I found the crossing over between the different worlds in which the author lives and are in his head to be the most interesting part of the novel. I started the book over twice because I felt I had gotten them mixed up. The third time when I mixed them up I just kept reading. I found the connection between the world inside his book and the world outside the prison to be most interesting, but would not choose this topic for a paper most likely. I found the use of a woman he loves as a metaphor (or at least I thought it was one) for the fight for Canada that he so strongly feels he needs in his life to be the best topic for a paper. One of the first points I noted in my notes on this book was that when he first describes his love for this woman he gives details about the place in which they met and spent time together and opposed to details about K herself. This led me to believe that she was not actually what was most important, but rather is was the country he was fighting for, and the fight itself. I say the fight itself because it also seemed at times that he considered the whole revolution to be crazy, and that life might be more enjoyable if he tried to appreciate the simple pleasures and was to live within the structure of the society that he was given. Of course, his own boredom with a normal life wouldn't allow him to do this. The prospect of the revolution, as far as life goes, is what "injects it with the energy it needs to avoid feeble crawling and endless boredom." Clearly our narrator is a complicated man, and if I could tie his obsession with K to his obsession with the revolution he so wants to fight for, I feel that might make for the most interesting paper I could write.

If I were to write an essay on Next Episode I would probably focus on the theme of duality, looking at such things as the constant references to reflections, the statue of the two complementary warriors, and the multiple personalities adopted by the narrator.

S.W.

When I first started "Next Episode" I was a little frustrated because I kept getting lost since the narrator writes in a very convoluted fashion. But, as the novel progressed it was easier for me to get into the style.

Some topics that I think would be good to write about in an essay would be the various themes that are spread throughout the novel. For example the theme of revolution, metafiction, and national identity were themes that really stuck out to me. Additionally, the reoccurring idea of drowning depicted the narrators emotions quite well. He felt smothered and depressed and he wanted to fight but it felt almost impossible. The desire for revolution played such an overwhelming role in this novel and I think it reflected the political nature of the time very well. This could also be linked with the end of the novel where there are movements towards something that never ends up arriving. The text ends but the narrator says it will never end, the fight wont stop until change has come. I think this idea of constant struggle would be a good idea for an essay and there would be a lot of evidence from the text to support it.

Next Episode was a challenging read that took experimental writing to a place I haven’t ever seen it go before. The thing that I was the most interested in was how well the writing style played into the subject about which the book was written. I was really interested in the play between the uncontrollability of the narrator, the subject, and the author himself. That is what I would write an essay on if I was going to write an essay. I also liked the continuity between the spy novel and the experimental novel, and between the spy novel and the revolutionary novel.
I think that for an American audience to read this novel and understand it in any kind of context it is important to get the background for the context in which the novel was written. Typically I am more interested in the words that are actually in a piece of literature and generally disinterested in what the author meant, or wanted to say, or what was happening at the time. I guess this novel made it impossible for me to do a closed reading of this text which is a shell that was interesting to step outside of.

Throughout the novel I found the narrator's obsession/relationship with K and Quebec fairly intriguing. In an essay, I'd want to more fully explore the narrator's relationship to K (who may also potentially be the blonde responsible for his undoing), and everything that it stands for. This would also require analyzing the narrator's love for Quebec and frustration with it. It would include the abandonment, betrayal, and other various complexities that are intertwined into this vague, but clearly very important relationship.

Another angle I might take to an essay would be one examining Next Episode as a work of metafiction. The commentary throughout the novel about genre, and the way stories are supposed to be was fairly interesting. The way reading the book became like being in an author's head while writing a draft. The styl;e in which he writes is also important - I mean, he really sounds like a lunatic for most of it, and I think this both plays into the connection between the author/narrator and commentary about telling a story and playing with structure.

I think I would focus on the relationship between the narrator and his relationship to K as a metaphor for Aquin and the revolution. I think there are lots of similarities that can be drawn between the two relationships. Both are built on ideas of love and trust, but in the end, both the narrator and Aquin are forced to confront reality when the trust is misused. I really believe that much of the language used to describe K is a manifestation of Aquin's own love for his country and his desire to see it as all that it can be.

