Millions for a Song (8 page)

Acknowledgments

The lyrics to “Live in the Dark” and “Limited Sensations” were written by Alexandre Vanasse and revised for the novel by Maurice Poteet.

Photo by Alexis K. Laflamme.

Interview with André Vanasse

Music and the feelings it gives rise to are universals for young people, whatever language they speak. To what extent does the story of Nexxtep's genesis and challenges come out of your own experiences with music and teen bands?

To start with, I have to say that I have no musical training. So
Millions for a Song
doesn't come from my own experience but instead from those of my son Alexandre. Just as in the novel, Alex created a band called The Nexxtep. That's where their adventure began and ended since, other than rehearsals in their parents' basements, The Nexxtep never played for an audience.

Better yet, when I first came up with the idea for the novel, I'd never even heard of
U2
! Like everyone else my age, during the sixties I listened to The Platters, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and that whole generation hundreds of times, but my favorite musicians were Quebec, French, and Belgian songwriters: Félix Leclerc, Georges Brassens, Gilles Vigneault, Jacques Brel, etc.

You have been a distinguished editor and mentor to many writers in French Canada. Why did you decide to write a novel for teenagers?

I look at writing as a challenge. I like to try my hand at all genres. I was a finalist in French
CBC
's International Songwriting Competition with the famed musician André Gagnon. I was a finalist with my play
Dialogue
in French
CBC
's radio play contest. “L'âcre parfum” is a one-page story of mine that was published in at least three textbooks for high school students. I've been writing editorials for twenty years in the magazine
Lettres québécoises.
I've also written columns about fiction-writing. I've published essays, anthologies, novels, etc.

When I wrote
Millions for a Song,
I began by reading over fifty young adult novels just to understand how others went about it. You have to read in order to learn how to write, contrary to what some think. I also wanted to see if anyone else had written on the same subject. I was greatly relieved to see that no one had.

As for the subject itself, it came to me spontaneously. “Why not start with Alex's band and take them beyond their wildest dreams?”

Next, I had to give a vivid portrayal of my characters. In a novel, readers have to be able to recognize each character through their singular traits. Finally, I needed a dramatic situation without which the novel would fall flat. It was a natural for me to think of a copyright piracy issue since I was a founding member of the Public Lending Rights Program and involved as an editor in all national and international copyright issues. The authors with my publishing house
XYZ
were published in a dozen countries: English Canada of course, France, Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Romania, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, Romania, Mexico, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and others that may have slipped my mind.

Your fictional band is writing its songs in English, in a society where French is the dominant and preferred language. Why did you decide to explore that path taken by Alexandre and his friends?

Once again, it was a natural choice. My son Alexandre decided to write his songs in English. I was a university professor of Quebec literature and my wife taught French in a college. Right off the bat, there was an obvious clash. A novel needs confrontation, whether language-related or otherwise.

Writing songs in English is, I would imagine, a political act in contemporary Quebec. Yet your characters really have nothing to say about politics, and their audiences thrive on their songs. Is that true to the reality of life in Quebec today?

In many countries, language is often a delicate matter. That's the case in Canada, but in a dozen other countries as well. Just think of the Catalans who want to separate from Spain, or the Basques in France, the Flemish in Belgium . . .

Language, racial, and religious conflicts have led to the deaths of a horrifying number of innocent victims. Over a million Armenians were killed by the Turks. A genocide. In Africa, tribal and religious wars have decimated entire peoples. Not to mention the Jews and the Holocaust.

That being said, I didn't want to write a novel about political quarrels, but about culture instead. Youth's cultural models, as far as songwriting is concerned, are resolutely anglophone. There are instances of Swedes, Germans, and Asians choosing the English language as a vehicle for their songs. Music and English go together because it is such an international language.

In one way, we can say that Alex is following in Céline Dion's footsteps. His group is also a sign of things to come, like the all-Québécois band Simple Plan. He is on the road to international fame. Of course, Alex's parents are scandalized. But they accept their son's choice anyway. There's dissension between father and son, but no threats or arm-twisting.

You seem to understand a lot about the emotional and social dynamics that exist amongst intense young people—like Alexandre, Bruno, Jean-François, and Melanie. Where does that insight come from?

As I mentioned earlier, a novel calls for well-defined characters. The ones I've described in
Millions for a Song
are not the real-life teens. I created typical characters: Bruno is a person of extremes, Jean-Francois is calm. As for Alex and Mélanie, their troubled relationship is the focus. I've seen the ways in which young people sometimes differ from their parents. They can have a friendship without sex factoring into the equation. There again, I started with real life: my son had a friend, a very attractive girl. Yet their relationship was totally platonic. “She's my friend, not my girlfriend,” he'd say. I thought they had a wonderful relationship; at the same time, I wanted to show that Mélanie and Alex were aware that the issues of desire and seduction were always in the background. Alex knows that Mélanie is continually flirting with him.

The band makes a deal with the predatory agent without having had any legal advice. Throughout the story, they handle their own affairs. Do you think this is typical of teenagers in Quebec and elsewhere?

I wouldn't say that Nexxtep's characters' reactions are a reflection of young Quebecers. Life has shown me that the thirst for success is so strong that stupid mistakes can be made. Tom Paradis knows his stuff and has them wrapped around his finger from the outset. He has an answer to everything—above all, he guarantees them performances. He knows what buttons to push despite the members' initial reluctance. Tom Paradis' character lives up to his name: he offers them paradise. Unfortunately, paradise ends up looking more like hell.

In the end, Nexxtep's members were taken in because of their lack of experience; quite simply they were manipulated.

What do you think about French language literature for young people being translated into English and thus being made available to a new audience? How many of your other works have been translated into English?

