Paul Eluard Books

In terms of finding a wild, uninhibited introduction to the radical and mindspinning worlds of Breton and friends I can assure you that this is a challenging but rewarding read. However, take note that those who feel prose must have structure and communicate linear thought, please leave your textbook at the door. This is work that burrows deep into the subconcious and festers like a tick.

The name of the book the other reviewer mentions, that contains translations of Eluard by Beckett is "Collected Poems in English and French" by Samuel Beckett (Paperback) and it's available at Amazon.

Seamless accurate translations span Eluard's poems of 1913-1953 including Liberte, dropped by RAF in WWII. 6 tantalizing prose pieces: Surrealist declaration of 1925, 2 essays on friend Picasso, on the idea of committed poetry. Publishers Weekly wrote "excellent compilation of the life work of a poet of love and beauty in a search for a language to counter the devastation of wars and super patriotism." Leon-Gabriel Gros wrote: It was a question of transforming life.... a direct method.... penetrating the deep reality...poetic morality.... a sort of virus...delivering the 'low-living' from their torpor. Finding the fire still burning under the ashes of the stillness in our hearts and brains from the "indifference" of the 1990's, Eluard's poems are a call to life and love of the best kind: they impell us to gently open up ouf "child's heart" and bring our "dreams into reality," to find in togetherness the ultimate reason of our being.

I am intrigued by the speeches given during the resistance of WWII, after the first war, at the first surrealist exposition in London, and the 2nd surrealist manifesto of 1924 by angry young men who had seen too much suffering in the war and were looking for a "new language", a new consciousness to overcome the errors of romanticism and super rationalism that resulted in supernationalism and megalomania.

Eluard was a modest human being, in love with life, and love, and Gala, and primitive art. Read Premierement /First of All, admonishing Gala for keeping her "brain in its attic" and forgetting her commitment to her first love, or "She is standing on my eyelids"; or on justice, "Bonne Justice/Good Justice" and "Minuit", on a poor resistance fighter condemned to be shot; or on learning to see with Picasso in two essays and poems from the book "Donner a Voir."

The Historical introduction, Chronological Contents, definitions of surrealism, and bibliography make good reading in themselves. The translations are "seamless", straight forward, do not betray the poet, so provide a fine way to approach the originals on opposite pages.

Pablo Neruda was his good friend, and must have read Eluard long before he wrote "Walking Around."

Paul Eluard was the best beloved European poet of the first half of our century, which William Golding has called the most violent in human history. While illusions were destroyed, this writer wrote love poems, for which he is best known; as medic and infantryman in both world wars, wrote about (while Picasso painted) the devastating bombing of Guernica on market day in broad daylight, during the Spanish Civil War, and the German occupation of France, while he searched for a release from sentimental romanticism and "superpatriotism" held responsible by the Surrealists for the wars, as they recognized the importance of the subconscious and "desire", to find a new language that would help to achieve justice with mercy and release men from the constraints of false values. A historical introduction records this collaboration between writers and painters, who illustrated Eluard's books, with 6 here by Picasso, Chagall, Andre Lhote and Magritte. 6 intriguing prose pieces concern the idea of committed poetry (engagee), Picasso's role in teaching others to see, and the Surrealist Declaration of 1925. Neruda and many others followed the search of this seminal poet. A fine compilation of the poet's life work, with French and accurate, seamless English translations on opposite pages.

Perhaps this is a bit unfair of me, but let's just take a look at two translations of one of Eluard's best known poems, "L'amoureuse."

Translation 1: She is standing on my lids / And her hair is in my hair / She has the color of my eye / She has the body of my hand, / In my shade she is engulfed / As a stone against the sky. /

She will never close her eyes / And she does not let me sleep. / And her dreams in the bright day / Make the suns evaporate / And me laugh cry and laugh, / Speak when I have nothing to say.

---

Translation #2: She is standing on my eyelids, / Her hair mingles with mine, / She takes on the shape of my hands, / She is the color of my eyes, / She is absorbed by my shadow / Like a stone against the sky. /

Her eyes are forever open / She doesn't let me sleep. / Her dreams in the light of day / Make the suns evaporate, / Make me laugh, cry, and laugh again, / And babble on with nothing to say.