I'd also be interested to explore more in depth the transitions from the narrator's story to the spy novel he's writing. The blurry transitions seem to allude to something more, something the reader isn't supposed to fully understand or grasp.

If I were to write a paper about Next Episode, I would try to decide which of the many themes and writing techniques would yield the most information in an interesting fashion. I found the similarities between Aquin's life and the fictional life of the protagonist to be intriguing, because the connection gave a desperate and urgent tone to the novel. As opposed to feeling as though it was a story he created, it seemed as though he actually believed what was happening. I would have the essay begin with the comparison of how they were both arrested for the possession of weapons, and tie it off with how, when the revolution became less the intense war he craved and more of a political campaign, he deemed his involvement over and ended his life in an equally dramatic manner as he ended the novel.

NEXT EPISODE - a difficult novel? D.Glover said so & who doesn't agree. . .it's also said that it's not a novel - no plot. Oh well, if you've got to be "inside" for a while of psychiatric evaluation, why not write a novel? & what better place than this to write as he did twisted & then some. . . best to be about spies, spy places, vague references,contradictory behavior & don't forget the token love! Let's begin with the double authorship - Acquin actually imprisoned and actually the writer - but, what about the narrator/writer whose actually imprisoned in the mind of Acquin & he,too is writing a novel. Cuba, Lac Leman, K, various revolutions from the 1700's, 1800's 1900's and Acquin's private one - just the tip of this iceburg. He is so inclusive yet so vague that the reader needs to do so with an encyclopedia at hand. How dramatically we learn of Cuba's Revolution & later Cold War - how soon we are reminded of Lac Leman's neurotic waters & quickly check out that it is indeed "the very waters of the extended Rhone & why he called it neurotic. Aquin's revolutionary needs were the pefect seeds for 'spiedomery' a/k/a/ spies, especialy in neutral & very mountainous Switzerland. How revolutionaries show their disdain for capitalists! - do you think that 'K' was a reference to the German Das Kapital? after all in Switzerland the languages were German, French & Italian. "Between a certain July 26 and the Amazonian night of August 4, . . . " I'm baffled for a while - but, July 26 - the start of the Cuban Revolution and August 4 ??? well that was August 4th, 1792 end of French Revolution! Good God, how this man (these men) measured time! How bold and rather jaunty of him, while strolling the streets of Montreal after emerging from Swissair & before entering the church & his destiny, to purchase a pawn shop dull gold (intials of a dead man) pocket watch "to measure lost time." - a book worthy of a full semesters study.. . so very much history, so very much human condition and so very much terribly confusing spy stuff. . . loved it!

I found the most interesting part of Next Episode to be the connection between the author, narrator of the book, and the narrator's story. As the book goes on, it becomes harder and harder to distinguish the narrator from his story. And once learning about the history of the author, the stories of the author and the narrator become even more intertwined. Unfortunately for the reader, this connection gets very confusing, and it becomes impossible to pick apart who's saying what. Even though I found this the most interesting part, I wouldn't write a paper on it.
Instead, I'd choose the theme of duality, especially the characters' doubles. I find the connections between the narrator and his main character and K and the blonde woman most intriguing.

What I found most interesting about Next Episode was Aquin’s exploration of boundaries. It seems that whether the narrator is discussing his literal physical imprisonment, or is grappling with his accused insanity, that polarities are consistently being referenced. The ideas of confinement versus freedom, revolution versus politic, identity versus anonymity, order versus disorder seem to dominate both the plot and the imagery of this novel. While this book is a translation, and therefore word choice is a controversial evidence, I was struck time and time again by the number of times the word “between” appeared in the narrative. For example, frequently used to open a new scene, the narrator says. “Between July 26, 1960 and August 4, 1792, halfway between two liberations [...]” (9). Rather than giving his spy novel a specific time, the narrator chooses to place it between two revolutions, perhaps to create its boundaries, or perhaps to set similar limits to his time frame as the genre of “spy novel” sets limits to his creativity.

