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A review by reader_drinker
Down Below by Leonora Carrington
3.0
As a piece of literature in and of itself, I don't think this small book with relatively simple prose is particularly interesting; but given sufficient context of the author's life and how the events in this memoir impacted her, it does become an amusing little read. Thankfully for those like myself who were not already familiar with Leonara Carrington or her work as a maestra of surrealist art, this NYRB edition provides a 30+ page introduction, which is particularly lengthy given that the memoir itself is less than 70 pages.
In this memoir Carrington precisely and without self-pity describes her trip through insanity: which occurs after her partner, and fellow famous surrealist artist, Max Ernst is interned by the Germans during WW2. During this trip, where she finds herself in a Spanish sanatorium, Carrington experiences numerous delusions of grandeur and apophenia as she struggles amidst being the victim of sexual assault, unsanitary conditions, and the forced intake of epileptic drugs. The memoir contains themes that are common to surrealism: the disapproval of conforming to norms, and sanctification of the exploration of dreams and consciousness; with Carrington putting a resolute feminist touch on those themes. I'm not generally a fan of memoirs, and although I enjoyed this short work well enough, I think I'd probably enjoy her work of outright fiction more so.
In this memoir Carrington precisely and without self-pity describes her trip through insanity: which occurs after her partner, and fellow famous surrealist artist, Max Ernst is interned by the Germans during WW2. During this trip, where she finds herself in a Spanish sanatorium, Carrington experiences numerous delusions of grandeur and apophenia as she struggles amidst being the victim of sexual assault, unsanitary conditions, and the forced intake of epileptic drugs. The memoir contains themes that are common to surrealism: the disapproval of conforming to norms, and sanctification of the exploration of dreams and consciousness; with Carrington putting a resolute feminist touch on those themes. I'm not generally a fan of memoirs, and although I enjoyed this short work well enough, I think I'd probably enjoy her work of outright fiction more so.