---

I posted the two versions so you can judge for yourself, but it seems to me the first is far superior to the second. Not surprisingly, the first is by Samuel Beckett, and his faithfulness to Eluard is not only one of meaning but of rhythm. Alas, it is the second, wooden version that you will find in "Shadows and Sun," and the two translators' tin ears do ill service to Eluard throughout the book. The best thing you can say about this volume is that it contains the French original, and the literal translations should help people with a rudimentary knowledge of French to enjoy Eluard in his own language. But if you can't sound out the French to hear the sonorousness of Eluard's lines, then these translations will give you a very poor impression of the poems' lyrical beauty.

As for where you might find the Beckett translation... well, I don't know. I wrote his translation down in a notebook years and years ago but neglected to write where I found it. I believe it was in a collection of Beckett's writing and not of Eluard's.

Along with a few other poets who were in the surrealist group formally but had to maintain a healthy distance from time to time in order to maintain their intellectual integrity (Rene Char, Soupault, Robert Desnos), Eluard comes extremely close to being the very best. That is to say: no matter what highs and lows occur with Surrealist Marketing, his work will stand on it's own, over and apart from the glossy franchise that has been made of Breton and the gang. Eluard was a poet from top to bottom, in the league of the greats; his constant focus is on love and life, choosing to "affirm rather than question" in the Rilkean tradition. He writes in broken, rhythmic couplets which violate traditional form and each combination packs a huge emotional wallop:

"Your eyes in which I travel
Have given to signs along the roads
A meaning alien to the earth

In your eyes who reveal to us
Our endless solitude.."

Sometimes Eluard's greatness is interrupted by what one can only call narcissism of a sort, a turning away from everything except what he feels about himself, or remembers about himself, etc. But this is his only failing. More than highly recommended, to miss Eluard is to miss one of the greatest poets of the 20th cenutry. So there!

This is a good primer for anyone interested in a brief survey of Paul Eluard's writing from the early 20s through the time of his death. The foreword by Max Adereth, about 19 pages, summerizes his life and the styalistic changes in his writing.

The main problem is its brevity. There are too few examples from each period and not nearly enough from his early Dada/Surrealist period.

Woman in Love

She is standing on my eyes
And her hair is in my hair;
She has the figure of my hands
And the color of my sight.
She is swallowed in my shade
Like a stone against the sky.

She will never close her eyes
And will never let me sleep;
And her dreams in day's full light
Make the suns evaporate,
Make me laugh and cry and laugh,
Speak when I have nought to say.

If you like the translation of that poem, then this book may be for you (I would have said 'nothing' instead of 'naught'). At any rate, it will point you to other collections for deeper delving.

MF

Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, and Rene Char, Ralentir, Travaux (Exact Change Press, 1990)

Written over the course of five days, Ralentir Travaux (Slow Under Construction) is a series of collaborative poems written by Breton, Eluard, and Char during the height of the surrealist movement. (No word on whether they're exquisite corpses or just regular collaborations.) If you're a fan of any of the three, you're going to like this. (If you're a fan of any of the three and not of all three, for the love of god why?) If you've never been introduced to the work of any of them, it makes a great starting point; the quality is about the same as you'd get from any of the three individually, but the style is slightly different from any of them on their own. And, as always with Exact Change, the quality of the book itself is just as high as the writing contained within it. From the point of view of the simple joy of holding a well-constructed book, as I keep saying, Exact Change has been heading the field for a long, long time. This small volume may be the best way to acquaint yourself with Small Change's offerings; you can not only fall in love with the quality of their books, but with three poets at the same time.

If there is a downside to the book, it is that Keith Waldrop's translation sometimes seems uncharacteristically flat. I'm a fan of Waldrop's, along with being a fan of the poets who wrote the original manuscript, and usually love his translations; here, it seems like once in a while a line got translated a bit too literally, perhaps, without the usual thought to whether the rhythm of the piece in English would work the same way it did in French. However, it's a minor thing, that affects maybe half a line out of every five to ten pages of the book, and certainly shouldn't drive you away.

Another winner from Exact Change. *** ½