The Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon is a wonderful culmination of intricate surrealism and elaborate imagery. I found myself deep…
The first thing one discovers when reading this work is that it is not a traditional novel. It reads more like a travelogue or a meditation on the peculiar magic and mystery of place. The Passage de l’Opera seems to serve as a repository of memories, desires, fashions, etc. His meticulously detailed descriptions of cafes, […]
After reading the first couple of pages of Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant, I did not understand what I was reading at all. All the previous texts I have read are novels. My first initial thought is to try and highlight words to understand the reasoning behind the author and their story. With Paris Peasant, this got me nowhere, and after watching the lecture and searching some things up about this text, I realized that the way I was reading and analyzing the book was all wrong. Even though I still don’t fully understand it, Surrealism is a way of releasing our unconscious minds. Louis takes us on a journey of his small peasant town in pairs, describing the architecture, the types of people it draws and how we always have a perceived notion or underlying feeling about these places or things. One of the questions that Jon wanted us to think about was the notion of time in Aragon’s text. I feel like the sense of time is lost and moving so fast before anyone can realize it’s passing by. The way Louis jumps from building to building or random facts about how he loves blondes to talking about the importance of error without evidence makes me think this. One of my favourite parts was when he talked about baths and how “man” perceives that baths pertain to sensual pleasure instead of just a way to clean ourselves. I never thought of thinking in this way. Everything we see in reality has a feeling associated with it in our unconscious mind. After I realized this, I started to understand how this text was written. I’m not going to lie, some parts still confused me a lot, but I began to sit back and simply enjoy the words. I let my own mind take over and just absorb the beautiful details of scenery and how passionate Louis was about this little town. In the beginning, I remember him mentioning how they were trying to change the roads in his city to make it more open and that he was scared and wasn’t open to the idea of modernization. I agree with Louis; this small town holds the passages that its inhibitors walk on and venture down. It may seem like a dull reality above but hidden underneath are the dark, twisty unconscious minds that dare to dream of coming above the surface. Instead of being in the present moment with this book, I felt disconnected. I didn’t feel like Louis walking through the town, I felt as if I was watching Louis stroll through the town instead. I didn’t feel present in the story, like when I have those days where I feel so tired and disconnected in the world that I don’t feel like myself. I think that’s what Louis was trying to grasp, though, the difference between reality and dreaming. Surrealism.
This leaves me with one question,
Do authors have a certain way they want you to read their book? / how does this impact what the reader gets out of the text?
After reading the first couple of pages of Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant, I did not understand what I was reading at all. All the previous texts I have read are novels. My first initial thought is to try and highlight words to understand the reasoning behind the author and their story. With Paris Peasant, this got me nowhere, and after watching the lecture and searching some things up about this text, I realized that the way I was reading and analyzing the book was all wrong. Even though I still don’t fully understand it, Surrealism is a way of releasing our unconscious minds. Louis takes us on a journey of his small peasant town in pairs, describing the architecture, the types of people it draws and how we always have a perceived notion or underlying feeling about these places or things. One of the questions that Jon wanted us to think about was the notion of time in Aragon’s text. I feel like the sense of time is lost and moving so fast before anyone can realize it’s passing by. The way Louis jumps from building to building or random facts about how he loves blondes to talking about the importance of error without evidence makes me think this. One of my favourite parts was when he talked about baths and how “man” perceives that baths pertain to sensual pleasure instead of just a way to clean ourselves. I never thought of thinking in this way. Everything we see in reality has a feeling associated with it in our unconscious mind. After I realized this, I started to understand how this text was written. I’m not going to lie, some parts still confused me a lot, but I began to sit back and simply enjoy the words. I let my own mind take over and just absorb the beautiful details of scenery and how passionate Louis was about this little town. In the beginning, I remember him mentioning how they were trying to change the roads in his city to make it more open and that he was scared and wasn’t open to the idea of modernization. I agree with Louis; this small town holds the passages that its inhibitors walk on and venture down. It may seem like a dull reality above but hidden underneath are the dark, twisty unconscious minds that dare to dream of coming above the surface. Instead of being in the present moment with this book, I felt disconnected. I didn’t feel like Louis walking through the town, I felt as if I was watching Louis stroll through the town instead. I didn’t feel present in the story, like when I have those days where I feel so tired and disconnected in the world that I don’t feel like myself. I think that’s what Louis was trying to grasp, though, the difference between reality and dreaming. Surrealism.
This leaves me with one question,
Do authors have a certain way they want you to read their book? / how does this impact what the reader gets out of the text?
Initially, I was very lost on reading Paris Peasant. Often times, I tend to look too deep into a text to fully try to analyze what it is meant but it always leads me into overthinking the context. While reading Aragon’s “Paris Peasant”, I tried to keep an open mind, not letting myself get too […]
For many of us, reading brings out a visual representation, so when I read a book or a story, I am able to visualize it in my head, letting me teleport to whatever I am reading. While reading Michael Proust’s Combray, I had a strong sense of melancholy. The setting felt dim and quiet and […]
This week’s book, Paris Peasant, I did find to be quite enjoyable, slightly challenging to follow, but was also hard to put down. In the first parts of the text, I do have to admit I was not completely engaged, … Continue reading
Aragon’s novel gives an interesting insight into how French surrealist artists perceived the world in the 1920s. The unconventional narrative made me feel like I was reading about a confusing, nostalgic, and mesmerizing dream. However, the story is enriched by … Continue reading
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, […]
Aragon’s Paris Peasant For this week I decided to first see the lecture video before reading the book and when I heard that it was about surrealism I got excited as I know a few things about André Bréton although I have never read a book written by him. But most importantly I got excited […]
