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Chicanes
As she tries to collect them for an essay she is planning to write, voices begin interfering in Clara Schulmann’s life. Voices of women, heard on the radio, in podcasts, songs, and films; voices of novelists or feminist theorists; voices of friends or of strangers overheard in the street. Like weeds, like bad seeds (which is one of the meaning of Zizanies, the French title), these wayward words invade her thoughts and her life, and the essay that she once had in mind unfolds in a picaresque tale full of twists and turns. Here Comes Trouble is a timely and elegant narrative that reveals Clara Schulmann as a new author whose own voice is going to hold weight in years to come.
- GenresEssaysNonfiction
250 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 10, 2023
The women in this first group I've written about actively integrate hesitation, failure, even some-times their desire to disappear. For them, there have been more chicanes than straight roads. . (tr. Natasha Lehrer)
Chicanes (2023) is a translation of Clara Schulmann’s 2020 work Zizanies. It is published by the brilliant small press Les Fugitives “a London-based independent press for contemporary literary fiction and narrative non-fiction in translation, mostly by francophone women writers critically acclaimed in France, and previously unpublished in English.”
Many of the works Les Fugitives publish straddle the novel / non-fiction genre boundary that English language literature (and many book prizes) seem to see as a binary choice, but which seems much more blurred in the francophone world, and indeed in much of the books I generally find I love. That said at the narrative non-fiction end of that spectrum.
Chicanes consists of a series of 6 chapters, bookended by a prologue and epilogue, entitled On/Off, Breathing, Fatigue, Overflowing, Speed and Irritation. From the prologue, in Naima Rashid’s translation:
The chapters of this book fall naturally into a regular chronicle in which events from my life are placed next to readings, films, stories that were told to me, discussions I was part of, interventions and texts which all fed into this book. Their arrangement in six parts allows different spiritual states, `moments' and tempos to appear … Around these moments, I have put together an imaginary community of female figures, and dead, real and fictitious, who, in a way, converse with each other across these pages.
It is a brilliantly realised and fascinating approach. As a small example, Overflowing, translated by Jessica Spivey, begins with a scene from Woody Allen’s Another Woman, and how the voice of Mia Farrow’s character flows through an air-duct from the office of the psychoanalyst treating her to the home office of the philosopher Marion Post, played by Gena Rowlands.
This theme of “liquid, aquatic, acerbic” women’s voices (the latter a value judgement imposed by others) itself flows into a discussion of a collaborative performance art work involving the author, centred on water spilling while Gertrude Stein’s ‘Water Pipe’ is read; the opening sequence of Hitchcock’s Rebecca; Angela Carter’s 20 years post publication take on her own novel Love; and a conversation with the Korean-German artist Haegue Yang about the story behind her work ‘Bathroom Contemplation.’ The latter rather resonated personally as it revolves around a bathroom flooding incident when Yang’s mother visited from Korea, caused by the bizarre lack in most Western bathrooms of a drain in the floor (as an aside, why is that?).
And that is all in just 10 pages of this book which itself overflows with ideas and connections.
The attentive reader of this review will have noticed the three different translators already mentioned. Cécile Lee who owns Les Fugitives took the brilliant decision to have the book poly-translated by 8 different translators, one for each chapter including the two book ending ones. The other five are Clem Clement, Ruth Diver, Lauren Elkin, Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis, and the group includes debut translators as well as those that have featured in multiple awards including the International Booker, the Asymptote Close Approximations Fiction Prize, French American Foundation’a translation prize, Scott Moncrieff prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. This chorus of 8 different voices adds another dimension to the English translation, very much in keeping with the novel’s original conceit.
Highly recommended.
Chicanes (2023) is a translation of Clara Schulmann’s 2020 work Zizanies. It is published by the brilliant small press Les Fugitives “a London-based independent press for contemporary literary fiction and narrative non-fiction in translation, mostly by francophone women writers critically acclaimed in France, and previously unpublished in English.”
Many of the works Les Fugitives publish straddle the novel / non-fiction genre boundary that English language literature (and many book prizes) seem to see as a binary choice, but which seems much more blurred in the francophone world, and indeed in much of the books I generally find I love. That said at the narrative non-fiction end of that spectrum.
