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Fences in Breathing
Shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
Invited to a quiet Swiss château by the enigmatic Tatiana Beaujeu Lehmann, Anne begins to slowly write a novel in a language that is not hers, a language that makes meaning foreign and keeps her alert to the world and its fiery horizon.
Will the strange intoxication that takes hold of her and her characters – sculptor Charles; his sister Kim, about to leave for the far north; and Laure Ravin, a lawyer obsessed with the Patriot Act – allow her to break through the darkness of the world?
Fences in Breathing, first published and critically lauded in French as La capture du sombre, and now brought into English by the celebrated translator Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, is a disquieting, dexterous and defiant missive, another triumph by one of North America's foremost practitioners of innovative writing.
Invited to a quiet Swiss château by the enigmatic Tatiana Beaujeu Lehmann, Anne begins to slowly write a novel in a language that is not hers, a language that makes meaning foreign and keeps her alert to the world and its fiery horizon.
Will the strange intoxication that takes hold of her and her characters – sculptor Charles; his sister Kim, about to leave for the far north; and Laure Ravin, a lawyer obsessed with the Patriot Act – allow her to break through the darkness of the world?
Fences in Breathing, first published and critically lauded in French as La capture du sombre, and now brought into English by the celebrated translator Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, is a disquieting, dexterous and defiant missive, another triumph by one of North America's foremost practitioners of innovative writing.
- GenresFiction
114 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
3 people are currently reading
84 people want to read
About the author
Nicole Brossard
101 books65 followersBorn in Montreal (Quebec), poet, novelist and essayist Nicole Brossard published her first book in 1965. In 1965 she cofounded the influential literary magazine La Barre du Jour and in 1976 she codirected the film Some American Femnists. She has published eight novels including Picture Theory, Mauve Desert, Baroque at Dawn, an essay "The Aerial Letter" and many books of poetry including Daydream Mechanics, Lovhers, Typhon dru, Installations, Musee de l'os et de l'eau. She has won the Governor General award twice for her poetry (1974, 1984) and Le Grand Prix de Poesie de la Foundation les Forges in 1989 and 1999. Le Prix Athanase-David, which is for a lifetime of literary acheivement, was attributed to her in 1991. That same year she received the The Harbourfront Festival Prize. In 1994, she was made a member of L'Academie des Lettres du Quebec. Her work has been widely translated and anthologized. Mauve Desert and Baroque at Dawn have been translated into Spanish. In 1998 she published a bilingual edition of an autofiction essay titled She would be the first sentence of my new novel/Elle serait la premiere phrase de mon prochain roman(1998). In 1989, a book of her poetry in translation, Installations, was released, translated by Erin Moure and Robert Majzels. Nicole Brossard lives in Montreal.
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April 30, 2022
They were two sentences with an idea of time and night. Sentences permeable to death and oblivion. One could readily have believed in a story between them. Each sentence poured its meaning into a great vivarium of torments and questions with words ever easier to caress. Yet each one sought to understand the laws of her own gravity. Whenever the two sentences crossed paths too quickly or too often without apparent explanation, inner reality dealt the universe a sharp, glorious kick. There remained a wound in the middle of the universe. One needed to behold it, then to have no fear of burrowing into it until the universe became the universe again. This is how the sentences moved forward into the night, carrying with them a quaking of the heart, a taste of the eternity that recommences at the edge of the void, as fascinating as dawn in any mother tongue, in any foreign tongue.
[...]
The two sentences were never-endingly one with the other about everything, a song, a breath, a river, continents, sentences that occupied the body, the emptiness of thoughts, the fulsomeness of living, sentences that plunged into the present and the unknown and, wave after wave, suspended time before heading off again toward eternity, the next sip of wine, a salty snuggle, an appeasement. They were two hungry sentences, one and the same mouth, a carnivorous confrontation between joy and solitude at the heart of darkness that stroked foreheads, thoughts, insults, softened fear, dissolved the salt on foreheads, between thighs, under palms, two sentences that leapt toward faces to glean a little personal history and memory before sliding down into the chest, there to accomplish tasks of hope and of tomorrow. Sentences that did things in grammar and in the wind, did the same things repeatedly as if it were me, in the shape of yesteryear, going back upstream into the time of darkness and the unspeakable.
They were two sentences with wings and desire, one always ready to seduce the other into conceiving, beyond words, a moistness of life in its slightest splitting of sap and saliva, there where the mouth, caressing the dream’s fine fabric, ventures all the way to the source.
I could imagine the sentences but I could no longer see myself writing them. In any case, it was impossible to grab them out of the air in full flight or to slow them down enough to grasp their meaning or their scope. The sentences lifted time up like a huge sheet in space and in the same breath took refuge in the slightest nooks of words where, in fits of laughter or spasms of pleasure, they could once again raise themselves in a totally unexpected way so that each one might dream of dreaming still and forever more amid light and darkness.
