Poetics of Work

by Noémi Lefebvre, Sophie Lewis (Translator)

A state of emergency has been declared in France. In Lyon, protesters and police clash in the streets. At the unemployment office, there are few job opportunities for poets going around. So the poet reads accounts of life under the Third Reich and in Nazi language, smokes cannabis, walks through the streets, and eats bananas, drawn by an overbearing father into a hilarious and often cynical exploration of the push to be employed and the pull to write. In this Oulipian experiment written without gender markers for its narrator, Noémi Lefebvre presents us with a comic and irreverent reckoning with the rise of nationalism and the hegemony capitalism has on our language, actions, and identities.

Genres: Fiction, France, Poetry, Politics, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature

101 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 8, 2018

About the author

Noémi Lefebvre was born in 1964 in Caen, and lives in Lyon. Further to a PhD on the subject of music education and national identity in Germany and France, she became a political scientist at CERAT de Grenoble II Institute.

She is the author of three novels, all of which have garnered intense critical success: L’autoportrait bleu (2009), L’état des sentiment à l’âge adulte (2012) and L'enfance politique (2015).

She is a regular contributor to the respected French investigative website Mediapart and to the bilingual French-German review La mer gelée.

Reviews

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'évitais de penser à chercher un travail, ce qui est immoral, je ne cherchais pas à gagner ma vie, ce qui n'est pas normal, l'argent je m'en foutais, ce qui est inconscient en ces temps de menace d'une extrême gravité, mais je vivais quand-même, ce qui est dégueulasse, sur les petits droits d'auteur d'un roman débile, ce qui est scandaleux, que j'avais écrit à partir des souvenirs d'une grande actrice fragile rescapée d'une romance pleine de stéréotypes, ce qui fait réfléchir mais je ne sais pas à quoi.

I was trying not to think about looking for work, which is immoral, I wasn’t hoping to earn a living, which is pretty unusual, I couldn’t have cared less about the cash, which is reckless in these times of very grave threats, but I was scraping a living already, which was repugnant, on the miniscule royalties from a thickwit novel, which is scandalous, which I’d created from the stories of a brilliant and brittle grand dame of theatre, survivor of a romance full of stereotypes, which makes you think though I don’t know what about.

Poetics of Work is translated by Sophie Lewis from Noémi Lefebvre’s Poétique de l’emploi and published by one of my absolute favourite publishers, Les Fugitives (see https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... for my reviews of their 14 previous books). Indeed I was delighted as a judge of the 2018 Republic of Consciousness Prize, to shortlist Blue Self Portrait, from the same author, translator and publisher.

This novel opens:

Le vent était au nord et les avions tournaient, les magasins étaient ouverts à l’amour de toutes choses, les militaires par quatre et la police par trois patrouillaient dans la rue.
Il n’y a pas beaucoup de poésie en ce moment, j’ai dit à mon père.

The wind was in the north, and the planes were circling, the shops were open for the love of everything under the sun, riot police were patrolling four by four and junior officers by three out in the street.

There isn’t a lot of poetry at the moment, I said to my father.

Our first-person narrator is in Lyon, during the state of emergency in the aftermath of the November 2015 Paris attack, and before the July 2016 lorry attack.

It is tempting to gender the narrator but actually the text, respected in Lewis’s translation (and without, unlike my review, the need to use gender neutral pronouns), contains no such indication, as the author explained in an interview (https://www.franceculture.fr/emission...

Dans le livre, on peut imaginer une femme, un homme : rien n'indique ni le sexe, ni l'âge, ni l'identité, on sait très peu de choses sur son parcours. On est nécessairement en action, et ça c'est intéressant à fabriquer. C'est ma contrainte oulipienne : un personnage non "genré".

A poet, but whose only published work is a commercial successful ‘thickwit novel’ of which they are not proud, they carry on a, at times blackly comic, dialogue (possibly imagined) with their businessman father, as he pushes them towards more conventional paid employment within the capitalist economy.

Meanwhile, the narrator observes the conditions in Lyon, with militaristic policing and a surge in expressions of nationalism and resentment towards minorities, and, reading both Viktor Klemperer’s LTI Lingua Tertii Imperii: Notizbuch eines Philologen and Karl Kraus’s Die dritte Walpurgisnachton, the use of language in fascist Germany (“although this wasn’t the Third Reich or even fascism, I wouldn’t want to take the piss”), ultimately drawing ten lessons to today’s young poets.

