Anne Hébert (1916–2000)

There are far too few reviews for this! Gothic horror, poetic prose, innovative storytelling, and very creepy and cathartic. It felt slow at times (hence the rating), but I was kind of in love with it and think the author’s a genius. If you find a copy, I highly recommend.

I wanted to really like The First Garden by French Canadian author, Anne Hebert, but unfortunately I just couldn’t get past the weirdness. The story is about an aging actress who returns to Quebec City after an absence of twenty years. She is trying to reconnect with her daughter, Maude, who has disappeared. She accepts the part of Winnie, the old crone, in Samuel Beckett’s play, Happy Days and she develops a friendship with the young man who’s been living with her daughter and they show more explore the city, searching for Maude. This was about all that I was able to understand.

For me, the weirdness was that so much of the story takes place in the mind and emotions of the main character. In small scenes she appears to relive some of her own difficult past but also those of various women from the history of Quebec City. I never quite grasped what was going on, other than a plot-less exploration of character and perhaps a glimpse of Quebec’s culture through examining the past.

[The First Garden] was a fairly easy read, but very difficult to actually understand or relate to. Perhaps something was lost in the translation but I found this book to be so formless and abstract that I skimmed through the pages without really absorbing or understanding what I was reading.

The First Garden was obviously not a book for me. show less

I read this principally because my grandmother believed she was directly related to the author's. A large fraction of Quebecois share family lineage, but I was unable to find any convincing one with Ann Hebert, unfortunately. Hebert's writing is immersive and enjoyable, though.

Original Rating - 3.5 stars

A very interesting read. May even make your head hurt with the writing style. It's original and very engaging. Short sentences and intense situations.