The sentences generated their own questions, exclamations and imperatives, which, depending on the degree of urgency, always ended up returning thoughts to the body’s orbit; face-touching sentences, or shoulder-touching, or touching valiant muscles that willingly let things happen to them. Lusty, merry sentences that could starve or multiply the little sweet rolls, flare into a fan, cause lips to heat up, curve and project themselves into the inexpressible, or coil under tongue with leafy rustlings before reaching unknown shores. Most of all they were night-wandering sentences that reminded me of the vertigo of long-gone days, sentences with honey, with rice, with fragrant oils and death in absentia; it was an intoxication of lips and the flavour of flanks, every time thirst touched a verb, there was in each sentence a cloud or a storm that increased the rhythm of breathing, they were good sentences, senselessly good, eternal, ephemeral, arousing mucous membranes and taste buds.
[...]
The two sentences were never-endingly one with the other about everything, a song, a breath, a river, continents, sentences that occupied the body, the emptiness of thoughts, the fulsomeness of living, sentences that plunged into the present and the unknown and, wave after wave, suspended time before heading off again toward eternity, the next sip of wine, a salty snuggle, an appeasement. They were two hungry sentences, one and the same mouth, a carnivorous confrontation between joy and solitude at the heart of darkness that stroked foreheads, thoughts, insults, softened fear, dissolved the salt on foreheads, between thighs, under palms, two sentences that leapt toward faces to glean a little personal history and memory before sliding down into the chest, there to accomplish tasks of hope and of tomorrow. Sentences that did things in grammar and in the wind, did the same things repeatedly as if it were me, in the shape of yesteryear, going back upstream into the time of darkness and the unspeakable.
They were two sentences with wings and desire, one always ready to seduce the other into conceiving, beyond words, a moistness of life in its slightest splitting of sap and saliva, there where the mouth, caressing the dream’s fine fabric, ventures all the way to the source.
I could imagine the sentences but I could no longer see myself writing them. In any case, it was impossible to grab them out of the air in full flight or to slow them down enough to grasp their meaning or their scope. The sentences lifted time up like a huge sheet in space and in the same breath took refuge in the slightest nooks of words where, in fits of laughter or spasms of pleasure, they could once again raise themselves in a totally unexpected way so that each one might dream of dreaming still and forever more amid light and darkness.
The sentences generated their own questions, exclamations and imperatives, which, depending on the degree of urgency, always ended up returning thoughts to the body’s orbit; face-touching sentences, or shoulder-touching, or touching valiant muscles that willingly let things happen to them. Lusty, merry sentences that could starve or multiply the little sweet rolls, flare into a fan, cause lips to heat up, curve and project themselves into the inexpressible, or coil under tongue with leafy rustlings before reaching unknown shores. Most of all they were night-wandering sentences that reminded me of the vertigo of long-gone days, sentences with honey, with rice, with fragrant oils and death in absentia; it was an intoxication of lips and the flavour of flanks, every time thirst touched a verb, there was in each sentence a cloud or a storm that increased the rhythm of breathing, they were good sentences, senselessly good, eternal, ephemeral, arousing mucous membranes and taste buds.
June 17, 2009
A recent review I wrote for Boston Review's footnotes:
There are several worthwhile topics to discuss in Brossard’s newest from Coach House, Fences in Breathing. There are the real-life social implications to the imaginary war that ends the novella, the importance of pleasure (Jennifer Moxley described pleasure as “the word that first comes to mind at the mention of Nicole Brossard’s poetry”), and the associations between language, body, and desire. Yet it is the idea of translation that most fascinates me when thinking about Fences, as well as Brossard’s other works.
In an introduction to one of her readings (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsoun...), Charles Bernstein acknowledged that Brossard was the only native French-speaking poet anthologized in On The Other Side of the Century, a well-known poetry anthology put out by Sun & Moon Press (now Green Integer), and that perhaps the reason for the inclusion of Brossard’s poems was because her works seem to “flourish in English.”
In taking a look at her publications as listed by the Electronic Poetry Center (EPC), all of Brossard’s initial publications were published in French. Less than half of the listed publications have been translated into English, and most of the English translations are of her novels, not of her poetry. And unlike many poets and fiction writers, Brossard has not consistently worked with one translator. This raises interesting questions for any reader of Brossard’s work: how does each translation/translator render Brossard’s work differently? If there’s consistency of language in each translation of her works (which is rarely true of translations of an author’s works by different translators), does Brossard’s French somehow lead to more “successful” English translations?
