
Anne Dandurand's "The Theft of Jacques
Braise" is the most light-hearted piece in
the collection. She tells the story of a
Haitian/Cree woman, Jacinthe-Pierre
O'Bamsawe, who is a forty-five year-old
witch. When a man she meets at a Montreal
bar refuses to go home with her, she
embarks on a journey to create a magic
potient which will enslave him and make
him her "love zombie." The potient works
by obliterating his soul and leaving only the
body, but as she ironically comments at the
end of the tale, "in this fin de millennium
what more could I have hoped for?" While
the story seems to repeat a bad stereotype
by casting a woman of colour as a witch,
the fantasy of revenge that is the result of
female desire is told with a good deal of
humour and irony in the first-person voice
of the Haitian/Cree protagonist.
However, the collection becomes more
and more problematic, as the desire for
revenge on unfaithful men and the need to
express the women's previously oppressed
sexuality become increasingly dark. In
Claire Dé's story, "Kill," the protagonist is a
manic-depressive who kills eight people
while out buying croissants to feed her
unfaithful lover because "I couldn't resign
myself. To you no longer loving me", and
Helene Rioux's award-winning "The Man
from Hong Kong" tells the story of a selfstyled
"Charles Mansonesque" mass murderer
who preys primarily on women and
children because "he liked they way [their]
suffering was true...was real". While thse
stories claim to celebrate female pleasure,
the stories, apparently unintentionally, suggest
that female pleasure is still bound up
in violence.