I think were I to write a paper about this book I would like to explore the way that this idea of boundaries or sometimes the blatant lack of boundaries enhances the experiment with genre and form that Aquin is performing. I would like to think more about the way this novel is constructed and how that enhances the political message of the novel.

I found the most interesting theme of Next Episode to be the author/narrarator/protagonist's lofty revolutionary aspirations in contrast to his complete incompetence to realize them. All the various first-person voices in the novel grapple with the same sensation, a sort of necessary obligation to overthrow society (or take the life of a counter-revolutionary agent), and their incompetence in this task leads them to paranoia, schizophrenia and ultimately self-destruction. In crafting these multi-layered failures, Aquin is highly critical of both himself and Quebec's political secession movement, of which he was a major symbol in his career, incarceration and eventual suicide.

Aquin's prose is eloquent and poignant throughout, as he describes the righteous necessity of revolution and the beauty that would (and must) come of it. It is as if he is trying to write a Declaration of Independence-type manifesto before claiming victory over the tyrant power, or before the war has actually begun. The only thing that is missing is a plan of action and the execution thereof, and this is where the spy, the narrator fall apart and render themselves a casualty of their own lofty aspirations.

I thought that this book was a particularly hard book to read while in the DMV. It requires a much calmer setting. I found myself reading almost every page twice. But if I was to write an essay about next episode, it would be about the politics that were going on at the time of composition and I would relate it to the book. With K and the spy novel of what the rules for a spy novel should be.

I think the most interesting part of this book is the fact that Huber was in a mental ward at the time for carrying concealed. I like the historical parts and it was easy to see once we learned a little of Canada's history.

I found this book to be extremely frustrating until we discussed it in class. It was both exciting and annoying to be going in and out of different realities. At the end though that was my favorite part. Though metafiction isn't a theme I would still think that this would be the topic I would choose to write my paper on. I think it would be fun to see where Acquin creates the boundaries for his characters and settings. It would be interesting to look at the mise-en-abime sequence with a closer eye. It would be especially fun try to discern a sense of reality throughout the narration.

ADDENDUM to original blog - because I didn't answer the question - shame on me. . . For an essay, I would focus on REVOLUTIONARIES & SPIES.

I'd really like to learn more about the translation of the text. If my French was better I'd endeavor to read Hubert Aquin's original version and write a paper on the differences between the two. What themes are less developed? And is Sheila Fischman adding to the meaning of the text through the differences in language? I think it would be neat to read the actual words Aquin chose, especially considering the subject matter and the style of the text.

I found the Next Episode to be challenging in a great way, in that it asks questions about meaning in everything existing as related to the present context. Although his novel may seem convoluted, it is more clear sighted in regards to the corresponding political reality than many works. Aquin seems to consider nothing categorically too safe to question and explore. I think that the Next Episode then speaks directly to its Quebecois rooted time + place, when Quebec needed to find itself as situated in the modern moment, away from its history.
As far as writing topics go, while reading Douglas Glover's essay I was intrigued by his mention of Aquin's novel as a series of crimes against the form of novel. The theme of crime in the Next Episode is multi-dimensional and central to the heart of what Aquin is critiquing about his society. Crime is one of the boundaries that Aquin seems to be referring to throughout, a line he + the narrator move 'between' as the novel develops.

Hubert Aquin's "Next Episode", although a challenging read, was also quite interesting.
The thing that stuck out to me most was the relationship between Aquin himself, the narrator, and the protagonist within the story. Knowing about Aquin's past caused me to see the novel as some-what autobiographical. In addition, the theme of metafiction- fiction about fiction- made "Next Episode" a revolutionary text. The story that the narrator is writing in jail intertwines with the story of the narrator himself.
This unique, interconnecting plot is what I would write an essay on.

