Transformation

TRANSFORMATION

Andre Breton: Manifestos of Surrealism (1924, 1929); Nadja (1928)

Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis (1915)

Manifestos of Surrealism (1924, 1929); Nadja (1928)

"It is living and ceasing to live which are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere."

(Breton)

"To me it seems one of the rarest distinctions that a man can accord to himself if he takes one of my books into his hands..."

(Nietzsche) [But I’m sure Breton would have said the same thing].

Surrealism

It always seemed to me that the Surrealist movement, like its art, can be loosely interpreted based on the observer’s perspective. I don’t think that description of Surrealism is far off the mark. One of its goals is to express the unconscious activity of the mind and this is sometimes done in art by juxtaposing very different images or ideas, thus shocking the mind into thinking beyond its banal and routine ways. The idea is to unhinge the mind so as to open doors into the subconscious. New artistic techniques were developed during this time to unleash the unconscious, a surge of artistic Freudism so to speak. “Frottage” (in art) and other “automatic” techniques (like automatic writing) were very much on the cutting edge of the movement at this time.

The whole concept of human nature became destabilized after the First World War and Surrealism was a reaction to the Enlightenment and the Science that were, in the view of the movement, a buildup to the Great War.

This destabilization of categories and the collapse of ideas onto themselves is made visual in Surrealist Art. Most Surrealist images are surreal, believe it or not, and often to the point of being grotesque.

For example, I’ve noticed that the landscapes of the Surrealist painters (dreamscapes, they may be called) seem to be unnatural, as if such landscapes could have been caused only by Man, the implication being that Man has perverted Nature, despite the Logic and Rationality that he has held to be divine for so long.

(MOS) p.9 “We are still living under the reign of logic: this, of course, is what I have been driving at. But in this day and age logical methods are applicable only to solving problems of secondary interest.”

Similar to the division and modern imbalance between the Dionysian and the Apollonian, there is an asymmetry with respect to dreams and consciousness.

p.11 “I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams. … Thus the dream finds itself reduced to a mere parenthesis, as is the night. And, like the night, dreams generally contribute little to furthering our understanding.”

The juxtaposition of ideas in the art and literature of surrealists may seem far “out there”, but this can be likened to haiku poetry which brings together two very different ideas in a context that makes sense.

p.36 “surrealist images come to him despotically… it does not seem possible to bring together voluntarily what he calls “two distant realities”. The position is made or not made, and that is the long and short of it… I refuse to believe that [examples given] reveal the slightest degree of premeditation…”

Not only does the art tap into the subconscious and stimulate the imagination, but it authenticates individuals by reminding them of a time when they were free from stifling mores of society, not to mention a time of innocence.

p.39 “The mind which plunges into Surrealism relives with glowing excitement the best part of its childhood…To relive those best moments [of childhood] is to experiment once again with the ability to detach oneself from the world as we know it and to find in oneself the freedom to place that given world at a distance Genuine thought goes beyond the limits of a narrow "reality," and that is also why, once its wealth has been rediscovered, there is a risk that it will no longer consent to be mutilated.”

Surrealists tried to meld opposing states, like the conscious and the unconscious, so as to (to use the hackneyed phrase from Jerry Maguire) “complete” humanity.

p.14 “I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.”

p.123 “Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, the high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions. …one will never find any other motivating force in the activities of the Surrealists than the hope of finding and fixing this point.”

p.136 “Let us not lose sight of the fact that the idea of Surrealism aims quite simply at the total recovery of our psychic force by a means which is nothing other than the dizzying descent into ourselves, the systematic illumination of hidden places and the progressive darkening of other places, the perpetual excursion into the midst of forbidden territory…”

Nadja

The works Breton - especially the Manifestos - are great examples of the importance of editing one’s work. Breton might have said that he was tapping into his unconscious and writing through some stream-of-thought stream although he later admitted that there was more thought put into his work than just automatic writing… I questioned Breton from the very beginning of his first Manifesto when he dismisses Crime and Punishment…

p.7 “And the descriptions! There is nothing to which their vacuity can be compared; they are nothing but so many superimposed images taken from some stock catalogue…”

I think Dostoevsky wins the test of time. At least I don’t think Nadja has made it to Oprah’s book club.

When I finally received my second-hand copy of Nadja in the mail, I was rather pissed off to see all the pen markings within it. However, these marks highlighted and annotated important parts allowing me to bypass and cut through Breton’s conceited drivel.

