Breton Books

One gets the impression that the author wrote this book mostly for his own entertainment - he's fascinated with Celtic languages and wants to write about them. He has no particular point to make other than to share the joys of initial mutations etc. with whoever will listen. The result is a very entertaining book, not particularly scholarly, but certainly informative and the reader comes away with a good overview of the subject.

For about a decade, the writings of André Breton (1896-1966) have become increasingly translated into English from the original French. It is clear his ideas hold relevance for a wide audience among English speakers of the 21st century. As with his view of dreams, Communicating Vessels (1932) is layered upon layers of interwoven levels of reality. Talk of dreams becomes descriptions of surrealistic paintings, which in turn transform into the revolution. Beginning his focus on the nature of dreams, he briefly treats continental dream analysts of the 19th and early 20th century, some of who are relatively obscure to us today. In this study, he inevitably speaks of the most influential of these thinkers, Freud, saying, while the doctor analyses the sexual symbols of numerous subjects in his The Interpretation of Dreams, he omits such details in the analysis of his own dreams. Breton sets about to correct this by example in Communicating Vessels.

For his efforts, Breton drew the attention of Freud himself, whose letters to the author, Breton included in his appendix to Communicating Vessels. These letters are translated by Breton from German into French and we can only trust the reliability of his pen. While collegial in tone, Freud takes exception to a remark Breton makes concerning an alleged bibliographical omission in The Interpretation of Dreams, claiming the oversight was the fault of a later editor. While apparently unconcerned about the larger charge of intentionally omitting the content of his own dreams, Freud is clearly concerned about the bibliographical data. The following day, he writes to Breton again further clarifying the details of that problem.

More interesting from the standpoint of the reader of Breton is Freud's comment in one letter, "Although I have received many testimonies of the interest that you and your friends show for my research, I am not able to clarify for myself what surrealism is and what it wants. Perhaps I am not destined to understand it, I who am so distant from art" (150). Breton's translators feel Freud's tone throughout is diminutive, beginning the correspondence, "Rest assured that I shall read carefully your little book" (149). If so, there may be a concealed massage in Freud's professed inability to understand surrealism. Freud may be saying: you artists claim to represent ideas from my work but 1) you do not; 2) my work is far superior to the frivolous concerns of artists; and 3) the positions of power are established in the fact that you know my works but I don't know yours. If, on the other hand, we take Freud's statement at face value, are we to believe he cannot understand the dreamlike confusion portrayed in such works as The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dali, a plate of which Breton includes in Communicating Vessels?

To understand what surrealism is and what it wants beyond representing dream-thoughts, one needs only to read through Communicating Vessels. While Dali and others furnished the painting media for the movement, Breton took up the task of collecting and writing manifestos for that cause. For Breton in particular, surrealism wanted nothing short of realizing the social vision of the revolution; not simply an artistic revolution (if such can be imagined simple), but indeed The Revolution: the Marxist-Leninist final transformation of humankind into unalienated, or to mix the media, self-actualizing beings. Proof of this being Breton's goal abounds in this and other writings by him. In fact, in speaking of a dream he had in 1931, Breton explains that was a year in which he was loosing faith in the potential of surrealism to reach the Marxist-Leninist goal. From the standpoint of those interested in Breton's thought today, one might expect to find from a writer so intimately tied to the founding and growth of surrealism, Marxism-Leninism in the service of that movement, rather than the opposite, which is the case.

Interwoven in and enriching the descriptions, commentary and analysis are artistic instances such as run-on sentences of dreamlike fluidity, nearly train-of-thought sequences Henry Miller would soon be proud to imitate. Likewise, a number of illustrations accompany the text. These are not merely to illustrate the events Breton recalls, such as a still shot of the vampire Nosferatu, who the author recalls appearing in a dream. Nosferatu appears in the picture with one hand raised on the right-side page, effectively pointing to the words on the left-side page - as translator Mary Ann Caws notes, pointing to the surreal, just as, circularly and dreamlike, the words point to him.

Breton considers the extremes of various theories of his time: are dreams independent of awake reality or are their content completely tied to events; is logic void in the dream world; does space have meaning and is time relevant? Breton professes a fondness for nineteenth century German philosophers, citing Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels and Freud. One wonders what he might have made of the inner-time analysis of his contemporary, principal founder of phenomenology Edmund Husserl (1859-1938).