It's always an enormous pleasure for an author to be translated into another language. Translation is a gateway to the world. In my case, it was even more exciting because Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli, did a remarkable job. I loved their translation so much that, reading it, I couldn't help thinking what a great writer I was!

Millions for a Song
, along with
Gabrielle Roy: A Passion
for Writing
and
The Encyclopedia of Wine Making
, are the only books of mine that have been translated into English.
Millions
was also translated into Spanish and Catalan and published in French in Italy as a book to be used to teach high school students French. I was flattered to be held up as an “example!”

Of course, I would like to see my other novels translated into English as well. Especially, my novel
La saga des Lagacé
that was so well-received in Quebec.

What would be your advice to young writers today?

I have heard
young writers say they don't want to read fiction so
they won't be influenced by another author or subject. That's
just the opposite of what they should be doing. It's
essential to be reading all the time. Re-reading in fact
two, three, four times the authors you most admire, trying
to understand why their books speak to you. That means
reading the passages that work best and trying to understand
how they do it. By analyzing another writer's work, you
won't learn to copy it—which would be wrong—but to imitate
him or her, understand their approach. After that, any lessons
can be applied to your own writing. It can take
time to develop your own style. It's possible. All it requires is patience ...

If I hadn't admired Gabrielle Roy, the author of
The Tin Flute,
so much
I might never have turned to writing. She convinced me that Montreal's poor district Saint-Henri was as full of meaning as the seedy parts of Paris described by Émile Zola and made me understand that my city could be just as inspiring a setting as the cities described by the great authors of world literature, Fyodor Dostoyevsky first among them.

You have to find a role model who will act like a lighthouse in the night showing you the way when you have trouble writing. They're there with us, telling us to keep on keeping on. They can hold our hand and be a source of strength . . .

Thank you, André.

Susan Ouriou

Christelle Morelli

Interview with Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli

You were the ones who suggested that English-speaking teens would be interested in a story about a Montreal teen band. What was there about the story that you thought would translate particularly well?

There were a whole host of reasons for choosing
Millions:
the characters, especially Alex and Mélanie; their willingness to work hard and take chances; and their eventual success, even in the face of internal and external obstacles. The fact that the original had been short-listed for the Governor General's Award for Children's Literature in French also meant that it would be easier for Red Deer Press to take the leap of faith that any publishing project requires. Finally, there are many young aspiring musicians, writers, and artists who will see themselves in these characters and hopefully aim for the stars themselves!

When you are working on a translation from French to English, how much leeway do you have in finding the appropriate words and phrases in English? Or, put another way, how literal does your translation have to be?

When translating, we let ourselves be guided by two principles, namely staying true to the author's intent, which necessarily involves using the tools particular to each language, and ensuring readers walk away with the same images and emotions they would have experienced had they read the original.

An example will help illustrate how literary translation is in no way a literal translation. In the original, Alex asks Bruno to explain who “Gugusse de Malheur” is, thinking he's quite clever to have come up with a play on Bruno's favorite musician's name, Gustav Mahler. In French, “Gugusse” means someone no one takes seriously, a clown, and “Malheur” means wretched and, of course, sounds like the name Mahler. Obviously, left in French, the joke would mean nothing to an English reader. As translators, we had to come up with an expression that would sound somewhat like the musician's name and yet have a funny twist to it. After many failed attempts, we came up with “Goosed a Mallard” which reproduces the “Goo” sound of the German “Gustav” and Mallard for “Mahler,” hence leaving the reader with the image of a duck being goosed. When Alex complains that Bruno didn't even appreciate his word play, we as readers can now understand what he's talking about. In the same way, all of translation requires a distancing from the form (the language, voice, and style) used in the original in order to come back to the original's meaning using another form, that provided by the language of the translation. We like to think of it as going to a place without words because it is only there that it's possible to find the right words.

Sometimes literary works do not travel easily between the two cultures. Why is that?

There is no reason why all works of literature cannot travel well if properly translated. Above all, a translator must be familiar with both cultures (that of the original language and his or her own culture) in order to convey the same meanings. Knowing both cultures, the translator is able to see when elements that are implicit in the original need to be brought to the fore in the translation so readers in both cases will have the same understanding.

An example from
Millions
is Alex questioning his father's love for Yves Duteuil's song “
La langue de chez nous
.” There is no explanation needed in French since the title says everything and the song itself is well-known. In English, we had Alex say, as in the original, “[The song] gets a bit too preachy,” and then we added, “about the French language” for English readers who most likely don't understand the French title and/or know that it is a song in praise of the language spoken in Quebec.

What is the most difficult aspect of doing this kind of translation?

In the case of this particular novel, the original story was set in a particular time frame, which meant that a number of the references sounded outdated in a translation done some twenty years later. The challenge was to update some of the technological and musical references and still stay true to the original. This was made possible by another principle of translation, namely considering the text as a whole. For instance, as in the earlier example of “Gugusse,” if the main character had used wordplay constantly in the story, we could have come up with equivalent wordplay, but wouldn't necessarily have had to use it in the exact same spot in the text, instead finding places where it would be more natural in English.

Through your work, you are familiar with
the books that are made available to young readers in
French Canada, and those that are aimed at the same
age in English Canada. What are the differences, in general,
in the books intended for the two cultures—if any?

Quebec YA authors or publishers seem readier to explore and publish subjects that can be seen as more taboo elsewhere: death, teen sexuality, mental illness, etc. Also, a number of Quebec books have a greater preoccupation with language, a consequence of living in French on a mainly English-speaking continent and of speaking a language that has evolved differently from the French still spoken in France.

Thank you, Christelle and Susan.