There were so many interesting things about "Next Episode!" I feel like it's one of those novels that you can just talk forever and forever about and never come to any concrete terms with the novel. Perhaps that is what makes it so interesting to me; the ambiguity that is woven throughout the text allowed me to connect to the novel by interpreting & making whatever conclusions I came to my own. The idea that what I walk away with will most likely be different that what one of my classmates walks away with points to the great mind that Alquin had. It's always a sign to me that novels that make you think are ones that are worth your time.

If I were to write a paper on the novel, I would probably write about the psychosis of the text, the characters, and the reader (and the relation between all three). Though the novel is so scattered and very confusing, there is a lot of sense to be made from what is being said. Reading "Next Episode" reminded me about "The Bell Jar" and "Girl Interrupted," which are both novels that were written about a mentally unstable character by a mentally unstable author. The result is text that is so real (for lack of a better term). It brings the reader closer to what is being written. Aquin does this, I think. So, my paper would be about Aquin's ability to write a novel that is brimming with psychotic thought and yet, still be able to reach the reader and draw him/her in.

To write a cohesive paper on this book, I feel like you would have to be schizophrenic to even be able to interpret any part of the novel. Not that I'm saying the book wasn't enjoyable, it certainly kept me in it's grip, it just was hard to follow along and understand who was truly talking at any given time. Was it Aquin himself, just creating a story that could have some basis on his actual life? Or was it the narrator in the book who also was an author, but who had seemed to live the life of the character in the story he was writing? I think that would be a good way to write a paper, trying to figure out which person was talking and why Aquin chose to write it that way. It was just a rich novel that had so many different paths that could be taken, I would find it hard to think of just one subject on which to write.

The difficulty of reading Next Episode, while at first vexing, becomes intrinsic to the plot itself and the thematic elements that Aquin sets forward. To try and follow the story of a failed revolutionary (or as Glover would say a rebel), is an almost impossible task and the hopelessness and confusion that Aquin wished to convey could really only be understood through a non-sequential and convoluted plot. Aquin doesn’t merely write about his despair and the betrayal he feels from his country, he makes the reader experience it by untangling the beautiful prose wrapped up in a story that really doesn’t have any concrete beginning middle and end to follow.
The narrator talks a lot about the difficulty of the writing process but at the same time makes it seem absolutely arbitrary by telling us the hundreds of different directions he could take the story in. His problem it seems is the difficulty of writing an entirely original novel in a world of cut and dry plots, themes, and character development. The difficulty of transmuting a spy novel into something original is two-fold in that it is a genre but it’s also one of the most hackneyed genres to try and write under. Glover states in his essay that Canadian Culture “is such a bland and bloated sponge that it can even soak up, dilute, and neutralize the poison of the idea of its own annihilation” Thus we see the narrator’s desperation to write something of any consequence to escape from this Canadian culture that could so easily take what he says and turn it into a trivial literary work. We sense Aquin’s desperation to defy the typical standards for crafting a novel, his adroit approach contains all of the vitriolic nationalism he feels for Quebec and the confusion and anguish that is a result of not being heard and understood. I really like what Glover says about Aquin not being able to accept Governor General’s Award because it would let allow the Canadian Government he disagreed with so fundamentally to appropriate his work and acquiesce the meaning from a criminal act to an object of contradiction.
If I were to write a paper about Next Episode I would probably focus on the narrator’s writing process and what it necessarily says about the book as a whole. I would focus on the instability in the spy story and how this relates to the larger picture of Aquin’s desperation for Revolution and the role he ends up playing as an outsider.

The Next Episode was a difficult book for me to read. I struggled with the narrators switching between what seemed to actually be happening and his espionage story. I couldnt tell if the narrator and the protagonist were the same person. In my overall opinion the narrator appeared to be a bit delusional or suffering from dimensia. Maybe schizophrenic? I did enjoy the symbolism within the story even though I didnt particularly like the novel itself. For example, the idea of drowning representing his depression and Agent K possibly representing Quebec. If I were to write a paper on this novel I would probably write about the motifs such as the water or the cryptogram, or the identities or identity(if the protagonist is a fragment of the narrators identity) of the narrator and the protagonist.

