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ac_church's review against another edition
1.0
I was tricked into buying a collection of Nevral's writing by Cocteau Twins - supposedly they named songs on their amazing album "Treasure" after some of Nevral's characters. I've only got through half of Aurelia and I don't know if I ever get down to read some other things.
"Aurelia" is mysticism and romanticism, understood as wrongly as possible - incoherent ramblings about myths from various cultures mixed together without a shadow of a doubt, half-witted ideas about paradise and immortality paraded like revelations, a character who loves a dead woman so tragicly, that the best he could to describe her or his feelings for her is to write "she" with a capital letter and in italics. Wow.
And about those dream sequences. Dear Gerard. You don't just write something like "and then I saw a thousand faces in a thousand rivers" or "some strange ugly beast rushed past me" to create a mystical, or dream-like, or spooky emotion. Nor do you constantly tell, that everything described in the story is utterly insane. Unfortunately it takes a little bit more of imagination to create books that are akin to dreams.
"Aurelia" is mysticism and romanticism, understood as wrongly as possible - incoherent ramblings about myths from various cultures mixed together without a shadow of a doubt, half-witted ideas about paradise and immortality paraded like revelations, a character who loves a dead woman so tragicly, that the best he could to describe her or his feelings for her is to write "she" with a capital letter and in italics. Wow.
And about those dream sequences. Dear Gerard. You don't just write something like "and then I saw a thousand faces in a thousand rivers" or "some strange ugly beast rushed past me" to create a mystical, or dream-like, or spooky emotion. Nor do you constantly tell, that everything described in the story is utterly insane. Unfortunately it takes a little bit more of imagination to create books that are akin to dreams.
taitmckenzie's review against another edition
4.0
The other major influence on the Surrealists, as well as on Proust and Joseph Cornell, Nerval manages to record the fantastic dreams and hallucinations that accompany his descent into madness. Before and after his madness he paints vivid scenes of childhood love, Parisian neighborhoods, and occult rituals.
quadruploni's review
3.0
Having repeatedly come across Nerval in The Open Work and other writings by Umberto Eco—at a time when I was very much under the influence of the Italian—I was really pleased to find this handsome Damon & Naomi–published collection assigned in a seminar on fantastic literature in, I believe, 1997, and I offered to present on and write about it immediately. But it all seems like a dream now, and I can't remember much about the book, and I'm not sure what I would think of it now. I do remember that Nerval was known to take a lobster for a walk in a park, employing a blue—it must have been a blue—ribbon as a lead.
islajohnson's review
4.0
This was an interesting book to say the the least. I read this book in order to read "on psychological and visionary art" and let's say both are worth the read, especially in companion. The narrative changes so drastically without anyearnign from the mind of a rational being to a man praying for a small amount of sanity, if he even remains able to do so. Once again, a very weird and interesting read.
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