A fourth element (along with dreams, surrealism and the revolution), Breton calls love, is interwoven, becoming the focus of the middle of Communicating Vessels. This subject receives further elaboration and, in my view, better treatment in Mad Love, another work by Breton. In Communicating Vessels we come to realize the woman receiving Breton's complete devotion in Mad Love and elsewhere, may be most any woman. Near the beginning of Communicating Vessels, Breton marvels at an experiment by the dream analyst Marquis d'Hervey-Saint-Denys. In the writing Dreams and the Way to Control Them: Practical Observations, Hervey tells of conjuring a vision of one of two women by having a certain song played while he sleeps. Each of these women is associated with a particular song, because Hervey has arranged, in wakening life, to dance with them only during the performance of the particular song he is trying to associate with each respectively. Breton, devoted as he was to the ideal of love existing between one woman and one man only, is astonished that the experiment would proceed with two. Herein lies the first glimpse of Breton's greatest prejudice: his fanatic (should I say 'religious' since Breton calls surrealism an 'anti-religious' movement?) belief that what he is convinced is right for him, which may well be true, is likewise and necessarily the universal truth, which it certainly is not.

As Breton elaborates this view, we discover at the time of writing he is without a romantic partner and is in search of a suitable woman to fill this role. In his pursuits, which is precisely that to the point of stalking, Breton describes how one night strolling by a boulevard, he approached eight women he did not know, asking each for a date. Likewise, in a coffee shop, he ogles the legs of a woman, who is sitting with a man at another table. Breton decides the woman is much too beautiful for the less attractive man she is with and later tries to discover her name and address from anyone who might know. Meanwhile, he complains that his last girlfriend left him due to the unjust reasoning of social disparity, as explained, according to Breton, by Engels. While the entire book is riddled with small and large examples of interacting facts, events and seeming contradictions, Breton is so persistent in his pursuits of unknown women, the reader must conclude he is unaware of the consequence: that he wishes to impose the same injustice on the man, whose girlfriend he hopes to lure away; doing so both through judgment (by believing there is disparity) and through action (by matching her with a presumed social equal: himself).

In the days to follow, Breton, having never spoken with the woman, looks for her in the coffee shop and on the street. He has composed a calling card to present to her if they should meet. The card says, "I no longer think of anything but you. I madly desire to know you. Might that man be your brother? If you are unmarried, I ask for your hand in marriage," and following his signature, "I beg you" (75).

Breton accused Freud of not revealing the true content of his own dreams, Freud having a scholarly reputation to uphold. To the contrary, as a proponent of surrealism, Breton's reputation could only be enhanced by expounding upon the quirks and turns of his dreams. However, in his blatant objectification of women, having no concern with personality when desiring marriage based on appearance, is not only bourgeois (yes, I dare apply the term most repugnant to him), but bourgeois in the worst way: exploitative. Breton says he finds it in some ways lamentable that he can never live the structured life of the bourgeois family man, even while criticizing the hypocrisy of that arrangement vise vie Engel's The Origin of the Family. We must consider, from the point of view of the revolution, the way he pursues a relationship, and there are numerous example in the book, would be more vehemently condemned. Yet, without 'love,' Breton assures the reader, he would not be able to go on.

The dreams and other events accounted in Communicating Vessels take place from 1931 to 1932. In these we find a multi-layed picture of Breton's life in Paris, his views on literature and art, and a variety of valuable insights into the day. Regardless of the value of his take on 'love,' interspersed are some of Breton's most lucid statements on surrealism to be found. He writes, "I hope it will be considered as having tried nothing better than to cast a conduction wire between the far too distant worlds of waking and sleep, exterior and interior reality, reason and madness, the assurance of knowledge and of love, of life for life and the revolution, and so on" (86). Though writing his book from the vantage point of having seen the surrealist movement abandoned, Communicating Vessels is a vivid instance of just such a conduction wire.

If your travels ever take you to the often surprising and always beautiful shores of Nova Scotia this book will prove very useful. It was obviously produced as a labour of love with practical knowledge that makes following in the authors foot steps a little easier

These stories follow the life of the Sea Captain, from his first intimate encounter on into his old age. He's not a real captain, by the way, a fact that adds emphasis the fictional underpinnings of these stories.

