Student Blogs

 While reading Paris Peasant, I was constantly trying to make sense of what was really going on. Prior to starting the novel, I thought that my ability to speak french and the title being “paris peasant” would provide me a leg up, but that was not the case. Although I am not sure of the original language this text was written in, it did not feel french. But, that may also be due to the advanced vocabulary… There is mention in this week's video that the incomplete thoughts create suspension, however for me, it only created frustration.  

At some points, small trains of thought would progress from the narrator and I would begin to think I ‘sorta’ understand what's going on…. Then flip to the next page and I would feel completely lost again, but I think that was the point.

As a psychology major where my textbooks consist of clear topics which flow nicely from page to  page, this style of writing is totally new and challenging for me. It is frustrating when reading to feel the need to understand what is happening before moving along, however that is something I'm trying to move away from as that doesn't seem to be very useful for these texts. 

While reading the first 30 pages, I had made a note that I feel as though the author is lonely in his life. He seems to always have a lot going on around him yet the background seems quiet, and his thoughts seem so loud that they overtake everything else. I enjoyed it when he said “Everything distracts me indefinitely, except for my distraction itself”. I think this signifies that at the end of the day, the world around him distracts him minimally, in comparison to his thoughts that seem to never stop.

Something else that stood out to me was that I felt the narrator was very opinionated, especially when it comes to women. Although I am aware that these are his own thoughts and not necessarily something he is saying out loud and to others, it seems as though he judges women off their bodies and their whereabouts a fair amount. 

My question to the class is if anyone feels that they can relate to having this magnitude of thoughts throughout the day similar to the narrator…always thinking critically of the world around them, and taking everything not just simply how it is, but thinking deeper of its meaning and significance. Personally, this is something I do not relate to whatsoever. I feel as though my thoughts are minimal and I tend to just go with the flow. 

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After finishing the Reading of Paris Peasant, I just realized how a novel can present beautiful. Aragorn emotionally and intellectually distinguishes a perfect world from the terrible early twentieth-century period. As the contemporary capital of Paris, its inherent enchantment always draws the attention of outsiders, and fantastic things are always happening here. When a countryman … Continue reading Meet the guy in “Paris Peasant” → read full post >>

Before I talk about the book itself, I have to describe how incredibly difficult it was to find a physical copy of it. I preemptively started looking for a copy two weeks ago. I started by looking at the Indigo locations in Vancouver and Burnaby because I work at a location in the city and […] read full post >>

Hello everyone! In this week’s post, I’m going to be reflecting on my reading of Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant. I’ve... read full post >>

For this week's readings, Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon, I found myself at the start a bit confused because I first approached this novel with an annalistic point of view. I caught myself trying to analyze every detail to discover more about the narrative, plot, back story etc. However, as I read more and watched the introduction video about the novel, I became aware of Argon's intention that it was a "kind of novel that would break all traditional rules governing fiction, one that would be neither a narrative nor a character study." So, I had to re-read the pages to take in the book in the way it was meant to.

The imagery and detail throughout this novel painted a clear picture of the different areas of Paris. This book captured his day-to-day doings. Personally, I am a very observant person myself, especially when walking around campus or anywhere else. I pay close attention to the environment and the people in it. I enjoyed being a part of the narrator’s thoughts and scenarios as he walked around about the architecture and the people he passed by. I found the passage about women very interesting. It explains women with great detail and resembles them as flashes of light. He explains, "after passing an infinity of these desirable shimmering, without having attempted to take possessions of a single one of these lives... I ask myself disgustedly what I'm doing in the world" (8). I picture the narrator being caught up in his unconscious mind. I thought that the change in the narrator’s environment and the increase of modernization was a cause of stress for him. Also, the fact that he is constantly thinking about the philosophy of his surroundings could be to compensate for his quiet behaviour and his anxiety around his changing community that is making him question his life choices.

This book is known for surrealism. I was not aware of surrealism until reading this book. I searched up surrealism because I wanted to understand the story more. Argon did a fantastic job projecting surrealism and allowing the narrative to focus and allow the unconscious mind to express itself. I enjoyed following him along throughout Paris and understanding his interpretations of the cafe menu, monuments, newspaper clipping, and the people of Paris. The narrator was so detailed it was like being in the thoughts of someone’s mind. My question for this reading is How do you think the narrator felt about the increase in modernization? Overall, this story was nothing close to what I have ever read and it gave me an open mind to surrealism.

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For this week's readings, Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon, I found myself at the start a bit confused because I first approached this novel with an annalistic point of view. I caught myself trying to analyze every detail to discover more about the narrative, plot, back story etc. However, as I read more and watched the introduction video about the novel, I became aware of Argon's intention that it was a "kind of novel that would break all traditional rules governing fiction, one that would be neither a narrative nor a character study." So, I had to re-read the pages to take in the book in the way it was meant to.

