The Baudelaire Fractal

By: Lisa Robertson

Narrated by: Allegra Fulton

The debut novel by acclaimed poet Lisa Robertson, in which a poet realizes she’s written the works of Baudelaire.

One morning, Hazel Brown awakes in a badly decorated hotel room to find that she’s written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire. In her bemusement the hotel becomes every cheap room she ever stayed in during her youthful perambulations in 1980s Paris. This is the legend of a she-dandy’s life.

Part magical realism, part feminist ars poetica, part history of tailoring, part bibliophilic anthem, part love affair with nineteenth-century painting, The Baudelaire Fractal is poet and art writer Lisa Robertson’s first novel.

”Robertson, with feminist wit, a dash of kink, and a generous brain, has written an urtext that tenders there can be, in fact, or in fiction, no such thing. Hers is a boon for readers and writers, now and in the future.” (Jennifer Krasinski, Bookforum)

“It’s brilliant, strange, and unlike anything I’ve read before.” (Rebecca Hussey, Bookriot)

©2020 Lisa Robertson (P)2021 ECW Press

Critic reviews

“And perhaps that's what Robertson, with this demanding, erudite, and quite remarkable novel, is telling us is required to return those who have been expunged from the pages of literature: time and effort.” (Stephen Finucan, Quill & Quire)

“A difficult work of ideas, by turns enlightening and arcane, part autobiographical narrative, part literary theory, Robertson’s debut novel, for those interested in possibilities of fiction, is not to be missed.” (Publishers Weekly)

“An intense if abstract portrait of the poet as a young woman in search of a kind of language that might lead to liberation.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Other People’s Dreams Can Be So Dull

With apologies to the author, this book is the worst. It’s a dreamy postmodernist farrago of buzzy notions that in fact make no sense and are dull upon listening. The text feels like it was composed with Mad Libs. This kind of phony meditative gobbledygook was awful when it first appeared - 40 or 50 years ago! - so it’s impossible to explain the positive review in a recent TLS that prompted my purchase. Ugh.