Authors

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.

    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 […]

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 […]