[Marie Claire Blais's purpose in "The Manuscripts of Pauline Archange"] is to present a person, a child—Pauline, passionate as she is, with the passion children lose as they grow up. Pauline cannot not rebel; nevertheless, her rebelliousness torments her. She constantly worries about sin and her soul. Her manuscripts are the log of a war of personal liberation, and the confessions of a scrupulous conscience—which is probably as French as it is Catholic…. (p. 138)

Pauline reaches her teens and manages—Mlle. Blais does not say how—to stay in school instead of going to work. She acquires a few friends—well-to-do, serious young people—with whom she discusses literature. Their individuality has been encouraged to flourish, as hers has not, and yet their personalities have become merely articulate; their experiences are so limited that their profundities are shallow. Pauline cannot confide in them much of what...