Make winter! Martine Our forefathers had understood, them. Winter was the season of rest, indoor activities, evening fireside or visits between neighbors, and dancing jigs. From April to October they toiled hard, the offseason was the winter.
And now? The opposite! We take our vacation in July, children and their teachers leave from June to August, the TV only broadcasts occasions, even the construction stops for two weeks!
is the fact that Bernard Arcand made in this essay funny and interesting. In the first part, we list the drawbacks of winter, real or imaginary. Then in the second chapter, he demonstrates that our lifestyle is organized as if winter did not exist, as if we had won. Finally in the last section we presents its solution.
This section is less interesting to me because the author has pushed a bit too granny in nettles. It is unrealistic to think that our society may get stalled for two months in January and February, to the point we would not even have to clear most of the roads! Without pushing the cap so far, one could imagine what life would be if schools were closed in the winter, if more workers then took their holidays there ... (I often do, this is a Pure pleasure than to curl up on the couch with a good book and a cup of steaming tea when the storm is raging!). Imagine already traffic and clearing much easier. Driving after a storm would be much less stressful if there were only half the cars on the road at rush hour, right? Especially since I noticed the last few years that people are becoming more nervous and anxious in these situations, I do not know how to explain it. In December, the day after the first big storm of the season, there's even a guy who drove in another with his car after an altercation, fatally wounding him!
short, despite a last weaker party, a test which is very interesting and the opportunity to question our own relationship with this season unloved!
Preview:
"For five months he must also be wary of accidents. Gliding of a roof that deglaze. Losing foot on a sidewalk and fracturing a bone. Know infarction following a meeting of shoveling unreasonable myocardial average citizen, chubby smoker in high cholesterol or diabetes unconscious, which, with so many snow throws a holy rage, then goes out and goes up to sky. Be struck by a snow removal truck driven by a drunk driver. Being decapitated by a steel cable during a snowmobile trip. Stumble over the Olympic downhill course near Mont Sainte-Anne. Be buried under thin ice of a lake. Engage in climbing a steep glacier. Play hockey. Get sucked into a blower. Being kidnapped by the Yeti. Receive on the head a block of ice falling from the roof. See his windscreen smashed by another block that stands out on the road, the truck in front of you. Receive a snowball behind his head. An ice cube in the heart. Being blinded by the snow. No longer able to detach his tongue a metal bar. Be made a fool by trying to build an igloo.
Winter is the season of all miseries. "
The ticket of
Allie.
Make winter! Bernard Arcand, 1999, 110 p.