The imagery and detail throughout this novel painted a clear picture of the different areas of Paris. This book captured his day-to-day doings. Personally, I am a very observant person myself, especially when walking around campus or anywhere else. I pay close attention to the environment and the people in it. I enjoyed being a part of the narrator’s thoughts and scenarios as he walked around about the architecture and the people he passed by. I found the passage about women very interesting. It explains women with great detail and resembles them as flashes of light. He explains, "after passing an infinity of these desirable shimmering, without having attempted to take possessions of a single one of these lives... I ask myself disgustedly what I'm doing in the world" (8). I picture the narrator being caught up in his unconscious mind. I thought that the change in the narrator’s environment and the increase of modernization was a cause of stress for him. Also, the fact that he is constantly thinking about the philosophy of his surroundings could be to compensate for his quiet behaviour and his anxiety around his changing community that is making him question his life choices.

This book is known for surrealism. I was not aware of surrealism until reading this book. I searched up surrealism because I wanted to understand the story more. Argon did a fantastic job projecting surrealism and allowing the narrative to focus and allow the unconscious mind to express itself. I enjoyed following him along throughout Paris and understanding his interpretations of the cafe menu, monuments, newspaper clipping, and the people of Paris. The narrator was so detailed it was like being in the thoughts of someone’s mind. My question for this reading is How do you think the narrator felt about the increase in modernization? Overall, this story was nothing close to what I have ever read and it gave me an open mind to surrealism.

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    I’d like to start this off by first giving attention to the details. The amount of imagery put into this novel was incredible. The narrator painted an authentic picture of the Passage de l’Opéra and the Buttes-Chaumont. I have never read anything quite like this where I was so vividly transported into the scenes. It takes the reader and places them directly into the eyes and thoughts of the narrator. One thing that I found really added to the novel was the incorporation of different menus, signs, and newspaper clippings, the visual element gave more dimensions to the story that made the reader feel as if they were there too. As well as the visual elements I thought it was cool that Aragon incorporated a playlet on page 74 and a fable on page 68 to add new elements.

    The narrator is constantly analyzing their surroundings and putting intellectual reasoning behind everything he sees. So I found it amusing on page 101 when he says “I would have never thought of myself as an observer,” contradicting the whole novel. Not only did the detail transport us to the setting, but through the narrator's inner monologue we were given a chance to immerse ourselves into the setting and what it was like to walk through an arcade  at this time. I like the fact that the narrator was just wandering aimlessly around without purpose because you never get to see from that perspective. With nothing to do except walk around and observe, and the fact that it is the narrator's domain, everything feels more genuine. I think everyone is usually so busy and with purpose in both reality and in fiction and the author was able to give us an outlook that we do not usually see.

I found it hard to follow along with this text as it didn’t follow any of the traditional makings of a story. I found it confusing and I think reading it a few more times would help me make sense of it. I have no background knowledge on surrealism in literature, but I thought that Paris Peasant was a good place to start. This was a new point of view that I have never come across before. However, I also think a lot of the context went over my head. My Question for this post is: What did you think of this perspective? Did it give you insight and provoke thought or did you find it difficult to make sense of?

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    I’d like to start this off by first giving attention to the details. The amount of imagery put into this novel was incredible. The narrator painted an authentic picture of the Passage de l’Opéra and the Buttes-Chaumont. I have never read anything quite like this where I was so vividly transported into the scenes. It takes the reader and places them directly into the eyes and thoughts of the narrator. One thing that I found really added to the novel was the incorporation of different menus, signs, and newspaper clippings, the visual element gave more dimensions to the story that made the reader feel as if they were there too. As well as the visual elements I thought it was cool that Aragon incorporated a playlet on page 74 and a fable on page 68 to add new elements.

    The narrator is constantly analyzing their surroundings and putting intellectual reasoning behind everything he sees. So I found it amusing on page 101 when he says “I would have never thought of myself as an observer,” contradicting the whole novel. Not only did the detail transport us to the setting, but through the narrator's inner monologue we were given a chance to immerse ourselves into the setting and what it was like to walk through an arcade  at this time. I like the fact that the narrator was just wandering aimlessly around without purpose because you never get to see from that perspective. With nothing to do except walk around and observe, and the fact that it is the narrator's domain, everything feels more genuine. I think everyone is usually so busy and with purpose in both reality and in fiction and the author was able to give us an outlook that we do not usually see.

I found it hard to follow along with this text as it didn’t follow any of the traditional makings of a story. I found it confusing and I think reading it a few more times would help me make sense of it. I have no background knowledge on surrealism in literature, but I thought that Paris Peasant was a good place to start. This was a new point of view that I have never come across before. However, I also think a lot of the context went over my head. My Question for this post is: What did you think of this perspective? Did it give you insight and provoke thought or did you find it difficult to make sense of?

