I didn’t expect to find Paris Peasant so interesting, but I really did enjoy reading it. Between the French setting and the persistent attention to detail, it sort of made me feel like I was revisiting Les Misérables – if Les Misérables had been narrated by some kind of immortal being with intense nostalgia and an unstable grip on reality. Then again, I suppose “reality” is one of the concepts that Paris Peasant aims to challenge: the narrator blends descriptions of the world around him with dreamlike musings and bits of history in order to bring out the sense of “superior reality” that we might not otherwise be able to reach.
In the lecture on surrealism, there is a quotation about “intellectual and aesthetic turmoil” – I think “turmoil” is an excellent name for the situation that is explored in Paris Peasant. On the one hand, we have the turmoil of a changing city: the arcade, the roads, the people – not what they once were, and not likely to return to their former state. At the same time, the narrator seems to be experiencing some inner turmoil: although he does physically exist in this changing world, he doesn’t give the impression of one whose mind is firmly anchored in the moment – he dwells on the past, he contemplates events to come, and what he sees of the present that isn’t strictly observational mainly involves the “ghosts” of those other times. Furthermore, as the narrator wanders through the city and observes and remembers, I think that the turmoil of surrealism becomes a tool for processing all of the chaos within and around him.
As I was reading, I became quite curious about the identity of the narrator. I tried to imagine what a “Paris peasant” would look like, and what I came up with was basically the “flâneur” – an average “someone” who can blend in as he walks the city. After a while, though, I got the sense that “peasant” may not be a completely accurate descriptor for the narrator – that maybe he sees himself as “the man of the crowd” because he can go unnoticed, rather than because he is truly an average sort of person. In fact, I was almost ready to go back to the “immortal being with intense nostalgia” idea. How do you picture the narrator? Do you think that the term “Paris peasant” can be applied to him?
Hello!
I think it’s really interesting that you bring up the narrator, because I did not really consciously think about his identity while reading. After reading your post though, you raise a good point, what is he really like? I think in my mind I had been imagining him as the author, Aragon, in a similar way that I had always thought the boy in ‘Combray’ was Proust himself. After reflecting, I think Aragon surely identifies in someway with a/the “Paris Peasant”, he clearly shares his position against the richer classes and the development they’re forcing on Paris, and his reaction to the changes in Paris show his identity as a member of Paris. I did have some doubt around him completely being a peasant though, as a man who seems very highly educated and seems to have a least a little money to spare, I wonder if we can truly call him a peasant even if he identifies himself as one?