Who is the best player in hockey history: Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Connor McDavid or Michel Lenoir?
Michael who?
Quebecers of my generation who read the books in the children’s series “Les Inactif” as children, written by author Denis Côté in the 1980s, of course know who Michel Lenoir is.
He is the Quebec hockey player star of the Lost Ark Raiders, the hero of this youth series. When I was a child, my parents gave me these books as gifts. By the end of elementary school, it was my favorite series. I must have reread the adventures of Michel Lenoir ten times, a sports star who finds himself, despite himself, at the center of a world revolution.
Years later, I was curious to meet the author of the series, Denis Côté. To get news from Michel Lenoir. But above all, to learn more about the creation of this science fiction universe that had an impact on me as a child.
To write “Les Inactif”, Denis Côté says he was inspired by the film Rollerball, released in 1975. In this film, the popularity of the hero James Caan, a top athlete, threatens the group of companies that governs society.
“This film shook me. It was an extremely political science fiction film that was about something other than space travel. It was an exaggeration of our problems. I wanted to write something like that, with a charismatic leader, the captain of a hockey team, because I was a hockey fan,” says Denis Côté, sitting at the café of the National Museum of Fine Arts. arts of Quebec, a stone’s throw from the Plains of Abraham, in Quebec.
After tossing his ideas around in his head for years, Denis Côté published the first volume of “Inactif” in 1983. The young author was then 29 years old.
In this science fiction story set in the future (in the 2010s!), robots have taken the place of humans in almost all spheres of society. Economic and social inequalities are appalling. The Inactive, who no longer have jobs, live in poverty in the heavily polluted Old City. The few Active who continue to work live in the New City. And the ultra-rich, who become eternal beings thanks to science, live secluded with their fortune in the Private Zone. The Inactive console themselves by adulating their hero, the hockey player Michel Lenoir, who will rebel against his ultra-rich owner.
He also feared growing economic inequalities and excessive concentration of wealth. He is well placed to talk about it. “I come from a poor background,” he says. Like many Quebecers of his generation, born before the Quiet Revolution. “For the first 18 years of my life, there were seven of us living in a four and a half, no hot water, no showers or baths,” says Denis Côté, who grew up in Lower Town in Quebec. This separation between the places where the rich and the poor live is universal. I simplified that in “The Inactives”. »
“Years after writing “Les Inactif”, I realized that it was me, Michel Lenoir. He has a Don Quixote side, he is naive, he sacrifices himself for others. He believes that armed revolutions always fail. I have always been an activist. Not to the point of being Michel Chartrand, but more militant than the average citizen,” says Denis Côté, who was president of his union when he taught college.
Denis Côté published “Les Inactif” at a time when far fewer Quebec children’s books were being published. The series was a critical and popular success. Each of the four volumes has sold more than 10,000 copies, says the author. In 1983, the first volume won the Canada Council for the Arts Prize, the most important literature prize in the country at the time.
The author from Quebec, who specializes in science fiction, fantasy, suspense and horror, helped to democratize children’s literature in the 1980s and 1990s. The writer wrote around forty books, all intended to children and young people.
Very few writers in Quebec manage to make a living from their pen, and Denis Côté is (unfortunately) not the exception to the rule. Even if he calculates having sold several hundred thousand copies of his books. Even though it has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Danish.
At the same time as he was writing, he was a French teacher at college, a bookseller, a civil servant for a few months, and taught comics at university.
Regardless of the increased international competition – let’s call it the Harry Potter phenomenon – “too many children’s books are being published in Quebec, publishers are aware of it,” he believes.
Even at 70, Denis Côté (not to be confused with the filmmaker of the same name) continues to write. His most recent book, The Cinema of Horror, was released last fall.
The day before we met, he had just sent a new manuscript to his publisher.
To my great disappointment, this is not the continuation of the adventures of Michel Lenoir.
The four volumes of “Inactives” were, however, republished in 2013, under the title Cybernetic Hockeyeurs. When I gave this book to my godchildren, it struck me to what extent the themes addressed by Denis Côté in the 1980s are still relevant today.
“I have nothing against technology, the Internet or cell phones, but we are in the process of transforming human relationships,” says Denis Côté. In my books, I exaggerated reality. Robots capable of playing hockey, we’re not there yet. But robots represent the possibility of technology replacing humans. Artificial intelligence can write novels, compose songs, paint. This matter is far from over, and I find it frightening! »
