Traitor Comet

by personne

Before punk, before the Beats, before existentialism, and beyond surrealism, there were two visionaries, two rebels, two friends...and two tragic heroes, Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos. Only one could save the other's life.

398 pages, Paperback

Published June 28, 2023

Reviews

[Matt Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

-ARC provided by Outskirts Press and LibraryThing.-

A truly singular novel, Traitor Comet keeps a close focus on the doings, ramblings, and arguments of a diverse clique of clever characters as they wrestle with Life, the Universe, and Everything in the Paris of the late-1920s, presenting the whole in a language both elegant and familiar. No doubt, the writing here is the star; the tone matches the artistic bent of the cast and the streets of Paris itself: "Notre Dame, with its ivory stone, glowed from the spotlights trained on it. The cathedral dragged its reflection in the river like a tattered veil." (p.55) Nice.
Some of the characters are historical figures, Robert Desnos and Antonin Artaud in particular, while others fictional as the author's stated intent is to animate the lives of the artists. The verisimilitude is strong enough to sweep the reader along comfortably, and the p-o-v main character is a perfect foil for the more pretentious excesses of the poets, actors, and painters. Geoffrey, our main character, presents us with both the central question and the Gorilla-in-the-Room. Avoiding spoilers, he's in the midst of an existential crisis, having lost himself along the way, and the hurly-burly is both his cure and his nemesis. His search for answers is the greater human quest, I guess, asking 'what is identity?' and 'who am I?' The mechanism chosen by the author to drop Geoffrey into this search is either a ripping metaphor or an intrusive bit of SFF more at home in urban fantasy; it's up to the reader to decide, it seems.

No one insists a corpse is still alive or a bird is still an egg but somehow a man is always what he used to be, and if he takes charge of his future people say he's not himself, that they don't know him anymore. (p.361)

To me, the biggest drawback of TC is that it does meander and does not meet the sea, it ends at a caesura and sets up a sequel instead. I look forward to reading the sequel but did want more satisfaction from this volume.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic read! I was transported back to 1920s Paris and met two fascinating real-life figures that helped establish the Surrealist Movement. The author’s thorough research paid off enormously. It felt authentic, as if I were catching a glimpse of the real, gritty, bohemian streets of Paris during that artistic and free time in history. The protagonist is well-crafted and I found myself sympathizing with him. But it’s the rich detail that’s the star of this book. An engrossing history lesson that I enjoyed immensely.

[John Harrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Traitor Comet, by Personne, creates an intriguing novel set around a small group of intellectuals who founded surrealism a century ago. Their impact on culture since then has been immense. If you care to understand them, Traitor Comet is a great place to start.

Personne creates a fictional character Geoff, a disaffected Austrian veteran of WWI. She transplants Geof to Paris in the 1920s where he makes friends with a real-life surrealist, Antonin Artaud, an emotionally troubled genius playwright and actor. Through Geoff’s eyes, we follow the internecine conflicts and jealousies of the surrealists, especially those between Artaud and the acknowledged surrealist founder, André Breton. Throughout it all, Geoff stays loyal to his friend Artaud although he struggles with ambivalence toward some of the key literary elements of the philosophy: automatic writing, collective creation, and transforming reality. There probably is no other novel on the market that brings the surrealists to life as well as this one does. It is a magnificent tour de force.

In the interests of transparency, I’m not a neutral reader. I read the book on its passage through a writer critique group in suburban Minneapolis. At first, I found it hard to follow the conversations of the surrealists. After all, these people sought to destroy the conventions of traditional language and thought processes. They were trying to upend conventional language the way Salvador Dali (yes, he figures in the story) helped upend conventional art with works such as his famous painting of the melting clock. In time, I came to treasure the story.

Traitor Comet is the first in a series of novels Personne plans that will take the surrealists from the 1920s up to World War II. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand these people and the powerful intellectual forces they unleashed.

[Gary Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to read this book knowing about Andre Breton - with all his faults - and left knowing , and liking, much more the erstwhile members and dissenters Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos. I find these two real-life rebels more intriguing than the often overbearing Breton, who despite founding one of the more enduring and recognizable movements of the twentieth century was homophobic, sexist, boring, and narcissistic.
The story is told from the point of view of Geoff, plucked from his Austrian hovel by his father and brought to live in Paris with Geoff's successful brother and his French wife. Haunted by the meaninglessness of the Great War in which he fought for Germany, haunted by his mother's death, and believing he may have murdered a man at his farm - or buried his doppelganger.
Geoff is plunged into the avant-garde scene in 1926 Paris and encouraged to engage in "automatic writing" by Desnos. Artaud, however, shuns the practice and instead seeks to unearth Geoff's secret.
There are numerous minor characters, some fictional and some based on other surrealists (Philippe Soupault, Benjamin Peret, Simone Kahn) yet they all have their distinct personalities and voices. The tale was intriguing, painful and at time hilariously funny. I was very impressed and look forward to the sequel, apparent of a four-novel trilogy. If "Personne" can sustain this momentum, this series could be a major literary opus.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew nothing about the surrealists from the 1920's before reading this novel, so this was very enlightening.

The narrator is Geoff, who we meet at a gravesite where he is burying a body--whose exactly, we are not sure. From this moment on, even though his family feels that Geoff has not been himself lately, the character of Geoff comes to life for the reader. Geoff struggles to understand what is true versus what is not true. To quote one of the characters towards the end of this novel, "Must everything we think and feel be true?"

We journey through the streets of Paris with this oddly entertaining group of friends who are poets, writers, actors, and at heart, philosophers. Antonin Artaud, Robert Desnos, Roger Vitrac, Louis Aragon and many others come to life in this novel. Their lives are depicted beautifully. Much like their quest to explore the unconscious and challenge reality, their day to day life events often feel a bit surreal. We are taken on a fascinating journey. We are transported back to the historic time in which this takes place.

I look forward to reading the sequel, L'etoile De Mer (The Starfish).