www.thestar.com
Open in
urlscan Pro
52.85.61.42
Public Scan
Submitted URL: http://send.thestar.ca/t?r=37&c=107072&l=101&ctl=DD326:B12BCAF59526FCABA59A43CA9F130E4B16D41A1C734174C2&utm_email=36C3A...
Effective URL: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/reviews/2022/02/18/quebec-writer-stfanie-clermont-book-the-music-game-the-vo...
Submission: On February 19 via api from BE — Scanned from CA
Effective URL: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/reviews/2022/02/18/quebec-writer-stfanie-clermont-book-the-music-game-the-vo...
Submission: On February 19 via api from BE — Scanned from CA
Form analysis
1 forms found in the DOM<form role="search" class="c-searchbar c-searchbar--standalone" id="searchformm">
<div class="o-search">
<div class="c-search"><button aria-label="Submit Search" type="submit"
class="c-button c-button--search-input"><i class="material-icons c-material-icon c-material-icon--dark-grey" role="img" pointer-events="none" focusable="false" aria-hidden="true">search</i></button><input type="search"
class="c-search__input c-search__input--standalone" aria-label="Search Field" placeholder="Search" name="q" value="" autocomplete="off"><button type="button" aria-label="Clear Search"
class="c-button c-button--search-clear"><i class="material-icons c-material-icon" role="img" pointer-events="none" focusable="false" aria-hidden="true">cancel</i></button></div>
</div>
</form>
Text Content
ADVERTISEMENT Skip to Main Content * Subscribe Now As low as $0.99/week * Sign In person_outline * search * Podcasts * Newsletters * Today’s paper * home * my local * gta * canada * politics * world * opinion * life * sports * entertainment * business * investigations person_outline Subscribe Now As low as $0.99/week * television * music * books * movies * stage * visual arts * fun & games * comics * TV listings Skip to Main Contentmenu Subscribe Now Sign In person_outline closeSign In searchcancel * Podcasts * Newsletters * Today’s paper * home * my local expand_more * Toronto * Vancouver * Calgary * Edmonton * Winnipeg * Ottawa * Halifax * gta * canada expand_more * ontario * british columbia * alberta * quebec * nova scotia * politics expand_more * federal politics * provincial politics * political opinion * world expand_more * united states * americas * europe * asia * africa * australia * middle east * opinion expand_more * star columnists * editorials * contributors * letters to the editor * editorial cartoons * life expand_more * relationships * food & drink * homes * fashion & beauty * health * Together * travel * horoscopes * obituaries * sports expand_more * NHL * NBA * MLB * NFL * soccer * tennis * golf * Auto Racing * Cricket * entertainment expand_more * television * music * books * movies * stage * visual arts * fun & games * comics * TV listings * business expand_more * real estate * technology * personal finance * innovation * investigations * edit_location The Star Edition CHANGE LOCATION expand_more * Manage Profilekeyboard_arrow_right * Subscriptionskeyboard_arrow_right * Billing Informationkeyboard_arrow_right * Newsletterskeyboard_arrow_right * Sign Out This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com DEVELOPINGMore than 100 people arrested during convoy protests, Ottawa police say Books Review QUEBEC WRITER STÉFANIE CLERMONT’S BOOK “THE MUSIC GAME”: THE VOICE OF A NEW ’20S LOST GENERATION IN A WORLD OF DEAD-END JOBS A SENSATION WHEN IT WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN QUEBEC, ITS CHARACTERS CAN DISPLAY THE WORST HIPSTER TRAITS AND GENUINE INSIGHTS INTO THEIR INNER SELVES AND THE NATURE OF THE WORLD AROUND THEM SB By Steven W. BeattieSpecial to the Star Fri., Feb. 18, 2022timer3 min. read updateArticle was updated 11 hrs ago JOIN THE CONVERSATION “Here was a new generation … dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” So wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald at the end of his debut novel, “This Side of Paradise.” When that book was published, in 1920, the author was 23 years old. Gertrude Stein was more than two decades older than