Chicanes consists of a series of 6 chapters, bookended by a prologue and epilogue, entitled On/Off, Breathing, Fatigue, Overflowing, Speed and Irritation. From the prologue, in Naima Rashid’s translation:
The chapters of this book fall naturally into a regular chronicle in which events from my life are placed next to readings, films, stories that were told to me, discussions I was part of, interventions and texts which all fed into this book. Their arrangement in six parts allows different spiritual states, `moments' and tempos to appear … Around these moments, I have put together an imaginary community of female figures, and dead, real and fictitious, who, in a way, converse with each other across these pages.
It is a brilliantly realised and fascinating approach. As a small example, Overflowing, translated by Jessica Spivey, begins with a scene from Woody Allen’s Another Woman, and how the voice of Mia Farrow’s character flows through an air-duct from the office of the psychoanalyst treating her to the home office of the philosopher Marion Post, played by Gena Rowlands.
This theme of “liquid, aquatic, acerbic” women’s voices (the latter a value judgement imposed by others) itself flows into a discussion of a collaborative performance art work involving the author, centred on water spilling while Gertrude Stein’s ‘Water Pipe’ is read; the opening sequence of Hitchcock’s Rebecca; Angela Carter’s 20 years post publication take on her own novel Love; and a conversation with the Korean-German artist Haegue Yang about the story behind her work ‘Bathroom Contemplation.’ The latter rather resonated personally as it revolves around a bathroom flooding incident when Yang’s mother visited from Korea, caused by the bizarre lack in most Western bathrooms of a drain in the floor (as an aside, why is that?).
And that is all in just 10 pages of this book which itself overflows with ideas and connections.
The attentive reader of this review will have noticed the three different translators already mentioned. Cécile Lee who owns Les Fugitives took the brilliant decision to have the book poly-translated by 8 different translators, one for each chapter including the two book ending ones. The other five are Clem Clement, Ruth Diver, Lauren Elkin, Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis, and the group includes debut translators as well as those that have featured in multiple awards including the International Booker, the Asymptote Close Approximations Fiction Prize, French American Foundation’a translation prize, Scott Moncrieff prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. This chorus of 8 different voices adds another dimension to the English translation, very much in keeping with the novel’s original conceit.
Highly recommended.
December 14, 2025
In November 2014 I sent an email to some women friends asking for help with packing up the apartment I was moving out of. It had been a couple of months since I'd slept there. They came over with my sisters one Saturday and went through everything, dividing it all up. In a whirlwind of activity, they'd point to things, clothes, kitchen stuff. Even though I was collapsed in a heap on the sofa, I'd say, 'That's mine, that's his'. Sometimes I didn't dare claim something, and so they'd decide for me. At around the same time, I met an Italian man at the Pompidou Centre, who shook my hand with immense seriousness as he introduced himself. His name was Enrico. We went for a drink one evening. On my way to meet him I popped into the apartment, which was filled with boxes and plunged into darkness. I just wanted to clear the corridor quickly. I was wearing headphones. A song came on and I found myself dancing on my own among the packing crates. It turns out it's not always possible to clear things out. Life muddles things up, piles up moments and voices. [42–3]
May 30, 2025
du mal à comprendre en quoi faire une recension de penseuses féministes sans rien ajouter de nouveau mérite d’être lu, mais je suis sûrement aigrie
Read
November 9, 2024Like a cup of coffee with an old friend on a rainy day
April 16, 2025
3,5/5. Je suis un peu perplexe, et un peu déçu. Le sujet du livre m'intéressait particulièrement (la voix / les femmes), et j'ai trouvé que son traitement n'était pas à la hauteur de mes attentes. C'est un livre qui ressemble à un essai personnel où la subjectivité de l'autrice prend sa place, mais pour moi, il manque de substance théorique et de profondeur. Le livre est organisé en chapitres qui ne m'ont pas paru se lier très bien ensemble. Et ces chapitres sont composés de textes qui s'entrecoupent les uns dans les autres. Leur contenu fait soit le récit d'expériences de l'autrice, soit une sorte de journalisme sur une bibliographie aux contours flous, ou du moins qui ne paraît pas dicté par des lois particulières. Une œuvre est citée puis une analyse de cette œuvre, on écrit ensuite deux lignes pour rattacher l'affaire au sujet du livre, et on recommence avec une autre œuvre. Quelques passages m'ont beaucoup intéressés et d'autres plutôt laissés en dehors. J'attendais autre chose.
April 24, 2024
C’etait trop bien. Je l’ai binge read à la bibli cet aprem :p
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews