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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Unbelievably gorgeous book whose surface I barely scratched. I know I will return to this book 100 times and feel the same way each and every one. His writing style is absolutely perfect for the medium and outdoes all my attempts at matching its feel. Deeply excited for The Surrealist Manifesto next.
I finished the book a couple of days ago but I kept on forgetting to update. The second half of the book was as confusing as the first. What I can discern from what I read was that this guy meets Nadja on the street and finally starts talking to her. Then he starts meeting her more regularly. This girl is strange and says a lot of memorable things. But then the guy realizes that the girl is mentally unstable and is actually making stuff up, and the more he learns about the girls actual life the less he likes her. He stops seeing her, she gets institutionalized. He ruminates some more. The book ends
Je me souviens tres exactement que j'avais beaucoup aimé ce livre et qu'il m'avait beaucoup touché car on voit une narration externe à Nadja donc on peut voir l'inquiétude que sa condition peut declencher
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The first novel by the father of Surrealism encapsulates some of the worst parts of the movement, mainly, it's obsession with the 'femme enfant' (the Surrealist's precursor to the manic pixie dream girl).
In the novel, a married Breton (or the fictionalised version of him) starts what is essentially a love affair with a woman about 10 years his junior. He tells his wife that Nadja is falling in love with him, and tells the reader that he is not in love with Nadja, which doesn't stop him sleeping with her. He holds her childlike naivety (youth), and unusual way of thinking about the world (mental illness) as the surrealist ideal. He then essentially ghosts her until she is institutionalised, and refuses to visit her due to, get this, his disregard on principle for the psychiatric profession. This may be a line he's selling himself because he can't handle his guilt, but there is little pointing to that other than natural human generosity from the reader.
Of course this is fictionalised, and enhanced for dramatic effect, but it is also rooted in real events and a telling portrait of Breton's mind.
Nadja offers up all the problems present in the Surrealist movement, with little of the joy or beauty that come along with them. Parts of the treatise on art are interesting, but not as interesting or profound as they think they are. In fact, the whole book could be described as not or interesting or profound as it thinks it is - self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, and rambling in the worst way. Breton, here, will do anything but self-reflect.
In the novel, a married Breton (or the fictionalised version of him) starts what is essentially a love affair with a woman about 10 years his junior. He tells his wife that Nadja is falling in love with him, and tells the reader that he is not in love with Nadja, which doesn't stop him sleeping with her. He holds her childlike naivety (youth), and unusual way of thinking about the world (mental illness) as the surrealist ideal. He then essentially ghosts her until she is institutionalised, and refuses to visit her due to, get this, his disregard on principle for the psychiatric profession. This may be a line he's selling himself because he can't handle his guilt, but there is little pointing to that other than natural human generosity from the reader.
Of course this is fictionalised, and enhanced for dramatic effect, but it is also rooted in real events and a telling portrait of Breton's mind.
Nadja offers up all the problems present in the Surrealist movement, with little of the joy or beauty that come along with them. Parts of the treatise on art are interesting, but not as interesting or profound as they think they are. In fact, the whole book could be described as not or interesting or profound as it thinks it is - self-indulgent, self-congratulatory, and rambling in the worst way. Breton, here, will do anything but self-reflect.
It's one of those books you either love or hate. Nadja, without a doubt, is one of them. This hybrid text on the borders of autobiography, essay, and novel, embellished with photos, drawings, and literary references, is majestic and overwhelming. Breton does not seek to please. He shudders and disturbs. It propels its reader into the surrealist movement at the gates of madness. Who was Nadja? Elusive and indecipherable, Nadja seems to be the embodiment of surrealism. It seems so unreal that one would think it came from Breton's imagination. Yet Nadja was. But the real and eternal question is elsewhere. Who am I?
The last part is a magnificent plea against the deprivation of liberty and the fledgling psychiatric medicine at a time when entering a "specialized" hospital meant never leaving it again. Praise of madness, rejection of decency, and the right to be different. Gorgeous and timeless.
The last part is a magnificent plea against the deprivation of liberty and the fledgling psychiatric medicine at a time when entering a "specialized" hospital meant never leaving it again. Praise of madness, rejection of decency, and the right to be different. Gorgeous and timeless.
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes