In the Preface to A Certain Difficulty of Being Purdy examines the kinds of discourse that deal with the novel in some nineteenth-century Quebec novel prefaces, thereby revealing a theme of generic denegation in the sense of "This is not a novel." Purdy goes on to explore the transition from epic to novel in Félix-Antoine Savard's Menaud, maître-draveur; the contradictions stemming from the use of a first-person, present-tense narrative in André Langevin's Poussière sur la ville; the problem of narrativity and history as it is raised in Hubert Aquin's Prochain épisode; and the way in which narrative voice functions in Anne Hébert's Kamouraska. He also touches on the current debate concerning the boundaries between modernism and post-modernism. Purdy does not offer an all-embracing system to explain the development of narrative in the Quebec novel, but leads us to an understanding of how these particular novels function, each in its own socio-historical context, and how they achieve or fail to achieve what they set out to do. The thread that runs through the different chapters is a pragmatic concern with Quebec's historical "difficulty of being" as it informs in varying ways the narrative projects of the novels in question.

IT may occur to some persons to feel surprise, that the Author of the following Lectures, instead of occupying himself on the direct proof of Catholicism, should have professed no more than to remove difficulties from the path of those who have already admitted the arguments in its favour. But, in the first place, he really does not think that there is any call just now for an Apology in behalf of the divine origin of the Catholic Church. She bears her unearthly character on her brow, as her enemies confess, by imputing her miracles to Beelzebub. There is an instinctive feeling of curiosity, interest, anxiety, and awe, mingled together in various proportions, according to the tempers and opinions of individuals, when she makes her appearance in any neighbourhood, rich or poor, in the person of her missioners or her religious communities. Aeterna Press