{"id":984,"date":"2019-07-15T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-15T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?p=984"},"modified":"2019-07-15T12:00:02","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T11:00:02","slug":"madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/","title":{"rendered":"Resistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Translated from the French (Belgium) by Faith Evans (Pushkin Press, 2019)<\/h2>\n

A Nail, A Rose <\/em><\/a>is a collection of short stories by Belgian writer Madeleine Bourdouxhe, written in the twentieth century but previously untranslated. Bourdouxhe was born in 1906 and lived through two world wars; she was admired by Simone de Beauvoir but has been largely forgotten by literary history, a neglect \u201cpartly explained by her diffidence but even more by the catastrophic disruptions of modern European history\u201d (translator\u2019s note). Translator Faith Evans has undertaken a labour of great love and dedication, rescuing these stories and with them Bourdouxhe\u2019s talent, for a new readership.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The stories in A Nail, A Rose <\/em>tell of daily life for women in the mid-twentieth century, and so in one sense there is very little plot development. Yet bubbling beneath the surface are all sorts of subtexts, particularly regarding the second world war \u2013 the stories were written in the aftermath of the Nazi invasion of Europe \u2013 and the social role of women. The women in the stories carry out quiet acts of resistance: they are housewives, mothers, lady\u2019s maids, and their reality (a life of servitude and submission) is laid bare and turned on its head in surprising ways. These ordinary women have extraordinary experiences: in the title story the protagonist is wandering alone, nursing a broken heart. As she walks along thinking of her lost love (\u201cShe was living through a present without a future, she was carrying inside her a love with no tomorrow\u201d), Ir\u00e8ne is unexpectedly and brutally mugged. She survives the attack only to remonstrate with her assailant, divide her possessions up between them, and leave him utterly mesmerised by her. He later turns up at her door to check that she is not still suffering from his attack, and to offer his services in any way he can. This hilariously absurd turn of events showcases the message of this and so many of Bourdouxhe\u2019s stories, as Ir\u00e8ne tells him not to rob her of her only pleasure \u2013 self-sufficiency. You can take my meagre possessions, she implies, but you will not take my independence. Don\u2019t let the quiet and traditional settings fool you: this is a text with a powerful feminist message.<\/p>\n

Possessions and reappropriation also play a key part in \u2018Louise\u2019, in which a maid borrows her mistress\u2019s expensive coat to go and meet her lover, but finds herself not only enveloped in the scent and experience of “Madame”, but also suffused with intimate fantasies of the woman who normally wears the coat. Acts of resistance against male domination are also echoed elsewhere in the text, as women rise up against their life of servitude: in \u2018Blanche\u2019 the heroine is dismissed as a \u201cstupid woman\u201d but in reality she just does not recognise herself in a life of cooking, cleaning and ironing (\u201cThis is me, Blanche, and I shall never know who I am\u201d). The resistance takes on its most explicit (and murderous) form in \u2018Leah\u2019, in a scene that sums up all the poetic simplicity and unassuming brutality of Bourdouxhe’s work:<\/p>\n

\u201cThree or four times, at long intervals, I was assailed by deep breaths from his big open mouth. Finally he was still, and I was confronted by its abyss. As I closed his jaw with my hands there rose in me an overwhelming grief, heavy with poisonous dregs. I sat there for a long time, my hands pressed against his face, while my heart slowed down and my hands became accustomed to the stillness and coldness of death.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These stories take us to unexpected places, and show women breaking with tradition and expectation even when they seem to be submitting to it: for example, in \u2018Ren\u00e9\u2019, a young male hairdresser instinctively kisses a female client, and invites her to meet with him. She agrees, but his desire for her is met with impassivity, with a sense of fulfilling expectation, and his disappointment is so great that, \u201cconsumed with anger in every inch of his being\u201d, he ends up smashing her face against a rock. He runs off but then relents, and comes back to find her only to discover that she has pulled herself up. These women are unbroken and unbowed, never allowing themselves to be dependent on men even if the circumstances in which they find themselves seem traditional \u2013 after all, this is rural Europe in the mid-twentieth century. Indeed, history beats at the heart of Bourdouxhe\u2019s tales (\u201cthe mould was rising in layers, on the world and in her heart\u201d), and the influence of the Second World War on her writing is evident: the final story in the collection (and my personal favourite) is ‘Sous le pont Mirabeau’, the title borrowed from an Apollinaire poem. A woman gives birth to the sound of a foreign invasion, and finds she must flee the city, taking her newborn baby with her on the back of a truck. Blood is streaming down her legs, and her swollen breasts ache as she tries to produce enough milk to feed her baby, yet there is no melodrama here: Bourdouxhe describes her heroine\u2019s experience (which is based on her own) in pragmatic terms (\u201cShe took a few steps around the room; she seemed to be all right. After all, she couldn\u2019t always have a stretcher and three soldiers to help her\u201d). It is this understatement that I most appreciated about the collection, along with the evocative musings that connect the everyday stories to universal truth and experience, such as solidarity in resistance (\u201cAll around she perceived the world\u2019s splendour, its pain and its joy\u201d) and living through a war for the second time (\u201cAll the past had to be lived again\u201d).<\/p>\n

