Week Three: A Surrealist Renaissance in Louis Aragon’s “Paris Peasant”
by samuel wallace
Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant, at first glance, presents a deceiving title. On the surface it rings true: the main character is a middle class Parisian, a wanderer who is afforded the luxury to observe social institutions, characters and machinations, rarely without comment. Yet when peeling back the many layered onion that is the surrealist novel, I am left with the question of why the title is not in the plural form, “Paris Peasants,” for upon closer observation I see the work as not so much an expression of the plight of the individual against mass society, but rather the shared struggle of Parisians who all experience, paradoxically, that which can be described as a collectivised struggle brought on by economic and social boundaries.
To begin, we must examine surrealism. As a movement it began in the early 1920s, focusing on an awakening of the unconscious through unlikely images. (In this sense, their effect is not unlike the metaphysical conceits of the Romantic poets). Its effects bled into art and literature, creating a genre divorced from any known convention. This explains the main character’s observations—as well as his general connection and telepathy—towards each character of Paris. With every visit, an aura of haunting pervades his patronage of every locale. At times, the descriptions veer into stream of consciousness, before drifting off into nothingness. Evidenced by this unique approach is a focus on constructing the setting through characters in a collective, rather than the individual man or woman present forging their own path. Also revealed through the paradox—that being a lack of plot despite such dense prose—is a tale which appears to cover everything from mythology to philosophy, nonsensical or otherwise.
The latter messaging comes in the hidden messages readers can discern. Beginning on page 25 and continuing for some time, a series of posters describes the financial hardships faced by characters across Paris; on page 48, pessimism is described as the “[s]ense of the useless” by the narrator. These two events appear to connect as an appeal to all Parisians to question their surroundings and to rise up against the normalcy which binds them. There is an anarchistic zeal to rival 1789, only it is not political in this century; whether in reaction to economic or social norms, there is a creative renaissance which is employed through surrealism, spearheaded by the common citizen. It is just as well the revolutions do not see their fruition. They are simply a plea, a suggestion on the part of the peasant, for in the eyes of the surrealists, even the lowest in the society of Paris have a say in governance.
OK, but peasants aren’t middle class… and Aragon would be upset to be called so, too. (Especially if you used the French word: bourgeois!)
But the rest of what you have to say is certainly interesting, as it raises the question of the politics of the book, and perhaps the avant-garde more generally. To what extent does Aragon feel himself in solidarity with the people at the margins that he sees and describes? I sometimes think that he sees the artist as special, distinct, different from all around…
Thank you for the comment!
I suppose my reluctance to use the label was fear of the word “peasant” stemming from a bad translation, or an ironic usage. I’m glad to see the main character is in fact impoverished, for it only feeds into the anarchistic undertone of the whole novel.
As for your other point, the artist is a special kind of monkey. There is a reason why the main character drifts from place to place alone, rarely leaving his own head…
I liked this pluralistic approach to the novel. I find that the struggle that many of the Parisians faced in the story, and something that our narrator is keen (if unconsciously so) on preserving is the mythology of the modern day as it’s slowly being eroded by ‘progress’. In a way, it is this very progress that is washing away the life that they know and in many cases ruining the lives of those whose businesses thrive in the arcade. Framing surrealism as a deeply modernist artistic revolt against destructive expansionism is a deeply fascinating angle to look at it through