A video produced by the author (playing a prospective employer of a character like the narrator): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A9Y0...

Overall, this didn’t resonant as much for me as Blue Self Portrait, but still very worthwhile.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book matches its cover almost too perfectly. Ennui? Oui, oui. German authors starting with K? Bien sur. It's slight, but it's fun, and oh so perfectly disaffected. I haven't felt so damn cool reading a novel in some time.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever and often wryly funny look inside the mind of an unemployed poet in France after the 2015 terror attacks.

[Mack · Rating 2 out of 5]

really wanted to like this and instead got a dissatisfying word salad of gimmick, concept, reference, and irreverence. there is unfortunately nothing poetic to be found here :/

[Amie Whittemore · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one definitely grew on me as I read it. If I could give it a 3.5, I would. I found the narrator's commentary on poetry and work relatable and while this isn't the kind of novel I am usually drawn to, as a poet, I have to say I enjoyed the examination of the uselessness of poetry, of the ways in which language fortifies and is complicit with modes of capitalism and thus oppression.

[Marina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed getting lost in the mind of this poet. I think it’s similar to any creatives post-pandemic mind. Is what I do useful? What is usefulness? Do I work to produce work or do I work to survive? Not a narrative - a philosophical mind fuck.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to agree with all the reviews that call this book a "manifesto of poetic resistance" and like phrases. Lefebrve finds the poetry in quotidian activities and in the feeling of not being a so-called productive member of society. No plot, as such, and the shiftlessness of the narration requires the reader to just let Lefebrve's graceful, clever writing carry you through. Political without telling the reader what to think and philosophical without being abstruse. A quick, challenging, enjoyable read.

[lillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

love a short, punchy, dark, weird, political, clever book! makes me want to re-enter a dark tryst with the duolingo owl & brush up on french to witness the feat of the ungendered protagonist in their natal tongue

[Javi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cuando cogí el libro y leí en la contraportada "libro inclasificable" no pensé que realmente se trataría de un libro inclasificable. Lo cierto es que me costó entrar en la narración hasta que pude ir construyendo un contexto temporal y personal, más o menos preciso, alrededor del personaje. Poco a poco, apoyándose en diálogos con su padre, lecciones para jóvenes poetas, coletillas recurrentes y disertaciones que se van desarrollando casi por fascículos, el texto se va desenmarañando. Aunque algunos pasajes me han parecido demasiado, quizás innecesariamente, enrevesados, creo que la ¿novela? va ganando peso e interés conforme avanza.

Los temas que Noémi Lefebvre trata, y que van orbitando alrededor de los diez capítulos, son varios y variados. Pero me quedo con el que da título al libro: la imposibilidad de hacer de la poesía un empleo, percibida como algo inútil por buena parte de la sociedad contemporánea, frente a la idea de que el trabajo que desempeñamos, porque no nos queda más remedio, configura gran parte de nuestra identidad como individuos.

El quinto capítulo, en el que habla del "(...) ambiente nacional con matices en el vocabulario y cambios en las formas, como si todos los odios que se habían estado guardando tuvieran derecho a salir sin vergüenza ni reproches" posterior a los atentados de París, me ha parecido de los más interesantes.

Mención especial merece Cristina Pineda, la traductora de la edición española, que en el epílogo explica brevemente lo que supone trabajar en la traducción de un libro tan escurridizo como Poética del empleo.

Estoy seguro de que lo releeré en el futuro. Un libro de estas características lo merece, y probablemente, una segunda lectura lo agrandará.

[Blanche · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3,5

[Eleni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wishing I was smarter for 120 pgs

[Alex Gross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hits perfectly on that “aimless writer” trope that tends to get me hooked. The narrator is written to have a wonderful mix of innocence and angst, submission and rebellion, the perceived inability to think for themselves against their preoccupation with sincerity. The run on sentence structure really forced me to grapple with everything wholesale or I’d lose my footing, which was welcome to me at least. Despite this structure, it was a pleasant, quick read. Loved it.

[Sara]

It's interesting, though it was marketed as standing out for having no gender markers for the narrator, which turns out is completely irrelevant to the content. Rather than playing in that space it assiduously avoids it. It's about paternalism and trying to make art when beset by a society that assimilates everything, and the realness of the phantoms of our trauma and how those echos reverberate forward.

[Regina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Need to re-read. Despite its small format definitely not a quick one. On first read it sucked me in, spat me out, sometimes annoyed me, sometimes made me laugh. Some elements are easy to understand, others remain up in the air, but maybe that's the point of it?