Fitzgerald when, around the same time, she distilled his notion into a pithier, more famous assertion, telling fellow modernist Ernest Hemingway, “You are all a lost generation.” In her debut fiction, Montreal writer Stéfanie Clermont locates a 21st Century equivalent to the 1920s’ “lost generation” in a group of young people trying to find meaning and connection in a world of dead-end jobs, unaffordable housing, and romantic disappointments. “After coffee, my existential crisis started,” laments Sabrina, who, like her creator, is an Ottawa-born Montrealer. When she suffers her post-caffeine crisis, she is in San Francisco, visiting her gender-fluid lover, Jess, who lives in a squat with a ragtag group of anarchists, artists, and bohemians. The squatters position themselves in opposition to the “Google employees and tapas-eaters” they blame for neighbourhood gentrification; mostly white, they refer to area Blacks as “folks from the community.” Sabrina, who ends the book returning to her parents’ home in Ottawa after breaking up with Jess, begins it working at a fruit stand in Montreal’s Jean Talon Market, where she makes so little money she is sometimes forced to feed herself by dumpster diving. Yet Sabrina is aware of all the benefits of living as a young person in Montreal. “The people I know who’ve moved to the country hardly read at all anymore,” she says. “The only things they read are Margaret Atwood or ‘The Big Mushroom Guide.’” The quip highlights Sabrina’s acerbic humour, which is often employed as a defence mechanism to keep the depredations of the world at bay. And there is no shortage of suffering on the part of Clermont’s characters. In addition to Sabrina, there is Céline, who lives in a cramped apartment with Kat and her daughter, Ruby. The roommates are forced to listen to the arguments from the apartment above between Cassandra and her abusive boyfriend, Raphaël. There is Julie, who suffers from depression and the violent ministrations of her stepfather, who once locked her in a closet as punishment for some unspecified transgression. And there is Vincent, who works at a 24-hour convenience store, and whose story ends tragically. Clermont sets these overlapping narratives largely in Montreal and Ottawa and slides in and out of different perspectives, employing a first-person narration for Sabrina’s and Julie’s sections and close third-person for Céline, Kat, Cassandra and others. She also engages in a fashionable blurring of generic lines between a novel and a collection of closely linked stories; the various entries, assembled out of chronological order and told from disparate points of view, nonetheless cohere into a single, overarching narrative. A sensation in Quebec when it was first published in 2017, and appearing in a fluent translation by J.C. Sutcliffe, “The Music Game” inhabits a liminal space between different bodies, psyches and geographies. Its characters can display the worst hipster traits — turning up their noses at Bruno Mars on a café stereo while genuflecting at the altar of Godspeed You! Black Emperor — and genuine insights into their inner selves and the nature of the world around them. If they share undeniable commonalities with lost generations before them, they are nonetheless, in Clermont’s hands, rendered specific and unique. Not that it matters much in the end. One imagines the author peeking out from behind the scrim of her character when, late in her book, she writes, “I’m not asking you to like it. I’m not asking you to be my target audience. I’m going to target whomever I want. I’m going to shoot who I want.” Steven W. Beattie is a writer in Stratford, Ont. Read more about: Ottawa, Quebec * SHARE: * * * * * * Report an error * Journalistic Standards * About The Star JOIN THE CONVERSATION Q: Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free) Sign In Register Conversations are opinions of our readers and are subject to the Code of Conduct. The Star does not endorse these opinions. Skip Advertisement ADVERTISEMENT Skip Advertisement ADVERTISEMENT YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN... LIVE