Translation plays a role in the novella, not only because the book is a literal translation, but as subject matter. Anne, the main character, is a writer who chooses to render her novel in a “language other than [her:] own,” which for Anne is “ way of avoiding short circuits in [her:] mother tongue.” Translation conflates body as language, where one — language or the physical body — represents the other, so when Brossard writes about a “[s:]tory of words,” these typographical bodies are associated with “salt,” “origin,” and “delights.”
Interestingly, Brossard’s associations between translation, language, and body recall the works of other French (or French-speaking) writers/authors. In their works, Jacques Derrida and Abdelkebir Khatibi often conflate the physical body for the typographical letter. For both Derrida and Khatibi, translation equals destruction, which also equals transformation. This state of translation/destruction/transformation occurs on the “tongue” (i.e. one’s sense of being through language and speech), as well as the physical body.
What I admire most about Fences in Breathing it that although it is easy (and right) to read the text as “fiction theory” (which is how Brossard once described her work), theoretical interests in language is expressed through simple, elegant language. One has a strong visual reaction to the text: I could actually visualize a loose film version created from the language of the book. A prime example of Brossard’s skilled interweaving of language experimentation and description is expressed in the following passage, which describes the work space of Charlie, one of the minor characters in the novella:
He says tools but somebody will mention the cutting edges of things and will see billhook, scythe, fauchard, debris, wood chips and sketches all entangled like words in summertime, when crickets and corn, lives and vines, sunflowers and stormy hours touch and quench one another.
This passage is a simple statement that expresses the relativity of language, language as definition and sign. At the same time, the passage strays away from being a merely cerebral, dry exercise: a definition flourishes; a tool does not remain just a tool, but becomes a “billhook, scythe, fauchard, debris… .” As the passage expands, these objects become entangled with the smell of “woodchips” and sounds of “crickets” and “stormy hours.” There are bursts of colors, the “vines” and “sunflowers.” So much can be remembered from Fences that is concrete, vivid, and visual, so that this “fiction theory” also translates as accessible images.
My own, somewhat unrealistic conclusion is that as a fan of Fences in Breathing, the best way to read and understand the novella is to read both the French and de Lotbinire-Harwood’s English translation. In a sense, reading both the original and its English translation may be the most thorough way in understanding Brossard’s feverish explorations with language. Like Anne, I might conclude with the thought where by reading, struggling with the text in a language that I am not as readily familiar with, I will somehow “find a solution to the questions of meaning that do not come up in my language.”
There are several worthwhile topics to discuss in Brossard’s newest from Coach House, Fences in Breathing. There are the real-life social implications to the imaginary war that ends the novella, the importance of pleasure (Jennifer Moxley described pleasure as “the word that first comes to mind at the mention of Nicole Brossard’s poetry”), and the associations between language, body, and desire. Yet it is the idea of translation that most fascinates me when thinking about Fences, as well as Brossard’s other works.
In an introduction to one of her readings (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsoun...), Charles Bernstein acknowledged that Brossard was the only native French-speaking poet anthologized in On The Other Side of the Century, a well-known poetry anthology put out by Sun & Moon Press (now Green Integer), and that perhaps the reason for the inclusion of Brossard’s poems was because her works seem to “flourish in English.”
In taking a look at her publications as listed by the Electronic Poetry Center (EPC), all of Brossard’s initial publications were published in French. Less than half of the listed publications have been translated into English, and most of the English translations are of her novels, not of her poetry. And unlike many poets and fiction writers, Brossard has not consistently worked with one translator. This raises interesting questions for any reader of Brossard’s work: how does each translation/translator render Brossard’s work differently? If there’s consistency of language in each translation of her works (which is rarely true of translations of an author’s works by different translators), does Brossard’s French somehow lead to more “successful” English translations?
Translation plays a role in the novella, not only because the book is a literal translation, but as subject matter. Anne, the main character, is a writer who chooses to render her novel in a “language other than [her:] own,” which for Anne is “ way of avoiding short circuits in [her:] mother tongue.” Translation conflates body as language, where one — language or the physical body — represents the other, so when Brossard writes about a “[s:]tory of words,” these typographical bodies are associated with “salt,” “origin,” and “delights.”
Interestingly, Brossard’s associations between translation, language, and body recall the works of other French (or French-speaking) writers/authors. In their works, Jacques Derrida and Abdelkebir Khatibi often conflate the physical body for the typographical letter. For both Derrida and Khatibi, translation equals destruction, which also equals transformation. This state of translation/destruction/transformation occurs on the “tongue” (i.e. one’s sense of being through language and speech), as well as the physical body.
What I admire most about Fences in Breathing it that although it is easy (and right) to read the text as “fiction theory” (which is how Brossard once described her work), theoretical interests in language is expressed through simple, elegant language. One has a strong visual reaction to the text: I could actually visualize a loose film version created from the language of the book. A prime example of Brossard’s skilled interweaving of language experimentation and description is expressed in the following passage, which describes the work space of Charlie, one of the minor characters in the novella:
He says tools but somebody will mention the cutting edges of things and will see billhook, scythe, fauchard, debris, wood chips and sketches all entangled like words in summertime, when crickets and corn, lives and vines, sunflowers and stormy hours touch and quench one another.
