Mauve Desert

October 1, 1990
Mauve Desert is the first section in this three-part, postmodern, feminist fiction; in this novel-within-a-novel, 15-year-old Melanie, with a bad case of existential angst, finds comfort driving through the Arizona desert late at night. In the second section Maude Laures reads Mauve Desert , and ``her whole being plunges into the book.'' She thirsts for more than the short novel reveals, elaborates on the setting (photos portray her images of one character), decides to translate the book and imagines a conversation with the author. The final section is Laures's translation, which tells the same story with minor changes. Brossard (coauthor of Picture Theory ) focuses on issues of fiction to the exclusion of traditional development, neglecting concrete detail in favor of ideas and language. Characters speak in a stylized manner: Melanie, for instance, tells her mother ``your voice just superimposed itself on the mediocrity which in this Motel precludes all hope.'' The novel functions well as a literary game, but the original story is not strong enough to support the meta-literature that follows. Photos.

Recognized as a classic of feminist and experimental literature, this Canadian novel, first published in 1987, reads like an extended narrative poem rather than a novel. The central story is ostensibly a coming-of-age journey, but the plot has no cohesive structure or consistent pattern of development. Allegra Fulton offers a dramatic, velvet-voiced narration in which she enunciates with fervor and lingers on vowels for emphasis. Fulton's delivery may aim for a mesmerizing effect to match the author's nontraditional style. Instead, it has an affected, droning result. Indeed, the overall experience is awkward and nonsensical, repetitive with no real impact. Perhaps some of the novel's message is literally lost in translation, but for most listeners the five hours of this performance are better spent elsewhere. L.B.F. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine