Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Gallimard French (1972), Edition: French, 189 pages
Description
Nadja, originally published in France in 1928, is the first and perhaps best Surrealist romance ever written, a book which defined that movement's attitude toward everyday life.The principal narrative is an account of the author's relationship with a girl in the city of Paris, the story of an obsessional presence haunting his life. The first-person narrative is supplemented by forty-four photographs which form an integral part of the work--pictures of various 'surreal' people, places, and objects which the author visits or is haunted by in Nadja's presence and which inspire him to meditate on their reality or lack of it.
User reviews
LibraryThing member GarySeverance
It is necessary to rebel against a life of pretense to understand what makes you a unique and valid person. Andre Breton writes that he “haunts” other people because they only know his shadows, the artificial roles he plays as a social man. He seeks to surprise his banal interactions with
In “Nadja,” a surrealist novel published in Paris in 1928, the narrator walks the Parisian streets at random seeking unexpected cues to positive unconscious processes, not focusing on negative aspects as do psychoanalysts. These processes are idiosyncratic and the only events that distinguish and validate the person. They are repressed and must be sought actively.
The narrator by chance meets an eccentric woman who seems to be connected more than most people to the unconscious, artistic mind. He takes advantage of Nadja, observing and encouraging her mental exploration in order to understand his own mind. The narrator takes advantage of the reader in the same way, exposing hidden mental structures. Breton thanks the reader directly for allowing him to write the insightful novel, since I could not be done without the reader’s complicity.
“Nadja,” Russian for the very fleeting beginning of hope, is considered the seminal novel of the relatively brief surrealist literature period in the first half of the 20th Century. Black and white photographs illustrate the cues Breton describes that open the unconscious minds of Nadja and the reader. Reading Breton’s novel is a very interesting experience.
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people by opening himself to experiences that reveal his unconscious mind. Influenced by Freud, Breton rejects psychoanalysis because it seeks to interpret unconscious mental content and therefore neutralize the spontaneous emotional content. In “Nadja,” a surrealist novel published in Paris in 1928, the narrator walks the Parisian streets at random seeking unexpected cues to positive unconscious processes, not focusing on negative aspects as do psychoanalysts. These processes are idiosyncratic and the only events that distinguish and validate the person. They are repressed and must be sought actively.
The narrator by chance meets an eccentric woman who seems to be connected more than most people to the unconscious, artistic mind. He takes advantage of Nadja, observing and encouraging her mental exploration in order to understand his own mind. The narrator takes advantage of the reader in the same way, exposing hidden mental structures. Breton thanks the reader directly for allowing him to write the insightful novel, since I could not be done without the reader’s complicity.
“Nadja,” Russian for the very fleeting beginning of hope, is considered the seminal novel of the relatively brief surrealist literature period in the first half of the 20th Century. Black and white photographs illustrate the cues Breton describes that open the unconscious minds of Nadja and the reader. Reading Breton’s novel is a very interesting experience.
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LibraryThing member aaronbaron
Surrealism is such as exciting idea, but its execution, much like my nightly dreams, tends to disappoint. Breton, in particular, has an annoying tendency to proselytize, using the wildest imagery that money can buy in order to inform you, without any doubt whatsoever, what life is all about. Nadja
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is better than most card-carrying surrealist works, as it is, at heart, a love story, and a true one to boot, that continually threatens to escape Breton’s domineering grip. He presents Nadja as an almost supernatural muse, but in fact she was a real women, flesh and blood, who may have invoked flesh and blood feelings that not even the Czar of Surrealism himself could translate neatly into art. Show Less
LibraryThing member JimElkins
I will write at length on the relation between images and text on a separate website (writingwithimages.com).
For this review I only want to note an amazing obtuseness in this book. I suppose it could make sense to call this a psychoanalytic masterpiece, because of the time and place it was
"I go out at three with my wife and a friend; in the taxi we continue discussing Nadja, as we have been doing during lunch." (p. 91)
This is the first we've been told the narrator has mentioned Nadja to his wife, and Breton doesn't seem to be aware that readers might expect him to put some inflection on this revelation -- either that it was normal in their marriage, or that they had been arguing. A moment later he spots her:
"I run, completely at random, in one of the three directions she may have taken."
Again, no mention of what his wife thinks of this behavior. And at the bottom of the same page:
"This is the second consecutive day I have met her: it is apparent that she is at my mercy."
With no notation about how we're meant to understand that.
When Nadja is committed to an asylum, Breton writes several pages exonerating himself for any responsibility (p. 136), hoping that Nadja doesn't think there's a difference between life outside and inside the asylum, and excoriating the psychiatric community; he then uses that as an excuse for never visiting her!
"My general contempt for psychiatry, its rituals and its works, is reason enough for my not yet having dared investigate what has become of Nadja." (p. 141)
It doesn't seem to occur to him this might seem pusillanimous, or that his intellectual and abstract critique of psychiatry may appear either entirely heartless, or -- worse, from his point of view -- as a construction that can help release him from his love for her. (After all, if madness and sanity interpenetrate, as he insists, why not continue to love Nadja?)
