[Children of the Black Sabbath is], simultaneously, the most traditional and the most unique [novel] on the Quebec literary scene…. Anne Hébert makes the point [that people are extensions of the land on which they live] unequivocally at several instances and readers acquainted with Quebec's literature will find the portrayal of the people suffering under the yoke of climate and clergy more than familiar. The worldliness and hypocrisy of the Church, another theme "exposed" here, is also not without literary precedent…. In fact, an analysis of the thematic content will yield very little that is new or dynamic.

What, then, lends the book the awesome power discerned in it by various critics? Its strength, one might suggest, lies in its force of language, evident even in translation, its evocative imagery and its imaginative narrative technique.

Anne Hébert is, above all, a poet. The words spring to...