Student Blogs

This was an interesting and enjoyable read for me. At first, I found it a bit difficult to get into, and was frustrated at my lack of knowledge of the geography of Paris which I felt would’ve aided in my understanding of Aragon’s musings of the city in the first twenty pages or so. However, […] read full post >>

I really enjoyed “Paris Peasant” by Louis Aragon because of how unconventional it was compared to other novels I have... read full post >>

The novel Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon in 1926 focuses on the concepts of “surrealism” and “modernity”, and is neither a narrative nor a character study. Instead, the work was regarded as an “Avant-Garde” cultural innovation. The book dedicated all of its chapters to the revolutionary “surreal” nostalgia about the environment of Paris in the […] read full post >>

Hello everyone, my name is Shanshan Zhang. I am currently a third-year student majoring in psychology, and I am currently in my third year of university. However, this year I have decided to transfer to the Department of Visual Arts. Originally from China, I spent the first twelve years of my life in Shanghai, then […] read full post >>

In all honesty and transparency, this was a really challenging book for me to get through. I found it extremely confusing and almost always felt myself questioning what I was reading. Aragon’s words felt (for lack of better words) jumbled together as if we were listening to the constant thoughts and images running in his …

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I loved reading Paris Peasant. It was everything it was described as: “a-novel-that-was-not-a-novel”, a character study, a portrait, part-fiction, part-treatise, part-memoir. I did wonder beforehand how a novel could encompass all of these things and still be balanced and enjoyable, yet it did all these things and more. For a few moments during my reading, […] read full post >>

 Paris Peasant was an unexpected read, to say the least. The first thing that caught my attention was Aragon's use of descriptive language. I've never particularly enjoyed excessive description, so I did find it kind of challenging to read certain portions of the book. 

However, the irregular structure of the text was fascinating to discover. It was interesting to see the paragraphs broken up by newspaper articles, pictures, and municipality warnings. As stated in the video lecture, the retention of the original fonts and motifs in the book adds a layer of authenticity and charm. This makes readers feel as if they are exploring the city of Paris with the narrator. 

Additionally, I found the blurring of the lines between reality and imagination intriguing. It would catch me completely off-guard - the sentence would start off as a description of a real place or person and end with a fantastical twist. In this sense, I truly do believe that Aragon was able to craft a wonderful surrealist world in his work. 

On the other hand, a point that confused me while reading was related to Aragon's description of women. Personally, I found the tangents describing women and their features a bit uncomfortable and not quite necessary to the text. I suppose that such writing was commonplace in literature back then, but I wasn't sure how it particularly added to the text in any way.

While I admit that I do not particularly enjoy overtly descriptive writing, I do see why Aragon employed so much detail in his writing. In this instance, the use of slightly exaggerated visual imagery helps in painting a very realistic picture of what these sights would have looked like back in the day. This is true especially so in the case of the Passage de L'Opera, which no longer exists. Out of all the parts of the book, this part stood out to me because of the fact that it was destroyed. 

Overall, Paris Peasant was a unique and challenging read that opened up my idea of what a novel could be like. My question to the class would be: what was it like for all of you to be reading a text like this? Did it make you feel any different from when you read a regular novel? 

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 Paris Peasant was an unexpected read, to say the least. The first thing that caught my attention was Aragon's use of descriptive language. I've never particularly enjoyed excessive description, so I did find it kind of challenging to read certain portions of the book. 

However, the irregular structure of the text was fascinating to discover. It was interesting to see the paragraphs broken up by newspaper articles, pictures, and municipality warnings. As stated in the video lecture, the retention of the original fonts and motifs in the book adds a layer of authenticity and charm. This makes readers feel as if they are exploring the city of Paris with the narrator. 

Additionally, I found the blurring of the lines between reality and imagination intriguing. It would catch me completely off-guard - the sentence would start off as a description of a real place or person and end with a fantastical twist. In this sense, I truly do believe that Aragon was able to craft a wonderful surrealist world in his work. 

On the other hand, a point that confused me while reading was related to Aragon's description of women. Personally, I found the tangents describing women and their features a bit uncomfortable and not quite necessary to the text. I suppose that such writing was commonplace in literature back then, but I wasn't sure how it particularly added to the text in any way.

While I admit that I do not particularly enjoy overtly descriptive writing, I do see why Aragon employed so much detail in his writing. In this instance, the use of slightly exaggerated visual imagery helps in painting a very realistic picture of what these sights would have looked like back in the day. This is true especially so in the case of the Passage de L'Opera, which no longer exists. Out of all the parts of the book, this part stood out to me because of the fact that it was destroyed. 

Overall, Paris Peasant was a unique and challenging read that opened up my idea of what a novel could be like. My question to the class would be: what was it like for all of you to be reading a text like this? Did it make you feel any different from when you read a regular novel? 

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Personally, I liked this text better than the one last week. I found it refreshing. I do not know quite... read full post >>

Compared to Marcel Proust’s Combray, I had a much more enjoyable time this week reading Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon. Nevertheless, the unique structure of the text did take some time to get used to. Even at first glance, the physical copy of the book is oddly shaped compared to other novels. Instead of conforming […] read full post >>

Before reading “Paris Peasant” by Louis Aragon, I was a little cautious yet intrigued with what a “novel-that-was-not-a-novel” could mean. After the previous week, I knew for certain this collection of literature was not something I was used to, so diving into this text, I wasn’t sure what to expect (or not expect). Honestly, like … Continue reading Week 3: Aragon’s “Paris Peasant” → read full post >>

Reading Aragon’s Paris Peasant felt like a brain workout at one hand, and an imaginary escape at another. With a conventional bias, I struggled to find the “plot” of the story, like many of my peers reading this book. I constantly searched for a plot; however, in the process of doing so, I realized that […] read full post >>

Before reading Paris Peasant, I learned that this novel is more of a “novel-that-was-not-a-novel”, which was an idea I found quite interesting as I had never read a novel like this. Therefore, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from this novel.  As I read the novel, I felt pretty lost, as what was happening […] read full post >>

I think the quote, “I find myself unable to place complete confidence in any notion I may have of the universe without first subjectifying that notion to an abstract examination” (8), perfectly summarizes this novel. Paris Peasant‘s narrator either thinks too much, believes he has to share each thought as he experiences them, or a […] read full post >>

  This week’s book really threw me for a loop. Throughout the story, I was trying to question what I was reading in hopes of understanding the story, and the meaning behind it all, but most times my thoughts came up blank. My understanding was that Argon’s goal was to emphasise the idea of surrealism, …

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