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Customer Review
- Reviewed in Canada on May 29, 2004The concept of rating does not apply to this book.. to Nadja. Hence, the neutral "3 stars". How do people come to read this book? Is it out of necessity, as in studying french literature? I guess it doesn't matter.
Breton: "Pope of surrealism"; psychologist; culturally tied to theater, literature, fine art, and political movements; intellectual... elite.
This book is in two parts. The first is automatic writing, meandering through cultural references, Parisien momunents and streets, and famous persons of his era. Its exercise is in hommage of his precursors (ie Rimbaud, Jung) and is scarcely cohesive. The second (starting at about the 70th page) is the portrayal of the ellusive "Nadja", which "feels" more like a novel (but not quite) as Breton and Nadja float through Paris, looking at a restaurant menu here, a fountain there. The importance may lie in Nadja's surreal portrayal... her dialogue (broken phrases, observations) is enigmatic.. She is an oracle, a ghost, an undefined aesthetic.
I've seen teaching guides that advise leading students through the later pages of Nadja and only then return to the beginning .. I can see that as good advice to understand those first pages.
Why would anyone want to read this book? I mean, surrealism is dead and buried (despite their distant protests). But it existed once.. it was during the writing of Nadja a virile and auspicious movement... squarely demonstrated --or reported-- as an art --a literary -- form in this book... Is there any value found here other than landmark... Is there any perennial human wisdom here?
Nadja is not "necessarily" relevant today due to our distance from its culturally and politically rooted intentions.. It purely depends on the reader's knowledge of what Breton was trying to achieve here... and now, nearly eighty years later, the reader is not merely culturally challenged.. So reading it alongside a couple of essays... maybe getting some background info on Breton as well.. a little bio on the net, perhaps, might "help".
But once the answer is found.... and how did you get here, and where are you going ....Once the pregnant artifices of this work are consummed, assimilated, rendered to ash.. the lingering ghost of Nadja remains... and its affects are... .
