When I first picked up this book and started reading, I literally had no idea what was going on. I kept sitting there waiting for something to happen, be it a plot, a conflict, or anything that would make me understand the storyline better. Instead, it felt like I had opened someone’s diary and was reading their private thoughts as they wandered around Paris with no plan and no clear destination in mind. I was so frustrated.
This book is the first one I’ve read in the surrealist genre. I thought Proust was hard to digest, but this one might have been worse. Nadja doesn’t behave like a normal novel. There is no traditional storyline, the writing jumps between conversations, observations, and reflections, and nothing is explained. The book is clearly not meant to be an easy read.
However, as I kept reading, it kinda made sense why it felt so difficult. Surrealism isn’t about clarity or logic; it’s about intuition, coincidence, and the unconscious. Breton writes about wandering the streets, random encounters, and moments that feel important even though he can’t explain why. I thought the confusion I was feeling was wrong. I genuinely thought I was the only one that was finding this novel really difficult to read, but the whole thing was an experience, and I think it was an experience Breton wanted us to have.
The woman, Nadja, also added to this feeling for me. She was so strange, emotional, unpredictable, and so so hard to understand. When I read a novel or consume any type of fictional media, I want to understand the characters and get in their heads to figure out why they do the things they do. But with Nadja, I never fully understood her. Breton didn’t give us enough information about her and I feel like he didn’t want to either. This disconnect between the reader and the character the book is named after made me feel uneasy.
When I neared the 3/4 mark of the book, I decided to stop trying to read it the traditional way and gave up on looking for a plot altogether. Instead, I started thinking about the way this book made me confused, uncomfortable, and even slightly detached. I think Nadja is not meant to be an easy or satisfying read. It is meant to resist structure and explanation and that’s why it’s such a good surrealist novel.
Anyway, Nadja was so much work. Too messy, annoying, and weird. Even though it sounds like I figured it out at the end, I am still very much confused and probably won’t pick up another surrealist book in the future. Sorry…
5 replies on “Nothing really happens in Nadja but maybe that’s the point?”
Hi Kavya! I felt the same way as you and the beginning of it felt similar to Proust where I had no idea what was going on. This is also my first and hopefully last surrealist book lol
Thanks Kavya for your blog post. Do you have a question for us? Don’t forget to include it in your next post!
You are far better than me if you managed to get it by the end because I am still confused. I think giving up on traditional reading and just existing within the words is the only way to go, otherwise you’ll just feel absolutely insane. I really hope I didn’t pick any more surrealist texts for the rest of the term… It’s really not my thing.
Hi Kavya,
I felt the exact same when I was first reading the book, I kept waiting for it to click but for the first third of the book I got mixed up and had to re-read a lot. However, I feel it was easier when Nadja entered the mix but it was still jumbled up with the timeline jumps. I have to agree with you and Ava, giving up the traditional approach is a good method to help read this book.
Hi Kavya, I also had absolutely no idea what was going on when the work first started. Surrealist concepts are so distant from what people are generally used to, it’s hard to apply standard practices when trying to read and understand it. For me, I’m not really sure if Nadja added to the sense of confusion – she definitely helped me understand his perspective more than I previously had.