I too thought this book was rather difficult to interpret at times but overall I thought that this book made a good impression on me. At times I felt bad for the narrator who I presumed to be Aquin the whole time. It seemed as though no matter what he attempted to do he would fail and this would eventually lead to his downfall. Without reading the last chapter of the book about Aquinas death I would have wondered what happened to the narrator of the story. If i were to focus on a particular topic to write an essay on I would focus on the narrator and how his presumed illness lead to his downfall. it seemed as though the longer he was in the hospital the more and more his story gained a sense of failure. It seems as though the time in his confinement only hurt him more.
The Next Episode was a hard book to understand and I constantly found myself re-reading pages or looking different places, or things up online to understand where he actually was, or was talking about. the setting tended to jump from place to place making this understanding of place difficult to grasp.
although there is never a name of the narrator its easy to draw similarities between the narrator and Aquin. we learn at the end that Aquin took his life. the narrator continues to fail throughout the novel, and it seems all this sense of failure reflects back on Aquins life which lead to his ultimate fate.

Next Episode's protagonist fights desperately against authority. This fight is just as much an inward battle against cowardice and inadequacy as it is an actual attempt to overthrow a government, a mindset, or a misguided nation. The narrator suffers from both physical and mental imprisonment. Having been locked up in a mental ward he is unable to continue with his plan. His position is quite pitiful; he is a revolutionary who is unable to mobilize and instigate a revolution. He is trapped by the very forces he is scheming to overthrow. Within the walls of the mental ward the narrator composes a spy novel. This story within a story is also marred by inaction. The protagonist in the spy novel struggles with his own inability to complete the murder of his nemesis. The many voices of Aquin's narrators struggle with the completion of their tasks. These tasks are overwhelmingly important to the narrators. For the narrators these are not merely tasks but sort of a direction for their lives.
Aquin could have chosen to write a novel of success and glory; Aquin's revolutionary could have been a wild success and his revolutionary's spy could have been a suave and merciless killer. However, the characters he created reflect his pessimism with the state of the Canadian people in regards to their complacency with a government that Aquin considered to be inept. His story also reflects a growing sense of failure in himself. Aquin illustrates protagonists that are unable to fight the forces that keep them imprisoned, those forces including their own lack of confidence or bravery.
If I were to write an essay on Next Episode I would most likely try to compose a more cohesive thesis based on my thoughts above. I would like to explore the ideas of authority and the seemingly futile nature of the fight against authority.

What I enjoyed most about reading the Next Episode was trying to pick apart the various layers of meaning surrounding the motifs that recur throughout the book. I found the cryptogram, which the narrator receives at the Hotel de la Paix, particularly interesting, in that it seems to make a reflexive commentary on the novel itself. As we discussed in class, one could read the cryptogram, which the protagonist struggles fruitlessly to decode, as an expression of the multidimensional meaning of texts in general. One could write an interesting essay by making a Post-Structuralist critique of the cryptogram and its meaning, arguing that the jumbled letters and their elusive meaning represent the inherent ambiguity of language in general. The protagonist's struggle to decipher the code parallels the reader's (and perhaps even the narrator's) struggle to understand the meaning behind the contents of the novel. As with the cryptogram, there exists no definite answer to the question, "what does this mean?" in regards to the novel. Rather, the book's motifs provide us with an infinite array of possible meanings, all of which neither the author, the narrator or the reader could possibly know or understand. Though this is true for any given novel, it is especially relevant to Next Episode in that it constantly plays with the theme of clouded meaning and confusion.