More than a couple of times my inner thoughts spoke directly to Andre and they said, “Get over yourself!”, “Oh, look at you, what a bad boy; you’re such a rebel!”

p.60 “There is no use being alive if one must work.”

p.152/153 “…tried to cover my eyes with her hands in the oblivion of an interminable kiss, desiring to extinguish us, doubtless forever, so that we should collide at full speed with the splendid trees along the road. What a test of life indeed! Unnecessary to add that I did not yield to this desire … I feel less and less capable of resisting such a temptation in every case. I can do no less than offer thanks in this last recollection, to the woman who has made me understand its virtual necessity. In imagination, at least, I often find myself, eyes blindfolded, back at the wheel of that wild car. …as regards love, the only question that exists for me is to resume under all the requisite conditions, that nocturnal ride.” (Whatever.)

p.64 “I took a better look at her. What was so extraordinary about what was happening in those eyes? What was it they reflected - some obscure distress and at the same time some luminous pride? And also the riddle set by the beginning of a confession which, without asking me anything further, with a confidence which could (or which could not?) be misplaced, she made me…” (Enough already)

Much of Breton’s expressed defiance toward authority resembles mere adolescent angst. This is lost on him, though, and he goes so far as to claim a haughty superiority over the rest of society.

p.68 of the common, “unenlightened” people, I suppose: “Naturally they are thinking about what they have left behind until tomorrow, only until tomorrow, and also of what is waiting for them this evening, which either relaxes or else makes them still more anxious.”

What is most annoying is that he rambles on even when he claims that he won’t or that he shouldn’t:

p.50 “I had unusual difficulty shaking off a rather squalid dream which I feel no need to transcribe here…” and yet he does. (His initial reaction was right).

“Life is other than what one writes” … and yet is this not exactly what Breton is doing in Nadja?

p.135 “I virtually fled her presence hoping to find her.” The paradox and complexity of this love story (please make it end)

p.23 “I shall discuss these things without pre-established order, and according to the moment which lets whatever survives survive.”

OK, so now this is close to a definition of Surrealism and as a result of the style’s attempt to cause a convergence of worlds - the conscious with the subconscious, for example - and a unity of all existence, dualities are sometimes seen as fused.

p.136 “I do not suppose there can be much difference for Nadja between the inside of a sanitarium and the outside. There must unfortunately be a difference all the same… on account of the wretched view of the garden, the cheek of the people who question you when you want to be left alone…”

p.142 “…everything leads me to believe that she would have recovered from her wretched state. But Nadja was poor, which in our time is enough to condemn her once she decided not to behave entirely according to the imbecile code of good sense and good manners. She was also alone…”

Kafka: Metamorphosis

The Surrealist society (aside from Breton, the tyrant) might have welcomed Kafka as an adherent and supporter. Although Franz’s world was very small, he always conformed to what society at large - and particularly his own family - asked of him.

His family’s demands were turning Gregor (aka Franz Kafka) into someone, something else (although it might be argued that he always lived his life as a bug. Indeed, is it not his own fault that he is crushed by his bullying father? He’s (literally) spineless.)

Work, modern world - sometimes family, in this case - dehumanizes people, making it very easy to kill them. The German word that Kafka uses to describes what he’s changed into (not a “bug” or a “cockroach”) is similar to “vermin”, but apparently can also be translated as useless, even as a sacrifice (or something to that effect). How the German’s know how to make words. From what little I know about language, my guess is that German is the ideal Surrealist language; it’s a kind of “Lego-language” where very different words can be brought together to (maybe?) set two contrasting images side by side to create a colourful effect.

The fantastic stories of childhood which had us believing in different dimensions were real to us. Gregor awakes from “troubled dreams”. This echoes Atwood’s idea of “unhinged” moments in Payback. Was it during the night that a door between worlds was opened to Gregor, at which point he was transformed into a bug? Was there some alternate reality that he tapped into? Enchantment and the charms of childhood are elicited in this idea and result from this “unhinged moment” making this a surrealist text. (Maybe). What is more, Gregor represents everything that the Surrealists loathed: He is unimaginative, limp-wristed and sycophantic… such people were not part of “Breton’s revolution”).

Why did Kafka chose an apple as the cause of Gregor’s final festering wound? That’s a good question. Please leave comments. (Actually, don’t: I’ve heard from a number of people that they’ve tried to leave comments before but their posts never made it onto the blog page.)