UPDATES CONVOY PROTESTS: OTTAWA POLICE SAY OVER 100 PEOPLE ARRESTED; CONVOY ORGANIZER CHRIS BARBER RELEASED ON BAIL 4 hrs ago Canada MEET THE TOP FIVE CANADIAN DONORS TO THE ‘FREEDOM CONVOY’ 9 hrs ago RelationshipsADVICE MY MOTHER’S DEEP INTEREST IN ME IS ANNOYING AND TAKES UP TOO MUCH TIME. WHAT TO DO? ASK ELLIE 1 day ago GTA INUK ACTOR AND SINGLE MOTHER WANTS APOLOGY FROM MICHAEL GARRON HOSPITAL STAFF FOR DISCRIMINATION FACED ON EMERGENCY ROOM VISIT 10 hrs ago TRENDING canada MEET THE TOP FIVE CANADIAN DONORS TO THE ‘FREEDOM CONVOY’ 2 days ago canada CONVOY PROTESTS: PROTEST ORGANIZERS TAMARA LICH, CHRIS BARBER ARRESTED IN OTTAWA 1 day ago canada CITIZENS GROUP WINS COURT-ORDERED FREEZE OF CONVOY PROTEST ACCOUNTS, CRYPTOCURRENCY 1 day ago gta CONVOY PROTESTS: OTTAWA POLICE SAY OVER 100 PEOPLE ARRESTED; CONVOY ORGANIZER CHRIS BARBER RELEASED ON BAIL 18 hrs ago Trending CANADA Meet the top five Canadian donors to the ‘Freedom Convoy’ 2 days ago CANADA Convoy protests: Protest organizers Tamara Lich, Chris Barber arrested in Ottawa 1 day ago CANADA Citizens group wins court-ordered freeze of convoy protest accounts, cryptocurrency 1 day ago GTA Convoy protests: Ottawa police say over 100 people arrested; convoy organizer Chris Barber released on bail 18 hrs ago FOOD_WINE How to make excellent tomato sauce, just as they do in Italy — including the ingredient you can’t skimp on to bring it all together 1 day ago STAR COLUMNISTS The PM and the mayor came through — the premier did not 3 days ago POLITICAL OPINION Justin Trudeau won’t be the one who decides whether his government gets its emergency powers 13 hrs ago POLITICAL OPINION We should judge Doug Ford on his record as premier, not on his daughter’s behaviour 2 days ago CANADA Full text of Ottawa police notice to convoy protesters 2 days ago OPINION Bob Saget’s shocking autopsy report is bringing new conspiracy theories to life 2 days ago MORE FROM THE STAR & PARTNERS MORE ENTERTAINMENT reviewsReview KIM FU’S SHORT STORIES ‘LESSER KNOWN MONSTERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY’ ARE A BALM FOR TROUBLED MINDS movies ‘ALINE’ IS THE WEIRDEST MOVIE OF 2022, WITHOUT DOUBT opinionOpinion THE DRAKE HOTEL, TORONTO’S BASTION OF ART, CULTURE AND HIPSTERDOM, ADDS A MORE WORLDLY, STILL WITH-IT ADDITION. television CANADIAN ACTOR ADRIAN HOLMES ON THE TORONTO BLACK FILM FESTIVAL AND HIS NEW SERIES ‘BEL-AIR’ opinionOpinion THE MISGUIDED ‘FREEDOM CONVOY’ HAS THROWN CANADA UNDER THE BUS AND TURNED US INTO AMERICA TOP STORIES Canada B.C. PIPELINE ATTACK LEFT WORKERS ‘TRAUMATIZED,’ SAYS COMPANY Analysis from Washington CUE THE OUTRAGE MACHINE — FOX NEWS IS PAYING ATTENTION TO CANADA Business NO CHIPS FOR YOU: FRITO-LAY IN FOOD FIGHT WITH LOBLAWS Fighting for a Shot WHY SOUTH AFRICA’S PLANS TO MAKE CONTINENT’S FIRST COVID-19 VACCINE MAY UPEND A BROKEN GLOBAL SYSTEM Star exclusive CITIZENS GROUP WINS COURT-ORDERED FREEZE OF CONVOY PROTEST ACCOUNTS, CRYPTOCURRENCY Skip Advertisement ADVERTISEMENT Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com * About * Contact Us * Feedback THESTAR.COM * Subscribe to the Star * Manage Star Subscription * Gift a Star Subscription * Redeem a Star Gift Subscription * Feedback * Site Map * Newsletters * Homefinder.ca * Corrections * Today's News * Flyers * Contests * Resource Centre TORONTO STAR NEWSPAPERS LTD. * Subscribe to Home Delivery * Manage Home Delivery Subscription * Corporate Group Subscriptions * About * Torstar Journalistic Standards * Atkinson Principles * Glossary * Trust Project * Contact Us * Contact Webmaster * FAQ * News Releases * Star Internships * Careers @ the Star * Star ePaper Edition * Reprint and License ADVERTISING * Advertise with Us * Advertising Terms * Special Features * Election Ads Registry INITIATIVES * Santa Claus Fund * Fresh Air Fund * Star Advisers * Classroom Connection * Toronto Star Archives * * * * * * * Privacy Policy * Terms of use * Accessibility © Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. 1996 - 2022The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6