Nadja (novel)
Encyclopedia
One of the iconic works of the French
surrealist
movement, Nadja is the second novel published by André Breton
, in 1928. It starts with the question "Who am I?"
It is based on Breton's interactions with an actual young woman (Nadja) over the course of 10 days, and is taken to be a semi-autobiographical description of his relationship with a mad patient of Pierre Janet
. The book's non-linear structure is grounded in reality by references to other Paris surrealists such as Louis Aragon
, and by 44 photographs.
The last line of the book ("beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all") provided the title for Pierre Boulez
's flute concerto ...explosante-fixe...".
In the remaining quarter of the text, he distances himself from her corporeal form and descends into a meandering rumination on her absence, such that one wonders if it is more her absence that inspires him than her presence. (It is, after all, the reification and materialization of her as an ordinary person that he ultimately despises and cannot tolerate to the point of inducing tears.) There is something about the closeness once held between the narrator and Nadja that indicated a depth beyond the limits of conscious rationality, waking logic, and sane operations of the everyday—there is something essentially “mysterious, improbable, unique, bewildering” about her, reinforcing the notion that the propinquity serves only to remind him of her impenetrability and her eventual recession into absence is the fundamental concern of this text, such that she may live freely in his conscious and unconscious, seemingly unbridled, maintaining the paradoxical role as both present and absent. With her past instated onto his own memory and consciousness, the narrator feels awakened to an impenetrability of reality, seeing a particularly ghostly residue peeking from under its thin veil. Thus, he might better put into practice his theory of Surrealism, predicated on the dreaminess of the experience of reality within reality itself.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
movement, Nadja is the second novel published by André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, in 1928. It starts with the question "Who am I?"
It is based on Breton's interactions with an actual young woman (Nadja) over the course of 10 days, and is taken to be a semi-autobiographical description of his relationship with a mad patient of Pierre Janet
Pierre Janet
Pierre Marie Félix Janet was a pioneering French psychologist, philosopher and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory....
. The book's non-linear structure is grounded in reality by references to other Paris surrealists such as Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon , was a French poet, novelist and editor, a long-time member of the Communist Party and a member of the Académie Goncourt.- Early life :...
, and by 44 photographs.
The last line of the book ("beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all") provided the title for Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
's flute concerto ...explosante-fixe...".
Summary
The narrator, named André, ruminates on a number of Surrealist principles and ideologies, before ultimately commencing (around a third of the way through the novel) on a narrative account, generally linear, of his brief (10-day) affair with the titular character Nadja (whose is named so “because in Russian it’s the beginning of the word hope, and because it’s only the beginning,” but which might also evoke the Spanish ‘Nadie,’ which means ‘No one’). The narrator becomes obsessed with this woman with whom he, upon a chance encounter while walking through the street, strikes up conversation immediately. He becomes reliant on daily rendezvous, occasionally culminating in romance (a kiss here and there). His true fascination with her, however, is her vision of the world, which is often provoked through a discussion of the work of a number of Surrealist artists, including himself. Her understanding of existence subverts the rigidly authoritarian quotidian (and it is later discovered that she is mad and belongs in a sanitarium). After she begins narrating to the narrator over an account filled with too many details over her past life, she in a sense becomes demystified, and the narrator realizes that he cannot continue the relationship.In the remaining quarter of the text, he distances himself from her corporeal form and descends into a meandering rumination on her absence, such that one wonders if it is more her absence that inspires him than her presence. (It is, after all, the reification and materialization of her as an ordinary person that he ultimately despises and cannot tolerate to the point of inducing tears.) There is something about the closeness once held between the narrator and Nadja that indicated a depth beyond the limits of conscious rationality, waking logic, and sane operations of the everyday—there is something essentially “mysterious, improbable, unique, bewildering” about her, reinforcing the notion that the propinquity serves only to remind him of her impenetrability and her eventual recession into absence is the fundamental concern of this text, such that she may live freely in his conscious and unconscious, seemingly unbridled, maintaining the paradoxical role as both present and absent. With her past instated onto his own memory and consciousness, the narrator feels awakened to an impenetrability of reality, seeing a particularly ghostly residue peeking from under its thin veil. Thus, he might better put into practice his theory of Surrealism, predicated on the dreaminess of the experience of reality within reality itself.
Quotations
- "Don't I love her? When I am near her I am nearer things which are near her."
- "Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all."
- "He cannot enter, he does not enter."
- "I am obliged to reply that I know nothing about it, that in such matters the right to bear witness seems to me to be all that is granted."
- "You could never see this star as I do. You don't understand: It's like the heart of a heartless flower."
See also
- Le Mondes 100 Books of the CenturyLe Monde's 100 Books of the CenturyThe 100 Books of the Century is a grading of the books considered as the hundred best of the 20th century, drawn up in the spring of 1999 through a poll conducted by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde....