The Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon is a wonderful culmination of intricate surrealism and elaborate imagery. I found myself deep in thought throughout this book and it felt as though I was a blind companion on a trip with Aragon.
Paris Peasant is described by the author to be the “mythology of the modern”, making many of us ponder what he means by that. The preface covers the meaning of it but I would like to share my initial impression of it first. When I think of mythology, a mental image of the Greek Gods shows up by default, but when breaking it down into just the word and what it means, I remember that it refers to stories. Stories that are so captivating that some may consider them to be true, but at the core of it, mythology is a collection of stories. “Mythology of the modern” which is alluding to modern mythology, refers to the popular stories and tales that are narrated in the media and pop culture today. I immediately get reminded of all the fiction stories that I have read in the past or watched renditions of. I formed the idea of modern mythology being the perception of seeing something as true to oneself, to an extent. After reaching that point, it is possible, or even in some cases definite, that the perception is not true and is actually very different from what is being perceived. An example of this type of myth is shown in the surrealistic sense which is there when Aragon described the beautiful siren whose distant beauty strikes a chord in him. The slow build-up to him being able to get a better view of the lady was so particularly executed that I myself was looking forward to find out who this woman was. Unfortunately, it was revealed that there was no woman and it was merely a specific angle through which the author had been looking into the cane shop where the canes resembled the figure of a lady. I was astonished by how many times the author was able to create this suspense only to provide anti-climatic reveals at the end. The descriptions though are certainly commendable as they take you through the process of how he processes what he sees. Like, when describing the color of the unusual dress worn by the saleswoman in the handkerchief shop, it took an entire paragraph for the author to finalize the exact shade which provided the readers, like me, a feeling of being included in the author’s journey through the streets of Paris.
Even when closing the book with the satisfaction of getting through all those elaborate surrealistic myths, I found myself sometimes thinking about the objects and places around me in a similar fashion. Here I go, defamiliarizing my water bottle to be called a liquid-holding cylinder that provides life-sustaining fluid!
What kind of impression has this book left on you?
Jennifer Nagtegaal
January 25, 2022 — 7:59 am
“It felt as though I was a blind companion on a trip with Aragon” – Intriguing! I wonder if you can elaborate further on this. There seems to be a paradox here, especially as you mention the “elaborate imagery” just prior to this.
Also, a reminder to include with each blog post a question that you pose to your peers (and one that we add to our list of possible in-class discussion topics)!
ASTHAKUMAR
January 25, 2022 — 10:33 pm
Vidhushi, I really admire your post for all the intricate details you pointed out in the text and your reactions to it. An instance I particularly liked in the book was when the narrator visits a restaurant and realizes in hindsight the friends he came with have become unimportant to him. It’s powerful how physical space can trap memories in their original form, but re-visiting them can make them malleable by your own mind!
-Astha
Coltrane Yan
January 25, 2022 — 11:24 pm
The book made me think a lot of some of my favourite authors, and I wrote about comparisons in their prose and what they are searching for in their writing. I really like how most blog posts refer to the objects and the places and their descriptions, and the effect they had on us as readers.
Dee
January 26, 2022 — 7:05 pm
Hi!
Personally, this book left me feeling the same way you often do when leaving a movie theatre. This was due to being a “blind companion” as you described it. Apart from that, it made me really think about how I consume literature (the small amount of it that I do) and how I can look at it the same way I do at other art forms.
Ashvi Ivan
January 26, 2022 — 11:04 pm
Hi, your blog post was very insightful! I completely agree with you with regard to the amount of effort put into the descriptions. The way the author described everything makes you perceive what may have appeared mundane in a new light. The narrator incorporates his free thought process into everything he observes till the point where everything appears special due to the narrator’s perception.
Lucas Ribeiro
January 29, 2022 — 1:43 pm
Hey Vidushi!
I loved your comparison of the myths of ancient Greece and Aragon’s interpretation of the ‘modern myth’. I especially like this comparison as, like what you pointed out, myths are collections of stories that developed through their cultural relevance to the people of the time. This coincides with much of the books theme of capturing the mythology of the everyday events in the arcade. In particular, the wandering nature of our narrator’s prose and the way he takes seemingly mundane events in the arcade and twists them into these fantastical pieces of poetry left a strong impression on me indeed.
– Lucas