The translation by Faith Evans has received universal praise, and for the most part deservedly. Evans communicates Bourdouxhe\u2019s insight with extraordinary clarity and candour, but I was less convinced by the dialogues. Predominantly held between working-class characters, at times they were rather formal and affected (particularly in \u2018Leah\u2019 and \u2018Sous le pont Mirabeau\u2019). However, what is evident throughout is Evans\u2019s commitment to bringing Bourdouxhe\u2019s writing into English, and her translations show the depth of understanding that she has for these stories and for the woman who wrote them.\u00a0Bourdouxhe’s women have almost untold depths of feeling and trauma: they are alone, they are heartbroken, they are attacked, they are abandoned, they are displaced, they are bleeding and they are downtrodden. But they are never bowed: they love, they mourn, they desire, they dream, they take risks. Above all, they never lose their sense of self: they withhold their core and their forgiveness, and thanks to Evans\u2019s efforts they emerge to claim their place in the canon of European literature.<\/p>\n

Review copy of\u00a0A Nail, A Rose\u00a0<\/em>provided by Pushkin Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Translated from the French (Belgium) by Faith Evans (Pushkin Press, 2019) A Nail, A Rose is a collection of short stories by Belgian writer Madeleine Bourdouxhe, written in the twentieth century but previously untranslated. Bourdouxhe was born in 1906 and lived through two world wars; she was admired by Simone de Beauvoir but has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[45,135,329,573,765],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nResistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose - Translating Women<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Resistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose - Translating Women\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Translated from the French (Belgium) by Faith Evans (Pushkin Press, 2019) A Nail, A Rose is a collection of short stories by Belgian writer Madeleine Bourdouxhe, written in the twentieth century but previously untranslated. Bourdouxhe was born in 1906 and lived through two world wars; she was admired by Simone de Beauvoir but has been […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Translating Women\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-07-15T11:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/files\/2019\/07\/getimage-26-600x807.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Helen Vassallo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Helen Vassallo\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/\",\"name\":\"Resistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose - Translating Women\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2019\/07\/getimage-26-600x807-1.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-07-15T11:00:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-07-15T11:00:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/f6b5a23680f8533c3894aef4e6018f68\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2019\/07\/getimage-26-600x807-1.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2019\/07\/getimage-26-600x807-1.jpeg\",\"width\":600,\"height\":807},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Resistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/\",\"name\":\"Translating Women\",\"description\":\"INTERNATIONAL | INTERSECTIONAL | ACTIVIST | FEMINIST\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/f6b5a23680f8533c3894aef4e6018f68\",\"name\":\"Helen Vassallo\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c32871912708eb310775deb9561113ed?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c32871912708eb310775deb9561113ed?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Helen Vassallo\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/author\/hmv201\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Resistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose - Translating Women","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Resistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose - Translating Women","og_description":"Translated from the French (Belgium) by Faith Evans (Pushkin Press, 2019) A Nail, A Rose is a collection of short stories by Belgian writer Madeleine Bourdouxhe, written in the twentieth century but previously untranslated. Bourdouxhe was born in 1906 and lived through two world wars; she was admired by Simone de Beauvoir but has been […]","og_url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/","og_site_name":"Translating Women","article_published_time":"2019-07-15T11:00:02+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/files\/2019\/07\/getimage-26-600x807.jpeg"}],"author":"Helen Vassallo","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Helen Vassallo","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/","url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/","name":"Resistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose - Translating Women","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2019\/07\/getimage-26-600x807-1.jpeg","datePublished":"2019-07-15T11:00:02+00:00","dateModified":"2019-07-15T11:00:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/f6b5a23680f8533c3894aef4e6018f68"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2019\/07\/getimage-26-600x807-1.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2019\/07\/getimage-26-600x807-1.jpeg","width":600,"height":807},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/07\/15\/madeleine-bourdouxhe-a-nail-a-rose\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Resistance in the everyday: Madeleine Bourdouxhe, A Nail, A Rose"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#website","url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/","name":"Translating Women","description":"INTERNATIONAL | INTERSECTIONAL | ACTIVIST | FEMINIST","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/f6b5a23680f8533c3894aef4e6018f68","name":"Helen Vassallo","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c32871912708eb310775deb9561113ed?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c32871912708eb310775deb9561113ed?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Helen Vassallo"},"url":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/author\/hmv201\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}