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From the degree of the angle to which a building is adjacent from another, to the palpable explanations of otherwise mundane objects, like a chair, Aragon’s words draw the reader in as imagination blends with description. I had never read a book quite like this before. With little plot, but extensive descriptions mixed with existential […] read full post >>

Paris Peasant was an incredibly unique literary experience that left me in a haze of contradicting emotions and thoughts. As was stated previously in the lecture Louis Aragon does this through putting aside traditional narrative convention altogether in favour of … Continue reading → read full post >>

Hello! I just finished reading Aragon’s Paris Peasant and here are some of my thoughts. I initially read the first 50 pages or so and enjoyed the prose, but it was often confusing and it felt like there was little structure, so I had trouble understanding it. Individual sentences seemed to make sense but I often […] read full post >>

Aragon’s “Paris Peasant” was a strange experience to read. The text describes venturing through the Passage de L’Opéra, which includes cafes, theatres, and small shops. The journey is rather imaginative due to its ambiguity. A consistent theme in this book is its surrealism. There are illogical scenes combined that make the text so unordinary. For […] read full post >>

 

I actually absolutely despised this book when I first started it. It was really difficult to get into for me and also the weird comments like him wishing to touch women with *atleast* his hands in the beginning (page 8) really threw me off. Anyway, thankfully after like 20 pages of reading mindlessly and absorbing absolutely no information I actually came to enjoy Paris Peasant. I’ve never read a surrealist novel before and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but in the end I found it very fun to read. While the confusing and nonsensical structure of the book bothered me at first once I realized I should view the book more as an artwork than a conventional story with a beginning, middle and end, it became really intriguing. I noticed that Dada/Dadaism was mentioned quite a few times (actually it may have not been that many but it really stood out to me anyway). Dada or Dadaism is an art movement that is mentioned pretty frequently in art courses due to its effect on the art world. The movement developed after/in reaction to WW1 and spanned many types of art including literature. I believe that Paris Peasant itself could be described as “dadaist” (is that an adjective?) but honestly I don’t understand the movement well enough to say for sure. In my opinion it fits the “anti-art” ideal that Dada came from. Paris Peasant is definitely not what I would expect from a novel, it is avant-garde and breaks away from traditional narration due to it’s surrealism. For me, the few mentions of Dada made the focus on change and modernization, or perhaps the attempt to deny it was happening, more clear to me.

On a different note. 

This may just be me but I found that the detailed descriptions that showed up constantly throughout the novel caused me to feel that sort of hazey, never quite woke up that day type of feeling. The days where you feel removed from all the situations you're in while still noticing every little detail. Because there wasn’t really a classic plot to follow, I didn’t have anything to grasp onto, no character to watch change and evolve, only specific places, objects, people. I had no choice but to continue reading and immerse myself into the dreamlike state I imagine the narrator was also feeling. Overall I found this novel a lot more fun to read than I originally expected but I am very curious if anyone actually managed to read this without getting incredibly lost at some point, especially when reading the first little section. 

That's all for now, same as last week I probably missed some incredibly obvious theme but alteast I enjoyed it haha. 


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I actually absolutely despised this book when I first started it. It was really difficult to get into for me and also the weird comments like him wishing to touch women with *atleast* his hands in the beginning (page 8) really threw me off. Anyway, thankfully after like 20 pages of reading mindlessly and absorbing absolutely no information I actually came to enjoy Paris Peasant. I’ve never read a surrealist novel before and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but in the end I found it very fun to read. While the confusing and nonsensical structure of the book bothered me at first once I realized I should view the book more as an artwork than a conventional story with a beginning, middle and end, it became really intriguing. I noticed that Dada/Dadaism was mentioned quite a few times (actually it may have not been that many but it really stood out to me anyway). Dada or Dadaism is an art movement that is mentioned pretty frequently in art courses due to its effect on the art world. The movement developed after/in reaction to WW1 and spanned many types of art including literature. I believe that Paris Peasant itself could be described as “dadaist” (is that an adjective?) but honestly I don’t understand the movement well enough to say for sure. In my opinion it fits the “anti-art” ideal that Dada came from. Paris Peasant is definitely not what I would expect from a novel, it is avant-garde and breaks away from traditional narration due to it’s surrealism. For me, the few mentions of Dada made the focus on change and modernization, or perhaps the attempt to deny it was happening, more clear to me.

On a different note. 

This may just be me but I found that the detailed descriptions that showed up constantly throughout the novel caused me to feel that sort of hazey, never quite woke up that day type of feeling. The days where you feel removed from all the situations you're in while still noticing every little detail. Because there wasn’t really a classic plot to follow, I didn’t have anything to grasp onto, no character to watch change and evolve, only specific places, objects, people. I had no choice but to continue reading and immerse myself into the dreamlike state I imagine the narrator was also feeling. Overall I found this novel a lot more fun to read than I originally expected but I am very curious if anyone actually managed to read this without getting incredibly lost at some point, especially when reading the first little section. 

That's all for now, same as last week I probably missed some incredibly obvious theme but alteast I enjoyed it haha. 


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I enjoyed the book immensely when it comes to Louis Aragon’s Paris Peasant, even though the text started as somewhat confusing for me. Though, what I found most interesting about the text was the plot, or rather the lack of plot in the story. Much of the novel tends to describe different locations in the city […] read full post >>