Mauve Desert is an excellent book and especially interesting for people interested in postmodern, translation and/or feminist theories. It is also a great example of a "hypertext" or non-linear text and one which incorporates scientific metaphors into the plot seamlessly. Brossard has done an exceptional job of both illustrating and dissecting issues of translation and language, especially as they relate to the world of mothers and daughters. Mauve Desert deftly negotiates several issues of linguistic mobility, both within the framework of the book and in the translation from the French original. She slips in and out of the languages of English, French and mathematics with ease. Ironically, despite this, my only issue with Mauve Desert is precisely one of translation. In both the French original and the English translation there is some linguistic cross-over in her word-play. Although the translator (Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood) does an admirable job with the bulk of the book, there are some expressions that should have been left as they were in the original (in my opinion). Regardless of this minor issue, there is nothing that truly detracts from Brossard's text and I recommend it highly - particularly the French original if you can read the language and are lucky enough to get your hands on a copy (they are even harder to come by than the English version)!
(N.B. I would prefer to give it 4.5 stars because of translation issues, but I can't bring myself to give it a 4.)

I agree with the first reviewer. I recommend this book to everyone, although I have heard that some people find it a bit difficult to read at times. I think this is partly because the book has a dreamlike quality to it - by that I mean time moves strangely sometimes and there are different elements all acting at once - but like a dream, the whole flows together. If anyone is interested, an artist did a multimedia project, with the same title, based on the book. I think the artists' name is Adrienne Jenik and I believe she taught in the University of California system. The project she created is great, and it adds a level of interpretation and complexity to Brossards work. I highly recommend it.

Nicole Brossard is brilliant. It is advisable to read up on feminist theory a bit before you dive in. Otherwise some central symbols and meaning will be lost to you. If you like David Lynch... Brossard is way better. Some knowledge of the French language would be a boon also, if one is inclined to onamastic study. read it. then read it again. then put it aside for a year. read it again. repeat as required.

This book takes a look at the stagnant life of a Quebec family. A family who, due to the deaths of so many children, no longer care about each other. In this book, the main character, Jean, is an imaginative little boy who is dying from scarlet fever(I believe). His genius is strongly ignored by his family and, not untill he dies, do any of them realize his intelligence and worth. Jean, however, is not the whole topic of this book. It also looks at the inability to escape from this horrible situation, whereas all the characters are trapped in this stagnant world.

This is one of the darkest tales I've ever read--a sort of "Angela's Ashes" times ten. It is chilling to think that, although this is fiction, people really lived this way, in such a dark world cut off from most all human emotions, in poverty so brutal even Charles Dickens could not have imagined it. Yet in the middle of all of this blossoms Jean Le Maigre, a sort of John Keats destined to be cut down by tuberculosis in his prime. A large portion of the book is Jean Le Maigre's biography, but it is also filled with other rich characters--tough Grand-Mère, mystical Héloïse, and delightfully wicked Le Septième.

I have read this book in both its original French and Derek Coltman's translation. The translation is quite good in keeping the flavor of the original French, although at times there are words chosen in English which are stronger than they were in French.

This bilingual blend of fiction and non-fiction by the Canadian feminist and lesbian Brossard is as potent as anything written by Virginia Woolf, Monique Wittig, Gertrude Stein, or Carole Maso. Based on a lecture she gave, this book is an exploration into finding new ways of using language. It also addresses the concept of writing in the feminine (especially true in French, where gender is apparent in the language itself).