This passage is a simple statement that expresses the relativity of language, language as definition and sign. At the same time, the passage strays away from being a merely cerebral, dry exercise: a definition flourishes; a tool does not remain just a tool, but becomes a “billhook, scythe, fauchard, debris… .” As the passage expands, these objects become entangled with the smell of “woodchips” and sounds of “crickets” and “stormy hours.” There are bursts of colors, the “vines” and “sunflowers.” So much can be remembered from Fences that is concrete, vivid, and visual, so that this “fiction theory” also translates as accessible images.
My own, somewhat unrealistic conclusion is that as a fan of Fences in Breathing, the best way to read and understand the novella is to read both the French and de Lotbinire-Harwood’s English translation. In a sense, reading both the original and its English translation may be the most thorough way in understanding Brossard’s feverish explorations with language. Like Anne, I might conclude with the thought where by reading, struggling with the text in a language that I am not as readily familiar with, I will somehow “find a solution to the questions of meaning that do not come up in my language.”
February 1, 2015
The difficult thing about reviewing this book is that, as a work of "innovative writing," there's truthfully not much plot beyond what's already given in the book description. Still, it's a strangely enjoyable read, not for the characters or the plot, but for the language. It's obvious Brossard is a poet, and in a way this book should probably be viewed more as prose poetry than as a novel. It touches on themes of translation, women's writing, and the post-9/11 age of the war on terror, all of which are treated as preoccupations in the protagonist's mind as she sits down to write a book in a language she doesn't speak, working through the language at the same time as her thoughts.
There are passages in this book that are really beautiful and that you'll turn over and over in your mind after reading: "In the distance, owls hoot in the half-light, then all the night's noises come crashing into the conversation. 'In your opinion, how many books were written in this chateau?' I haven't the slightest idea. 'Three hundred and twenty-eight. You should have seen all the poets. Only during the war years did I see so many worried faces that were, paradoxically, so alive. Several women writers stayed here. I can admit it now, I always did give them preference; but their stories weren't pretty. Oh, not at all, stories so violent that several didn't dare publish them. I did everything I could to convince them, but they were afraid, terribly afraid. Some of their husbands, some of not finding a husband, others of going to hell; others were simply afraid of themselves and the shame that would befall their family. Things were different back then.'"
Definitely pick this book up when you have time to read quietly, and don't expect to get through the entire thing in one go. It requires time in between sections to really think about what you're reading.
There are passages in this book that are really beautiful and that you'll turn over and over in your mind after reading: "In the distance, owls hoot in the half-light, then all the night's noises come crashing into the conversation. 'In your opinion, how many books were written in this chateau?' I haven't the slightest idea. 'Three hundred and twenty-eight. You should have seen all the poets. Only during the war years did I see so many worried faces that were, paradoxically, so alive. Several women writers stayed here. I can admit it now, I always did give them preference; but their stories weren't pretty. Oh, not at all, stories so violent that several didn't dare publish them. I did everything I could to convince them, but they were afraid, terribly afraid. Some of their husbands, some of not finding a husband, others of going to hell; others were simply afraid of themselves and the shame that would befall their family. Things were different back then.'"
Definitely pick this book up when you have time to read quietly, and don't expect to get through the entire thing in one go. It requires time in between sections to really think about what you're reading.
November 24, 2025
Bizarre, enivrant.
Fiction ou metafiction.
Les deux.
Un roman, si tu veux, sur les affinités intellectuelles et corporelles
très concrets, tres specifiques, bien characterises.
Des discours qui se tissent dans le temps, dans la mémoire et dans des chambres, des lieux
ou on peine, ou on cree et detruit, ou on se trouve, ou on se perds
Fiction ou metafiction.
Les deux.
Un roman, si tu veux, sur les affinités intellectuelles et corporelles
très concrets, tres specifiques, bien characterises.
Des discours qui se tissent dans le temps, dans la mémoire et dans des chambres, des lieux
ou on peine, ou on cree et detruit, ou on se trouve, ou on se perds
May 26, 2016
HATED it. Especially the passage where she deliberately withholds the use of punctuation. You cannot have all of your characters talking simultaneously in a confused jumble and expect the reader to understand exactly WHAT is going on. Maybe that is the point. But as a reader, I don't want to have to play connect the 1000 dot puzzles when I read. I'm fine to bridge the gap and fill things in on my own, but the entire story was just one big "what the FUCK did I just read". I think the fact that it was translated MAY have had something to do with it. Sold it to the used bookstore. Was GLAD to.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews