The point of view in Roch Carrier's brilliant sixth novel [Il n'y a pas de pays sans grand-père] is that of Vieux-Thomas, once a vigorous man, now in his seventies and restricted to a rocking chair by his own family. Refused all freedom in his own house, he is left to musing about his past. However poignant Vieux-Thomas's situation may be, it soon becomes clear that this is not only a perceptive novel about the pain of old age, but that it carries a powerful political message as well. For the rocking chair which Vieux-Thomas has built himself and on which he has carved fleurs-de-lis is, by its back-and-forth movement which never goes anywhere, clearly emblematic of Québec, just as Vieux-Thomas's situation is not without analogy to that of the Québécois people, who do not consider themselves free in the very land which they...