I enjoyed Breton's easy and evocative writing, and especially enjoyed the happy and consensual tone of each episode (except one). Scenes offer pleasant variety, in couples, threesomes, and more-somes, and largely stay away from the dark and unpleasant tones that put so many off from erotic fiction. Tauzin's art really sets this apart from other erotica, however. The man himself remains obscure; only this 1930 collection of etching remains. Too bad - it would be wonderful to see more of these charming and graceful images. Simple line drawings, like the one on the cover, illustrate some of the juicier scenes from the story. And, like the writing, these explicit intaglios present happy people happily engaged.

The stories and art might be a good intro for someone who's been put off by the harsh tone of other erotic stories and imagery. Despite the 1930 origin of these pictures, their modern tone (and the stories') should appeal to anyone who enjoys adult fiction.

-- wiredweird

I am only now beginning to retrace the steps of my mothers life. One which began for a brief period in the Netherlands and then spread to the Dutch East Indies and a life in the colonial tropics. This book was the first one I picked up as I began my research to try and etch an image of how life must have been like for her and others like her during that time. Though my family is not descedants of the same wealth as portrayed in this book it does provide a vivid account of how certain factions of the ruling class carried out their daily lives. Oblivious to the importance of the culture that surrounded them and only focused on imposing their own. This book gave me vibrant insights, realistic portayals of characters to which I could easily relate and glimpse into a life long since gone. A book I could not put down for many, many reasons.

This cookbook features very imaginative vegetable recipes, although they are neither completely vegetarian nor low fat. Josephine Araldo, who "influenced a generation of American chefs," was born in Brittany, studied at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, and, in 1924, moved to San Francisco. The book is divided into three sections reflecting her work and influences from these settings. One simple and tasty recipe is for "Green Beans From the Brittany Coast" ("Haricots Verts Cotes de Bretagne"); it combines blanched string beans, new potatoes, scallions, garlic, butter, parsley, and seasoning. Directions are clear but brief; for example, there is no instruction on how to "blanch" vegetables. This is probably a very simple procedure, but the author, Robert Reynolds (friend and student of Ms. Araldo) assumes you know the technique. (Caution: Vegetarians and Bugs Bunny fans may also be turned off by the suggested accompaniment of braised rabbit.)

It's interesting to contrast the regional and perhaps historical differences among recipes for a particular vegetable; for example, "Cabbage and Rutabaga with Almonds" from Brittany (you may want to skip the two tablespoons of goose or duck fat), "Red Cabbage and Pears" from Paris, and "Cabbage with Apples and Gooseberries" (good with poached salmon) from her San Francisco days.

Collated by her friend, Chef Robert Reynolds ("Le Trou Restaurant Francais," San Francisco), who also wrote fascinating regional and biographical notes for each section. No nutritional information, but excellent brief comments on each recipe, an index, and some black and white reproductions of watercolors, and clear uncrowded typeset on thick luminous paper: Overall, a beautifully produced book.

Breton is not an intrinsically difficult language, but it does things very differently from the more commonly studied European languages. As a result, it's not enough just to understand the grammar rules and plug in words. You have to develop new habits of thinking about how language should go together: "Two hours (there) are is the rain doing" (It's been raining two hours); "A dress new is with you" (You're wearing a new dress); "No, is not big house the school master" (No, the teacher's house isn't big). By starting with Initiation au Breton, when you get to a more thorough text, your first sense will be of familiarity, rather than utter incomprehension. Recommended for anyone who really wants to learn Breton and is starting from the beginning.

At Chapter 12, Le Breton Sans Peine does not have me speaking fluent Breton. But it has left me feeling familiar with both the Breton language and the culture. The opening chapters introduce a Breton family, the café/tobacco shop they run and an old family friend. And in spite of my as-yet limited Breton, I can both hear and see Yann, the "Master of the House," as he talks with his wife and with his old friend, Fanch.

There is a new edition of Le Breton Sans Peine that I have not seen. But for those saving their pennies, the old edition by Morvannou provides a homey introduction to a challenging language.

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

This is still one of the most concise books on the introduction to robotics being published. All of the information is relevant to industry applications.