[jq · Rating 5 out of 5]

2025:

Est-ce que tu mourrais si on te défendait d'écrire? Hein? Est-ce que tu en mourrais?


2021:

parce que tu as réussi un vers dans un langage fabriqué / une langue cultivée qui pense et poétise à ta place / qui poétise et pense pour toi, tu crois déjà être un poète?

[Dessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up POETICS OF WORK by Noémi Lefebvre (translated by Sophie Lewis) because someone on my bookstagram read it and didn’t like it. But it sounded so weird and good! Results: definitely weird, maybe good, but somehow a book I want to teach a class about. The syntax is roundabout and run-on, poetic and labyrinthine, and sometimes uncomfortably at peace with its own terror and confusion. Our narrator is haunted by the ghost — or maybe consciousness? — of her father, a half-philosophic blowhard know it all who cites Plato and drinks unending beer. Our protagonist needs work (of which dad disapproves, at least I think) but she is reluctant to work, or maybe put off by work. And who wouldn’t be? Between her own half-crazed calculations and her father’s half-ghostly warnings, all work and all labour seem to be, to her, in service of the state — which seems to be, to both of them, increasingly in service of fascist tendencies. She looks for work, she rejects work, she walks and smokes and joins revolutionaries in the streets, she goes in circles and circles and circles. I found myself in this book in a weird way, especially as someone about to go on the job market but who would much rather make books, even as my belief in the ability of book-making or -reading to resist fascism is beginning to wane. I liked it; I didn’t; but ultimately it’s the kind of book that doesn’t care if you like it or not.

[Sarah Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well I spent like 2 weeks reading this, then finished yesterday and reread the entire thing immediately in one day. So that tells you something, though I don't know what, fucking farce, I really, really liked the narrative voice. It was dense and intellectually insightful but also fully absurd and ridiculous and wry. It shows us the protag's movement from theory to praxis, which makes the ending scene incrediby cathartic and uplifting—our narrator goes from being totally lonely to "someone among everyone, one person among us, loiterers against the law." Good critiques of and musings on capitalism, the police state, etc. Great set-up with the "superego of a father" character. I love our genderless, queer character who we at once know intimately and then again know very little about. A beautiful timely little diddy about holding onto a desire for sincerity, poetry, and a love of life amidst a senseless cruel system that leaves us feeling atomized and with "iron in our souls." Sometimes books about characters doing fuck-all are really a delight.

[Kyung · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fictional short story about a character who is at a crossroads of finding work vs writing poetry. The setting is Lyon, France where the country is engaged in riots and political unrest in the wake of terrorist attacks. The rise of facist ideals in the current western society seems unfortunately very topical to current events.

The short chapters of the main character’s interaction with their father shows the uncertainty many people of the current generation face. Unfortunately the economic state of our nations gives us an ultimatum of choosing between pursuing a artistic endeavor that doesn’t put food on the table, or pursuing a financially stable job that doesn’t engage any creative inspiration.

Though oftentimes the writing is hard to follow, I was able to catch some of the satire through the story. I think I would have gotten more out of this when I was younger (perhaps in my uni days) when I was contemplating what I was to do with my life.

[Darius Irani]

The long, stream-of-consciousness sentences in this work reflect the inner thoughts of a poet reckoning with the rise of right-wing, fascist sentiment in “the good city of Lyon”. There were some sections I found clever, on “Arabic coffee from Colombia produced by fair-trade processes, I told him I was wondering how exploitation without exploitation could have become a sales hook,” (89) and others that felt strangely profound despite their randomness, “Drunk you write poetry, intoxicated you go to bed,” (102). And the intentional repetition of certain phrases and narrative structure was fun. However, I’ve decided not to rate this because there were too many parts when I honestly didn’t know what was going on.

This is begging for a (slower, more intentional) re-read. I’ll wait to do that with a friend so we can unpack each chapter together.

[Maggie Montera · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me a while to finish despite it being so short. But, I've been trying to get back into reading and so I powered through and am now inspired. The author has a unique voice and sense of humor which I enjoyed, though since I read the English translation I imagine the rhythm constructed in French was somewhat lost in translation. The narrator, or poet, is a anti capitalist poet in an increasingly fascist world who smokes and reads and thinks and suffers and grieves and endures their father. Just like me fr. Also, half way through reading I realized I was imagining the poet to be male but then realized that was based on no means. So non-binary narrator it is. I think this is something with great re-read value to me.
My favorite line: "the ideal self is always a mix of power in action and mild revulsion that's more of less bearable."