Next Episode is a difficult text to work though because of Aquin’s constant parallels in his writing. The reader is constantly battling to decipher the actual intentions of his writing rather than just following a traditional plot line. By forcing us to break down every sentence in attempts to escape the exasperating confusion he forces us into, we are made aware of the process of writing, the purpose and use of language in a way we never had before.
Aquin is constantly making you question his intentions, yet at the same time, he has total control over the reader and the information they receive. He decides when the point of view changes, when we feel unsure or frustrated, when to leave us in the dark, etc. In doing so, he brings us to a major theme of Aquin's, trust. Where do we place trust in a narrative? What is the actual role of the author? What is the time? Aquin raises questions so often that the reader is in a perpetual state of anxiety, an anxiety that doesn't come from the actual plot line, rather, it comes from trying to make sense of everything. His transition from character to narrator to author make shim a highly unreliable but exciting resource. We see the themes and motifs of revolution, desperation, death, repetition, language, but it isn't clear how we are suppose to feel about them. Aquin intentionally makes us feel uncomfortable to force us to think deeper about every sentence. We are constantly re-reading, because every sentence has a duality that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. This is no accident, in actually, this is the basis of his writing. It’s almost as if by forcing the reader to make so many independent decisions about the text he is forcing them to become independent thinkers, ones that deviate from main stream though, a revolutionist.
Of course, this in itself is an example of the enormous mind game Aquin plays with the reader. When do we stop trying to understand the intention of the author and think for ourselves? The critic of intentional fallacy would be ideal for a text like Next Episode because of meta-fictional aspects. Eventually you find yourself giving into Aquin’s intentions. There were times where the absurdity of the novel made me close it up, and other times where my confusion and curiosity made me try to break down his every word into meaning. I gave into what Aquin wanted, as I am sure many did. I always wondered what was next without ever understanding the now aspect of the story.
Making sense of Aquin is no easy task. He manipulates our perceptions, leaving us with no grasp on reality. He challenges our essential understanding of story telling and literature. The process of writing and practice of reading becomes such a self aware and thought provoking experience that our expectations are thrown away. He never is really telling a story, but rather he is taking part in it. After all, “writing a story is no small matter.”

After reading the Next Episode I found that the most interesting theme of the book was distinguishing between the author as a person and the stories that he creates in his head. Aquin over and over again uses a first person voice as the narrator of the stories in his head as well as the true story of who he is and it is very hard to tell the characters among the two different stories apart.
I did not particularly like the novel and found it very confusing, but if I were to write a novel about the book I would focus on the different characters that Aquin speaks about in real life and in his spy novels. I feel like in an essay I could touch upon the many similarities between the characters in his head and as a person which could link Aquins thought process when creating each character in his head to actual people in his life.

I felt that "The Nest Episode" was a tough read but rewarding in the sense of its complexity. It's the kind of book I would like to go back and read again in a few months in order to look more in depth at the different narratives while having already been predisposed to the confused style of Aquin. If I were to write an essay about it I would definitely focus on the relationship between Aquin and the narrator and his protagonist. As Ben said in his post the need of them all to overthrow society and the difference between the fictional world he creates and the bleak reality of slight insanity is really interesting. The connection of this to Aquin and his life in Quebec's political would allow for yet another interpretation and faucet to this novel.
Aquin's deliberate fractured writing style allows for much interpretation and ambiguity throughout the book. It would be a difficult but rewarding task to try and line the novel up and build more connections from the different characters and thoughts displayed in the novel.

The element of “Next Episode” that I found most interesting was the discrepancy between its French text and its English text. Something organically is lost when a text is translated from one language to another, both in terms of the literal meaning of the text and its tonal nuances. Just within the first few lines of the first chapter, the Fischman translation and the other translation varied greatly. The quality and accuracy of the translation is, in and of itself, an interpretation, which renders each translation a new text. On a less technical note, I find it interesting that the idea of revolution was compared to a “germ” (Aquin 121). The narrator, through the narrative he’s creating, is spreading the certitude of revolution, though his isolation is vaccinating his “germ”. That is, he is forced to be inactive through his isolation, so this narrative will spread his “germ” (the message of the revolution) without him. If you asked me to write an essay on the novel, I would probably use the “germ” idea as exemplum of how a text can disseminate agendas, or the power words wields over people.

The most interesting aspect of reading Next Episode was trying to keep up with the interchanging story lines and settings. I had never read a book that blurred reality and convention to this degree. At times it was frustrating but, particularly after the class discussion, I came to appreciate the way that the structure conveys the emotions and failings of the revolution.

