Notebooks, 1956-1978

by Danielle Collobert, Norma Cole (Translator)

Poetry. Translated from the French by Norma Cole. Born into a Breton family active in the Resistance during the Second World War, Danielle Collobert moved to Paris at the age of 19. There, she took her own life in the summer of 1978. These notebooks were found in her posession at the time of her death. "Beyond everything she has discovered her own utter that owned by nights of relentless attention to the other, or reflected in mirrors of all-night cafés where you can look, listen or simply wait, attending the blank page, from which the lassitude of daybreak will rescue you, overwhelm you."--Uccio Esposito-Torrigiani, from the Postface "She enunciates the words for desire and for loss of the other words with harrowing intensity...[and] explores the limits of the phenomenal body and of speech by the agency of a prose which defies category."--Michael Palmer "In Danielle Collobert's NOTEBOOKS the urgency of her writing is accompanied by the weight of hindsight--that we know how it ends--and yet it is not stifled by morbidity. Instead, the intensity and integrity of her struggles rise to the surface. Collobert's questions--of presence in the world, of politics and intimacy--are constantly recovered from the blur of experience. Collobert moves towards and away in a feverish attempt to connect, stay connected--whether in her personal encounters, moments of activism or writing--and though she ultimately chooses death, there is enough life in her writing to carry 'the hum of life all around... I open / and I close.'"--E. Tracy Grinnell "Indelible fragments."--Jeff Jackson "The text of this book is sourced from several notebooks and loose pages found in the Paris hotel room where Danielle Collobert committed suicide... Spanning over 20 years of her life, the text in form resembles the poetry of It Then, though the content is in most cases less abstract. Fragmented phrases separated by dashes describe her interior life, her extensive travels, her relationships with men (though always rather vaguely), her recurring need for solitude, and above all, her experiences with writing. Throughout there is a haunting, hunted desperation in her words, as in each new place she finds herself, she encounters the same familiar struggles with indifference and anxiety, always with death not far from her mind."--S. D. Stewart

Genres: Poetry, Biography Memoir

85 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Born in Rostrenen in 1940, Danielle Collobert left Bretagne for Paris at the age of eighteen where she worked in an art gallery and self-published her first poems in a book entitled Chants des guerres (1961). Both of Collobert’s parents, and her aunt, who survived deportation to Ravensbrück, were members of the Résistance during World War II. Herself a supporter of Algerian independence, Collobert joined the FLN (the Algerian National Liberation Front), precipitating her exile in Italy, during which time she completed work on Meurtre, first published in 1964 by Éditions Gallimard with the unwavering support of Raymond Queneau. She worked for Révolution africaine, a short-lived journal created at the end of the Algerian war. Collobert’s extensive travels, to Czechoslovakia, Indonesia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Mexico, Spain, Greece, Egypt, etc., did not prevent her from becoming a member of the group formed around Jean-Pierre Faye and the journal, Change. Her other works include Dire I et II (1972), a radio play the following year, Polyphonie, aired by France Culture, Il donc (1976) and Survie (1978). Upon her return from a trip to New York, Danielle Collobert took her own life in a hotel in Paris on her thirty-eighth birthday. Her complete works, in two volumes, edited by Françoise Morvan, augmented by several unpublished texts, were published by P.O.L. in 2005. Collobert’s works available in English include In the Environs of a Film (Litmus Press, 2019), Murder (Litmus Press, 2013), Notebooks, 1956-1978 (Litmus Press, 2003) and It Then (O Books, 1989).

Reviews

[ariella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very special diary. I received this as a gift and did not expect it to be so significant to me. I probably wouldn't have read it for some years otherwise.

Collobert's powerful impressions of her own life and the life around her come through lucidly and poetically in this rare glimpse of her most intimate thoughts. She comes across, to me, as someone who lives on the fringes of life, constantly trying to take herself outward and beyond—both geographically and emotionally. Her world is composed of those uncounted hours at the cusp of dawn, in an airplane, in a bar surrounded by strangers. Waiting hours.

"waiting—days—time passes filled with little things—cling to the slightest incident—the most expected event—the most foreseeable with hope for some hidden thing concealed inside the opacity of stillness—I can't because I know what the end of waiting is"

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indelible fragments.

[Tatyana · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I know I’m going to keep finding myself anywhere — don’t need to write — not necessary — I do it because days go by and I fill them as best I can — in any case — not to write for someone — for other — and then compose — imagine characters — can’t do it — it’s fake…"


"Strangely touching, what connects me to J.P. Just really good
love-making. A tenderness — sort of — that can happen when
you give yourself up completely — while making love — After
— escape — something like defensiveness — sadly touching —
impression of moving beside someone who doesn’t open up —
Like that most of the time —"

"… what it will suddenly bring out in me — where I’m going — at this moment I feel like adding things up — drawing a line and summing up, like Sartre said — not getting lost — it’s meticulous — and necessary — I haven’t the strength for it — it would take too long— but I’m making little starts, one after the other"


"… at time I’ve said to myself that the moment I’m in has extraordinary flavor — so good — but I didn’t begin to understand what it was in such a moment — I can’t even locate the feeling involved — I try, of course without success, to recapture it, relive it — of course that’s impossible"

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cold fragments of text — like a trail of shattered glass pointing to the inevitable.

It's hard to recommend something like this, which is essentially a suicide diary recorded over 20 years. But there's very little like it, and Collobert was brilliant while she was here. More than anything, this resembles Collobert's fragmentary poetry, like what you'd find in her collection, It Then. Haunting and hypnotic.

grim bursts of pain continually — interrupted — by em dashes
and line breaks
as readers — voyeurs — we settle into a restless state — constant distraction
remnants
a writer's life — with a hard stop

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The text of this book is sourced from several notebooks and loose pages found in the Paris hotel room where Danielle Collobert committed suicide. While the postface in the book is somewhat unclear on the matter, it suggests that Collobert intended for this writing to be published. Spanning over 20 years of her life, the text in form resembles the poetry of It Then, though the content is in most cases less abstract. Fragmented phrases separated by dashes describe her interior life, her extensive travels, her relationships with men (though always rather vaguely), her recurring need for solitude, and above all, her experiences with writing. Throughout there is a haunting, hunted desperation in her words, as in each new place she finds herself, she encounters the same familiar struggles with indifference and anxiety, always with death not far from her mind. It would be a bleak text even if she had not taken her own life, but knowing that she did adds an extra lens of grief to the reading.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is my fav by Danielle Collobert. I think it helped me link it, then and murder and her thought process. also, seems like she really liked Samuel Beckett, which is cool.