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?
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?
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 […]
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
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 […]
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 […]
Before I read this week, I decided to watch the lecture before reading rather than afterward like I did last week. It really helped me to grasp at themes to expect while reading. I really kept in mind Professor Jon’s question of “how does Aragon view or depict the passage of time? What sense of …
When I began reading this book I felt as if I was keeping up with understanding what Aragon was describing, but soon after, maybe 15 pages in, I realized I actually wasn’t. Many times throughout my reading, I found myself retracing over previous pages or trying to make sense of it for minutes at a […]
Film by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí
I didn’t expect to find Paris Peasant so interesting, but I really did enjoy reading it. Between the French setting and the persistent attention to detail, it sort of made me feel like I was revisiting Les Misérables – if Les Misérables had been narrated by some kind of immortal being with intense nostalgia and an unstable grip […]
