Category Archives: Blogs

01/22/24

Nadja – A State of Delusion or of Reflection?

“I am the soul in Limbo” (71)

Considered one of the earliest surrealist romance books, Nadja is chock-full of wonder. Flipping through this short recollection of a haunting memory, every page tells a fragment of this mystery. Who was Nadja? And, was she truly real? 

Some quick research and Nadja is actually Léona Camille Ghislaine Delcourt. However, I will focus on Nadja within these pages. Nadja isn’t introduced until page 60, yet Breton finds himself entranced with her. Her surrealist way of living, as if she were living above us all. It reflects the quote at the top–Nadja is a mystery who believes herself to be living in a forgotten world (limbo). But this forgotten world is the normal one that does not exist in her daydreams. One may call her delusional, but in reality, she seems to be the most interesting woman Breton has ever seen. 

With the various pictures attached to these memories, it is almost as if Breton is trying to prove to himself that Nadja was real or show proof that she is haunting his mind. Nadja can be considered a state of mind, a cautionary tale of overindulgence. She feeds into Breton’s ego, existing as a complementary figure in his imagination. 

Does it truly matter if Nadja was real? She exists in many causes to reaffirm Breton. He is fading away, whether this be in his work or life. It exists in the tortured soul of many artists that many do not understand you. What if Nadja was a remedy for self-reflection? It’s tricky to determine the exact truth of this novel, but for me, it felt that Nadja existed to examine Breton’s disconnect from the world. 

Nadja’s fate is to be confined to a psychiatric institution, and Breton seems dull about this. Her carefree worldview could have been that of a delusion, one that Breton finds unnecessary to put her away. But her disappearance is what creates the longing to remember her. Whether or not she existed, Breton felt a deep connection that will forever be lost. The limits of surrealism in the real world are what Breton must come to imagine. Nadja’s once visionary surrealist mindset slowly descends into madness. When noticing the man on top of the train, Breton can begin to feed into her disillusions (or perhaps his own). However, he does not stay like this forever. Nadja must be taken away, and Breton will be alone (despite having a wife, but cast that aside for a moment). It is a devastating tale that many find themselves plagued in: a regular tale of star–crossed lovers. 

“Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all.” (160)

 

Discussion Question:

Nadja is a book that borders on fiction and non-fiction, its photographs reaffirm Breton’s memories but Nadja herself remains an enigma. However, she exists to teach Breton valuable lessons–acting as a sort of fable. Narratively, what do you think Nadja’s role in this book is? Was she simply a woman who he could connect with who wasn’t his wife? Or perhaps did she serve a purpose in the fundamental character of Breton?

 

One of my favourite surrealist paintings would be “Tête de Femme” (Head of Woman) by Pablo Picasso. Despite him being a prominent cubism painter, he did dabble in surrealism

 

01/14/24

A Reflection of Hazy Memories: “Combray” by Proust

“And in the same way, also, the thoughts of the dying are quite often turned toward the aspect of death that is real, painful, dark, visceral, toward the underside of death, which is in fact the side it presents to them and so harshly makes them feel, and which more closely resembles a crushing burden, a difficulty breathing, a need to drink, than what we call the idea of death” (84)

It is within the rouse of a dream that creates feelings of uncertainty. Your mind is foggy while your body is still adjusting to rest. In the first volume of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time comes Swann’s Way– a novel that encapsulates fleeting childhood memories in a reflective future. Readers are first introduced to the narrator through a hazy fit of reminiscence. This first section– “Combray”– feels like we are entering a dream. The time is non-linear and seems to jump around based on the memory proposed. The memories themselves feel as though they are locked up in his mind. He must swim through these scattered thoughts to recount his life or his own state of being. 

Structurally, the book seems complicated. There are passages of long sentences that are seemingly endless. But, it is within their continuous length that I found very profound. The wealth of these sentences was coupled with elaborate metaphors to dictate the fragmented memory of dreaming. Having an overarching series about searching for lost time is what introduces us to the narrator and his long-winded mind. The very essence of memories is entrapped by the curse of time; no one can live forever. It further seems that the narrator does not wish to live forever, or at least not in the sense we would think. The narrator wishes to reframe his life as it no longer follows a straight path in his mind.

The explorations of physical space, time, and subsequently of being, find themselves in “Combray.” The narrator endures this foggy moment of waking up that reflects his concerns about his identity. We can see this in a quote from the very beginning:

“A sleeping man holds in a circle around him the thread of the hours, the order of years and of worlds. He consults them instinctively upon awaking and in one second reads in them the point of the earth that he occupies, the time past until his arousal; but their ranks can be mingled or broken” (5)

In a sleepy daze, the narrator cannot fathom his identity and grasps his childhood. He cannot make sense of himself in his present life, but within the retellings of his childhood, he can at least fixate on those around him. In the fictional dreams in his head, he yearns to distinguish those ‘real’ in his past. In his childhood, his family was on a strict clock; for example, his mother came in to kiss him goodnight. But the shuffling of such routines had caused the boy to be filled with anxiety–he no longer could predict the predictable. It is with this final quote that I believe sums up the narrator’s mixed feelings:

“And once the novelist has put us in this state, in which his book will disturb us as might a dream but a dream more lucid than those we have while sleeping and whose memory will last longer, then see how he provokes in us within one hour all possible happinesses and all possible unhappinesses just a few of which we would spend years of our lives coming to know and the most intense of which would never be revealed to us because the slowness with which they occur prevents us from perceiving them (thus our heart changes, in life, and it is the worst pain; but we know it only through reading, through our imagination: in reality it changes, as certain phenomena of nature occur, slowly enough so that, even if we are able to observe successively each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change)” (87)

 

A Question for Discussion:

In “Combray” by Proust the linear structure of time is removed and replaced with an intricate premise of the narrator’s childhood. While it may be confusing, it does provide an interesting perspective on memories. Why do you think Proust decided to begin this novel with a hazy start to a dream? Is there a narrative point on the role of dreams in fleeting memories?

 

For fun, I attached a French painting “The Rocky Path in the Morvan” painted by Henri-Joesph Harpignies.