Introducing Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes
Hugh MacLennan’s classic “novel of Canada” was a publishing phenomenon when it was launched in New York in 1945, though it is rarely read today.
Linda Leith revisits the novel as a Quebec writing in the wake of the massive social changes that shook Quebec and in Canada in the latter half of the twentieth century. Chronicling the novel’s equanimity in the face of its own account of the eventual assimilation of francophone Canadians, it also notes the marginalization of all those of its characters who are neither French and Roman Catholic nor English and Protestant.
Canadian Fiction Studies No. 10
ECW Press, 1990
ISBN: 1-55022-018-7
“Linda Leith’s study certainly enriches the beginner’s appreciation of Two Solitudes, but it offers a stimulating interpretation for specialists, as well… While offering an interpretation of MacLennan’s novel that takes full account of contemporary political and formal concerns, Leith helps us appreciate, in historical as well as literary terms, the real value of MacLennan’s ‘attempt to find a form to accommodate the duality of the Canadian experience.’ Written in a clear and lively style, it is a valuable contribution to the field
Introducing Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes has been translated into French by Hélène Rioux as Deux Solitudes : Une lecture du roman de Hugh MacLennan (XYZ Éditeur, 2014).