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: As Lyon is consumed by protests, a darkly comic exploration of the push to be employed and the pull to write.

A state of emergency is declared in "the good city of Lyon" and protesters and police clash in the streets. At the unemployment office, there are few job opportunities for poets going around. So the poet reads accounts of life under the Third Reich and in Nazi language, smokes cannabis, walks through the streets, and eats bananas, drawn by an overbearing father into a hilarious and often cynical exploration of the push to be employed and the pull to write. In this Oulipean experiment written without gender markers for its narrator, Noémi Lefebvre presents us with a comic and irreverent reckoning with the rise of nationalism and the hegemony capitalism has on our language, actions, and identities.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: One of those ever-so-French récits that I like, but often don't love. This one is, to be honest, untranslatable. In French everything has a gender. This story does not gender its narrator, and like all récits this one takes place entirely in its PoV character's head; unless actively thinking about sex, we don't gender our own thoughts. So this genderless tale of a slice of the life of a nameless genderless soul at a crucial moment in recent French history is far more trenchant when ungendered in a highly gendered language...a lot of the impact is lost in neuter-English.

Perfect for the moment when a story is too short, a novel is too long, and one wants to think in the worldview of an aspiring-to-success poet. And is in the mood for sly, leftist humor. And does not care a fig for conventional, plodding storytelling but still craves a story.

A purchase direct from Transit Books supports a literary press, and only sets you back $15.95, a price I call cheap for the fun you could have.

[Clark Hays · Rating 4 out of 5]

Howl for a new generation

The Poetics of Space, by Noemi Lefebvre, is a short, powerful, disorienting book. In it, a narrator wanders through their life and the city of Lyon — engulfed in violent protests — in need of a job and simultaneously repelled by the thought of working. It’s a breathless and fractured meditation on capitalism, racism, nationalism, the patriarchy (both social and personal), depression, poetry, language, history and more.

Lefebvre’s style feels connected to the Beat Generation, but with a modern twist — as if filtered through the dizzying overlay of information overload from incessant media saturation. It’s Howl for a new generation.

The talented author has a few tricks for grounding readers in the, at times, almost stream of consciousness flow. And occasionally drops lines of clear and startling power, such as:

“Really, all you need to know is that the ideal self is always a mix of power in action and mild revulsion that’s more or less bearable.”

The Poetics of Work is the kind of book that can and should be read more than once, with each reading delivering some new and devastating insight.

[Joseph Fabian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Written in the malaise of a terrorism event by an author without sufficient confidence or focus to cut through it.

A lot of mentions of weed smoking that’s reflected in half-baked ideas.

Admiration for the sincerity of American writers that seem to be attempted to be imitated by saying “fuck” a lot.

A juvenile resentment for a father figure who is far more interesting than the narrator, who comes off mostly as pathetic.

I took a chance picking up this book for $2 at a yard sale because the cover was eye-catching. At least it was short. Maybe it connects better in its native language.

[ifonly · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who doesn’t know much about poetry or art, this book feels like walking into a high-brow modern art exhibit: clearly, there are some important things being communicated and I am able to glean a few specific ideas, but for the most part I’m lost. I do think it was good, though I’m not entirely sure why I believe that.

As for concrete takeaways/good quotes, I’ll just put one for myself for later review: “usefulness limits the imagination”.

[Joe Imwalle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the idea of a plotless book with a narrator looking into the existence of poetry in the modern world. I'm a poet. But this book never really did much for me. I enjoyed the dialogue between the narrator and father. But all in all, the book was ok.

[floraelmcolone · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books that randomly finds you (I had never heard of it, just picked it up from a used book store) at exactly the time that you need it / are able to relate to it

Really quick read but god damn

Instantly became a favorite, which doesn’t happen often

[CJ Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting view into the mind of the author. Dreadful at times yet beautiful at times. When I finished, it felt a little bit like I read nothing. I mean this as both good and bad. It certainly deserves a revisit.

[Craig]

A novella written by a French author that is apropos for my current life: living in a quickly-turning Fascist country while being unemployed and pondering middle life. I think. I need to re-read this, because it was dense but a very interesting and thought-provoking book.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Poetics of Work is a brief novel that really captures what it feels like as the police-state apparatus sheds its disguises across the western world.

[Emily Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most interesting books I’ve read this year or maybe ever