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"Happiness" 1946
From: The Quebec Anthology
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"Le bonheur," translated here as "Happiness" by Wayne Grady, is a tale of urban despair, taken from Ringuet’s only book of short stories, L’Heritage (1946). The story suggests that the only route to happiness in working class Montreal was through madness and delusion. In some ways, it justifies several of Ringuet’s severest critics, who accused him of a bitter and fruitless pessimism. But "Happiness" also reveals the author’s gift for exact observation, meticulous writing, and his delight in a subtle, black humour.
Contributors
Ringuet
Philippe Panneton, who wrote under the pseudonym Ringuet, was born in Trois-Rivières on April 30, 1895, to a family that had first settled in the region in 1640. At the age of eighteen, he went to Montreal to work as a reporter, then one year later enrolled at the Université de Montréal to study medicine. In 1920 he went to Paris to specialize in ear-nose-and-throat disorders, later returning to Quebec to set up eye clinics in Montreal and Joliette. Under his real name, publishing in several leading periodicals, newspapers,