As an exposition of Breton's Surrealism, as an experiment with images, as an instance of psychoanalysis, dream analysis, and mysticism in 1928, it's wonderful. As a novel, anti-novel, or any sort of reflective narrative, it's appalling -- or at the very least, impenetrably obtuse.
For this review I only want to note an amazing obtuseness in this book. I suppose it could make sense to call this a psychoanalytic masterpiece, because of the time and place it was
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written, as part of the Surrealist project, and as evidence of Breton's reading of Freud. But psychologically, it is a horror show. In the book Breton is married; he starts seeing Nadja, and it never occurs to him -- as a narrator, for for sake of writing, or fiction -- to say anything about how he feels about his wife, or vice versa. At one point he writes:"I go out at three with my wife and a friend; in the taxi we continue discussing Nadja, as we have been doing during lunch." (p. 91)
This is the first we've been told the narrator has mentioned Nadja to his wife, and Breton doesn't seem to be aware that readers might expect him to put some inflection on this revelation -- either that it was normal in their marriage, or that they had been arguing. A moment later he spots her:
"I run, completely at random, in one of the three directions she may have taken."
Again, no mention of what his wife thinks of this behavior. And at the bottom of the same page:
"This is the second consecutive day I have met her: it is apparent that she is at my mercy."
With no notation about how we're meant to understand that.
When Nadja is committed to an asylum, Breton writes several pages exonerating himself for any responsibility (p. 136), hoping that Nadja doesn't think there's a difference between life outside and inside the asylum, and excoriating the psychiatric community; he then uses that as an excuse for never visiting her!
"My general contempt for psychiatry, its rituals and its works, is reason enough for my not yet having dared investigate what has become of Nadja." (p. 141)
It doesn't seem to occur to him this might seem pusillanimous, or that his intellectual and abstract critique of psychiatry may appear either entirely heartless, or -- worse, from his point of view -- as a construction that can help release him from his love for her. (After all, if madness and sanity interpenetrate, as he insists, why not continue to love Nadja?)
As an exposition of Breton's Surrealism, as an experiment with images, as an instance of psychoanalysis, dream analysis, and mysticism in 1928, it's wonderful. As a novel, anti-novel, or any sort of reflective narrative, it's appalling -- or at the very least, impenetrably obtuse.
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LibraryThing member the.ken.petersen
Having read the blurb, and then done a little internet checking, I was determined NOT to like this book. It seems that this is a merge of truth and fiction and that Breton did not treat the lady involved in this love story well: not to mention his wife, whom he kept updated upon the affair!
My ire
The book is 160 pages long but, when blank pages and a host of, disappointingly dark, photographs are removed, the text is little more than an hour's reading - even at my pedestrian pace. I would suggest that, if you have a full understanding of this tale, then Surrealism will be a piece of cake but, of course, if you think that you understand surrealism, you are, almost certainly, wrong!
I am sorry to all the ladies who, probably correctly, feel that I should be harder upon this book: I simply suggest that you read it and see if the literary style does not mitigate the social faux pas.
My ire
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dissipated, however, when faced with such beautiful prose. I reasoned that all parties are now safe from the pain of the story and that Breton himself will get no kudos from a good review (notice the supreme egotism there? Even were Breton to still be alive, the prospect of him eagerly awaiting Ken Petersen's opinion of his opus is too absurd for contemplation). The book is 160 pages long but, when blank pages and a host of, disappointingly dark, photographs are removed, the text is little more than an hour's reading - even at my pedestrian pace. I would suggest that, if you have a full understanding of this tale, then Surrealism will be a piece of cake but, of course, if you think that you understand surrealism, you are, almost certainly, wrong!
I am sorry to all the ladies who, probably correctly, feel that I should be harder upon this book: I simply suggest that you read it and see if the literary style does not mitigate the social faux pas.
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LibraryThing member sushicat
Somewhere inside this rambling recounting is an encounter between the author and a woman whose spirit is free to the point of being labeled crazy. There are some interesting musings in there, but overall it is just plain confusing.
LibraryThing member jonfaith
Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.
I found this artful. It worked on a cloudy Friday, a holiday from work. Shorn of ambition and venturing out for a pint (or two) of Czech pilsner. A man of letters encounters a beguiling woman. Something like synchronicity develops, though with blurred
This brief novel reaches out to other works, other authors. There are plenty of photographs and drawings from the mysterious Nadja. The capricious perforations denote the surrealist logic. Nadja is a lodestar in milieu where the masses froth and scream for prophets and assassins.
I found this artful. It worked on a cloudy Friday, a holiday from work. Shorn of ambition and venturing out for a pint (or two) of Czech pilsner. A man of letters encounters a beguiling woman. Something like synchronicity develops, though with blurred
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edges that suggest a chemical imbalance. This brief novel reaches out to other works, other authors. There are plenty of photographs and drawings from the mysterious Nadja. The capricious perforations denote the surrealist logic. Nadja is a lodestar in milieu where the masses froth and scream for prophets and assassins.
Show Less
Awards
Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1928
Physical description
189 p.; 4.2 inches
ISBN
2070360733 / 9782070360734