Le Lecteur et la question écologique dans Le Club des miracles relatifs de Nancy Huston

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which Nancy Huston’s novel Le Club des miracles relatifs establishes its relationship to its reader, focusing especially on the protagonist’s stilted monologues addressed to a supposed auditor and perhaps also, indirectly, to the reader. While the text is a fiction, it invites its readers to take note of the effects of the tar sands on the environment and to think critically about the place of humans in the ecosystem. It does so by involving the reader in the narration process, most notably by indirect interpellation. However, the text also distances its readers, thereby affording them the space to reflect on the environmental issues raised. This is done using a strategy of “linguistic defamiliarization,” for example by inventing words which unnerve the readers while giving them access to the protagonist’s mind.