Germaine Lauzon is the lucky winner of 1 million trading stamps. They will buy her a whole new house worth of furnishings, and all she has to do is glue all the stamps into the booklets provided. To make the process easier, she invites all her relatives and friends over for what ends up being an uproarious stamp party. In the close quarters, tempers flare, jealousies arise, and more than one booklet goes missing…

This will probably be a baffling play for people used to European French rather than Quebec French. Tremblay was one of the first playwrights to use Quebec joual in his dialogue, and it can be almost impenetrable in print. I found it useful to read aloud, because he does write fairly phonetically.

What I found the most intimidating was the *walls* of text characters would have for their lines—that must have been hard work to memorize and was very difficult for me to read without losing my place at least once. The shorter bits of dialogue were easier to follow. ( )

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Tremblay-Les-Belles-Soeurs/94547
> BAnQ : https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/rechercheExterne/encoded/TGVzIEJlbGxlcy1Tb2V1cnMgcG...

> LES BELLES-SOEURS, par Michel Tremblay. — Germaine Lauzon invite ses soeurs, ses amies, ses voisines et son unique belle-soeur a venir l'aider à coller un million de timbres Gold Star qu'elle a gagnés. Une soirée pathétique.
-- Plateau Mont-Royal, 1965. Les femmes "ordinaires" n'ont pas de chance de s'en sortir. Elles sont trop vieilles pour la Révolution tranquille qui bouscule et trop jeunes pour espérer mourir bientôt. Elles n'avait pas de choix: la routine, le mariage, le peu d'éducation… Mais elles recherchent le bonheur: les concours, le Bingo, le placotage… Une oeuvre magistrale de Tremblay qui nous fait prendre conscience de la pauvreté intellectuelle et culturelle d'une grande partie de la société québécoise de l'époque. Et quel chemin parcouru par les femmes depuis ce temps!
Extrait : « Marie-Ange Brouillette: "Moé, j'mange d'la marde pis j'vas en manger toute ma vie". Rose Ouimet: "Quand tu te retrouves à 44 ans avec un p'tit de 4 ans sur les bras, pis que tu regardes, pis t'as rien en arrière de toé, pis que t'as rien en avant de toi, ça te donne envie de toute crisser là. Mais les femmes, elles peuvent pas. Les femmes sont pognées à'gorge pis elles vont rester de même jusqu'au boutte." »
—Julie Roberge, Montréal (ICI.Radio-Canada.ca)

This is a translation of Michel Tremblay's Les Belles-soeurs into Scots, which I picked up for the sheer randomness of it. My rating is more for the play than for the language -- I found it difficult to wrap my head around people with very Quebecois names (Angéline, Thérèse, Germaine) speaking like they lived in the tenement flats of Glasgow. But the story is good and the women are all lively characters. It seems like it would be a powerful play to see on stage. Now I want to read it in the original French. ( )

A play between book covers rarely measure-up to the “live happening” itself. This is particularly evident with “Les Belles Soeurs” as one must hear the vivid rhythmic lamentations recited by the sisters, in unison without expression, like a requiem for the lost hope of a meaningful life, to feel their dark despair and appreciate the innovative signature of the author. Nonetheless, while waiting for an opportunity to see the play, the written word also succeeds in conveying the forceful message. To be read in the original Quebecois slang version if at all possible. ( )