The essay topic I would choose would concentrate on the theme of revolution. Specifically, how Aquin uses the bumbling spy as a metaphor for the revolution in Quebec and how the narrator's identity related to the idea of revolution.

I thought the most interesting part of the novel was the confusing web of doubling that occurred throughout the plot. The insanity and paranoia of the author/protagonist adds to the confusion, but also made me want to turn the page that much more. I enjoyed this book because it was so unconventional and different. I found it funny that H. de Heutz told the same story as the narrator to avoid being killed. Only in a book like this would the spy be unwilling to kill his victim. If I were to write an essay on the novel, I would probably write it on the theme of duality.

What I found most interesting about Next Episode, was definitely the intense use of meta-fiction, and how the story had all of these different layers, that although they were in some parts of the novel very clear and distinguishable, at other parts they all seemed to mesh together quite cohesively. It made the novel feel like an experience, like as a reader you were witnessing this moving, breathing, and in some cases, thinking thing. It was as if you could see the wheels turning within the author's head. (and I know with new criticism, you're not supposed to think about the author's intentions, but I have a feeling that your ability to be a part of the text as a reader was one of Aquin's intentions.)
As for an essay topic, I think I would have to write my thesis on the way in which the narrator's passionate desire for national identity almost causes him to drown in his own efforts towards it, both in his attempts at writing a "spy novel" and as well in his extensive layering of innuendos and symbolic connections. For example, how he connects K with Quebec and making love with K to the fete nationale, and then how he mixes his relationship with the idea of revolution and how the idea of K as his long lost lover connects back to the idea of his long lost country. The depth and complexity of his connections and layers is so beautifully tragic it is no wonder why he slowly sinks to the bottom of Lac Leman, drowning beneath the intesnse weight of his own inner workings.

Aquin had a very interesting take on the idea of stream of consciousness. His main character thinks with a continuous flow as is conventional for stream of consciousness, but these vague borders between chapters raise a lot of interpretive questions about his narrative style . Its difficult to think of the chapter as a unit on its own though because the entire book exists like a mixed together stew, so it seems fairly obvious to ask, why divide it up at all? The way that I rationalize what an individual chapter is supposed to be is a sort of dip into a section of the narrators consciousness, which includes all sorts of mixes of characters and times that have, for some reason, been grouped together, and its up to the reader to decide why. Investigating this always seems to be painful for the narrator and he literally says that it is like drowning. To fit this analogy, the border between chapters is always a climactic withdrawal from everything. Its the point where he cant stay up under water any more and most come up for air before the next descent.

Most novels give a straight shot narrative, and often times they are bland unless the story is fast paced. Yet then there are times when the writer will choose his own path, and make their work more of an experience rather than a story. Such was the case with The Next Episode, where Aquin dared to show perspectives from multiple streams of conscience.

In employing such a technique the reader must approach the novel must differently than any other; they must not only follow the story but his brain patterns and mannerisms.

From the beautiful images of Europe mixed with the manic drownings of depression, the most interesting aspects were how they were interlaced. Though much of the novel may seem unorganized, Aquin knew what he was doing when writing in this manner. If ever posed to write an essay on the work, I believe it would be most accurate to analyze Aquin's "approach" to literature.

Hubert Aquin's Next Episode: Was it written by a madman or mastermind? Is it the story of a failed revolutionary, or is it the tale of a drowning depressive who's been trapped since the start? Is there a difference between the narrator and H. de Huetz? Is the narrator writing the story, or is the story writing him? Where is the bar between the narrator's consciousness, the events in his story, and reality? Do these differences matter?

Throughout the book, the lines between time, place, and identity blur, and cross themselves. The narrator switches between his role as a neurotic author of a spy novel, a failing revolutionary, and H. de Heutz. Also, perhaps Aquin himself holds these subject positions. The narrator’s lover, K. could be synonymous with H. de Heutz’s blonde partner. Time and place have no continuity, and the narrator has at once a fragmented and collective identity. If I were to write an essay on Next Episode I would focus on the doubling that occurs in the baseless, fragmented reality Hubert Aquin has created with language.