Aragon, Ocean and Kerouac
As I read Paris Peasant, and delved deeper into the surrealist movement and its dealings with the unconscious state, my first thought was of Frank Ocean. In Paris Peasant, and surrealist works in general, images are strung together to create a surrealist and unconscious landscape from which to gain insight. Similarly to Ocean, his prose is almost a stream-of-consciousness rambling, making quick jumps and sharp imagery to dance around a scene without quite narrating it. Instead, they both focus on digging and searching for the essence of the experience which is being described. Metaphors and surreal imagery are used to cast a haunting tone to the novel, and these small issues of tone and word choice are key in order to develop a theme and experience for the reader.
I took the liberty of rearranging a particularly interesting quotation into a poetic format, to illustrate the melody and “dance” of Aragon’s translated prose.
Best of all
love thrusts up shoots where no one plants it :
how vulgarity convulses it !
it is liable
to give
sudden wanton twitches
There are maniacs possessed
by the street’s haunting memory
and only there
can they experience
the full flow
of their nature
Another artist who comes to mind is Jack Kerouac. While writing 40+ years later, he used imagery, setting and experience to flesh out ideas and insights in a similarly surreal and consciousness inspired way.
Here is a snapshot of Kerouac’s writing, again transposed to be framed as a poem.
I realized
these were all
the snapshots which our children would look at
someday with wonder
thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives
and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life
never dreaming
the raggedy madness
and riot of our actual lives,
our actual night,
the hell of it,
the senseless emptiness.
The two passages are similar in tone, and the insights they seek are similar in terms of existentialism and the human experience. Interestingly both authors are also French-speakers, though Kerouac’s work is not translated.
Questions
Are there any authors or artists who’s work Louis Aragon work makes you think of?
Has surrealism had an impact on current artists or authors you enjoy?
