Nadja

This was my second reading of Nadja. The first time, I read it looking for fiction inspired by cities. I expected, and found, a story about Paris. The narrator's mad desire for Nadja who is herself quite mad is punctuated by the thoroughly plain unpeopled photographs of the city. Breton's descriptions of the city's streets are luminous and they play off the fuzzy, gaussian blur of the pictures. What's the connection between these two worlds: the literary and the graphic? The connection is loose, suggestive, less than allegorical. Its tone was urban, urbane too but it would be hard to say just why these two realities were in the same novel. In fact, that loose connection defined for many people the idea of the surreal.On this second reading-maybe thirty years later-the madness predominates. The narrator's passion is there, raw and a trifle obscene (but fun). So is the narrator's wife who seems to exist in a moral vacuum away from Nadja and her lover. Nadja, of course, is still mad, but now her madness seems less adventuresome and creative and more forced and quite sad. The pictures too seem to point to a poverty of spirit. ( I realize that we are seeing the photographs in translation too: a translation to an offset printed page. Perhaps the originals have a different feel.)I think that perhaps the shock of the connection between crazed and creative has worn off a bit. We are also forced to remember that these ultra-cool surrealists presided over a scene that slipped quickly into nazism and concentration camps.Breton is still brilliant on the page, the suggested connections-the things left unsaid still beg us to fill them in. But we are older now and this story seems more sad than audacious-like the blueprint for a kind of world that just didn't work out.Lynn Hoffman, author of bang BANG: A Novel

‘Nadja’ (1928) is a key Surrealist novel by movement guru Andre Breton. I’d never read a Surrealist novel, and it was wonderfully different. ‘Nadja’ is the biographical story of Breton’s chance encounter and brief relationship with the titular bohemian woman and, at times, evokes an off-kilter ‘Annie Hall’. It’s also a delightful you-are-there snapshot of 1920’s Gay Paree, complete with members of the Parisian avant-garde flitting through. So what is Surrealist fiction like? It made me think of how - when putting a puzzle together - you can figure out what the picture is even when most of the pieces are missing. Similarly, Breton’s non-linear, all-over-the-place narrative is a river of unconnected vignettes, episodes, fragments, and philosophical musings which - in total - add up to the theme. He proves you don’t need plot, character development, or structure. That said, it's probably true 'Nadja' is a very accessible form of Surrealism, which makes it an excellent choice if you want to dip your toe in. (Grove Press edition)

I liked the entire novel. I think surrealism remains a wonderful and exciting way to perceive reality, language, form and content in writing. NADJA is more interesting than 75% of literature written today.

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 ghostly shadows, the artificial roles he plays as a social man. He seeks to surprise himself in his banal interactions with people by opening himself to experiences that reveal his unconscious mind. Breton was influenced by Freud's focus on the subconscious, but rejected psychoanalysis because it sought to interpret unconscious mental content and therefore neutralize 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 his hidden mental structures. Breton thanks the reader directly for allowing him to write the insightful novel, since it could not be done without the reader's complicity."Nadja," Russian for the very fleeting beginning of hope, is considered the seminal novel of a 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.

A short but compelling book by Surrealism's noted originator that is a part philosophical tract and part novel. Breton, though dealing with abstract concepts, presents nineteen twenties Paris as a magical world in which the author/third person narrator meets a younger woman named Nadja, an unruly waif of pale complexion who attaches herself to our main character, an older, married man, and then draws him into her surprisingly magical web. Surrealism is explored in detail and reveled as an individual dream motif not rooted in either a material or organic philosophical construct. As the novel further develops, Surrealism's ideas, rooted in 19th century Symbolist poetry and Expressionist painting, come into play as the character Nadja seems to slip from reality into illusion before eventually departing altogether from the author's life. Amidst Paris' narrow streets and gothic architecture, the reader comes under the spell of the post World War I Gay Paris life style, and gazes, however forlornly, at Nadja, who appears and then disappears as if an early spring flower pushing upward through rock..

Buena lectura

1. Content - 5/5In my opinion one of the best book ever written. The way Andre Breton narrated/written/presented the story was new to me(I cant comment on translation because i do not know french). Such a realistic book. Philosophy and reality in one bookEverything fades, Everything vanishes,Something must remain of us.2. Packaging - 5/53. Book Quality - 3/54. Quality of printing - 2/5 (for 699/- I paid such a terrible printing)

Parfait

Arrived before stated time. Not quite as surreal as I hoped but, hey, that's fish for you.

This book defies many literary rules. It's quite short, but even that is way too much text for the amount of story it conveys. The story on its own is nothing special, describing authors encounter with some eccentric woman with a Russian name Nadja. The first part of the book is tough to read thanks to too many cultural references that may have been relevant at the time the book was written. I have no idea why author had chosen to keep it in. I suspect this may have been a part of his diary at some point and later evolved into the novel, but who knows. The second part is the actual Nadja story and it's quite interesting to read, though it ends too abruptly. In conclusion, the author shares his views on psychiatry of the time and this part was the most interesting to me. Andre Breton served in neurological ward during WWI and his perspective is valuable on this subject.In conclusion, I think it's more interesting to think and talk about this book than to read it. Similar to dada and surrealist art, it may come off as somewhat lazy and superficial effort, but it's essential for anyone who's trying to expand their horizons to try and understand the motive behind it.