My first thought when I read the initial couple pages of Nadja was… this man sounds annoying. My lasting thought when I finished Nadja was… this man is still annoying. It’s probably a mix of my distaste for the writing style, and his narration itself. The writing and flow was disorienting and confusing to me, maybe because it was more of an auto-biography than anything. It just felt like we were viewing his uninteresting memories with wildly uninteresting commentary. The format of dialogues and conversations doesn’t make sense in my brain since I’m used to more strictly formatted novels. The way everything is jumbled into one paragraph is confusing for me, as someone who usually sees “one dialogue per paragraph”. For example, this paragraph threw me off:
We remain silent for awhile, then she suddenly addresses me using tu: “A game: say something. Close your eyes and say something. Anything, a number, a name. Like this (she closes her eyes): Two, two what? Two women. What do they look like? Wearing black. Where are they? In a park. . . . And then, what are they doing? Try it, it’s so easy, why don’t you want to play? You know, that’s how I talk to myself when I’m alone, I tell myself all kinds of stories. And not only silly stories: actually, I live this way altogether.” * I leave her at my door: “And what about me now? Where shall I go? But it’s so easv to return slowly toward the Rue Lafayette, the Rue du Faubourg Poissoniere—to begin by going back to thevery spot where we were.”
Like… I don’t really get it? I don’t think surrealistic writing is quite for me. But less about the stylistic features and more about the content! Breton comes off as an extremely pessimistic narrator who can’t find interest in anything, doesn’t even know who he is, so he spends the first half of the novel commenting on other people and happenings. Since Breton can’t even figure out who he is, I didn’t enjoy the read until he found something that sparked his interest. He was instantly taken with Nadja (also the namesake), and I also became annoyed because after his first encounter with her he started making tons of assumptions about her, like I could tell he was projecting a specific character onto her in order to make his life more interesting. As soon as Nadja broke the illusion and stepped outside what he wanted for her, Breton got the ick.
To be honest, I felt like there wasn’t even much in the novel about Nadja herself, but rather Breton’s commentary on her. She was a difficult character to understand in my opinion, and it seems like Breton didn’t understand her either, which seemed very convenient for his projections. In a way, I think Nadja fits into the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” archetype – an eccentric, whimsical girl who’s meant to drag the boring, confused male protagonist along, only to disappear in the end, serving as a plot point rather than a fleshed out character with her own ambitions. Perhaps Nadja was the first Manic Pixie Dream Girl? In any case, that just makes me dislike Breton more.
Question: did Nadja remind you of any common tropes seen in literature? Or do you agree with mine (not really sure if mine was accurate so some validation would always be appreciated)
5 replies on “Nadja: Pretentious Bland French Man x Manic Pixie Dream Girl”
“It just felt like we were viewing his uninteresting memories with wildly uninteresting commentary.” Perhaps. But even some of the texts we find most unpleasant can give us food for thought. We’ll see what happens in the class discussion!
I’ve seen a lot of others commenting on the surrealist element not being for them as well, and I think that might be a common feature of a good chunk of literature. I was reminded of this book I read last term for a different course called Open City, because both the narrators seem to be speaking from the inside of their minds without paying attention to how the audience might be perceiving things.
Hi Kimberly! I love the title of this blog, LOL. The title of my blog post is “Breton and Nadja: Two Peas in a Pod?” because they both seem eccentric, but in different ways: Nadja, struggling with an unnamed mental disorder; and Breton, eager to capture her essence and latch onto a personality much exciting than his own. I think Breton used Nadja to spice up his life, which is a common trope — something like a popular high school jock seeing the quiet, crazy girl. Made me think of the show “Normal People” a bit.
Hi Kimberly! I agree with you so much. I also did not love this book. You’ve conceptualized what I was struggling to put my finger on. He really was annoying haha. Perhaps my difficulty with understanding Nadja could be attributed to his descriptions of her as well.
I honestly agree with you about how frustrating Breton’s narration is. The way the dialogue is formatted really threw me off too, especially since it all blends together instead of following a clear structure. Your point about how little we actually learn about Nadja herself really stuck with me, it does feel like we’re mostly getting Breton’s projections rather than her reality.
I also think the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” comparison works in an interesting way here. Even if the term didn’t exist yet, Nadja definitely seems to function as a catalyst for Breton’s self-discovery rather than a fully developed character. Your post made me think more about how much of her “mystery” is created by Breton rather than by Nadja herself.