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Life Among the Surrealists
Dopo gli studi universitari e la frequentazione della bohème del Greenwich Village, oppresso dal provincialismo del suo paese, Matthew Josephson fugge in Europa e inizia un lungo sodalizio con i surrealisti e le altre avanguardie. I «ruggenti anni Venti» a Parigi sono i veri protagonisti del l’emigrazione letteraria nordamericana, la febbre dei fondatori di riviste, i dibattiti tra scrittori che diventano comizi, quella che Gertrude Stein battezza come la «generazione perduta».
Campeggiano sulla scena Tristan Tzara, Louis Aragon, André Breton, mentre James Joyce sta emergendo ed Ezra Pound sorveglia gli esordi di T.S. Eliot ed Ernest Hemingway.
Attore e spettatore di quegli anni, Matthew Josephson rievoca la cronaca, il pittoresco, ma anche la sostanza, di un’avanguardia che ha posto le premesse, ancora attive, di tanta arte d’oggi.
«C’erano T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, Paul Éluard, Jean Cocteau, Ezra Pound, Charlie Chaplin, André Breton,Giorgio de Chirico... Josephson fa risorgere il decennio più irriverente e inimitabile del ventesimo secolo». Kirkus Review
Campeggiano sulla scena Tristan Tzara, Louis Aragon, André Breton, mentre James Joyce sta emergendo ed Ezra Pound sorveglia gli esordi di T.S. Eliot ed Ernest Hemingway.
Attore e spettatore di quegli anni, Matthew Josephson rievoca la cronaca, il pittoresco, ma anche la sostanza, di un’avanguardia che ha posto le premesse, ancora attive, di tanta arte d’oggi.
«C’erano T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, Paul Éluard, Jean Cocteau, Ezra Pound, Charlie Chaplin, André Breton,Giorgio de Chirico... Josephson fa risorgere il decennio più irriverente e inimitabile del ventesimo secolo». Kirkus Review
403 pages
First published January 1, 1962
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 4, 2010
I think I have finally found a title that has been little reviewed on goodreads, if at all. Also I believe that the title is out of print, as I bought this second hand. Life Among the Surrealists began when I read an excerpt from it in an anthology of American writers who wrote in or about Paris. That piece concerned a rather hilarious literary “trial” which pitted Andre Breton against Tristan Tzara that was presided over by Eric Satie. On the whole, throughout the book, the “Pope” of Surrealism, Andre Breton, doesn't come off very well. I began to wonder why a man so concerned with the purity of his movement would so throughly neglect the nature of his future posterity.
But Life Among the Surrealists concerns much more than card carrying Surrealists, being a kind of social history of American artists and writers (chiefly writers) who moved between New York City and Europe during the 1920s. Some of those who are presented anecdotally in more of less detail are: William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, H.L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, and Gertrude Stein, not to mention the characters implicit in the title, Breton, Tzara, Hans Arp, Max Ernst, Louis Aragon et al. as well as many lesser known but essential players.
I have always been attracted to Dada/Surrealism as they had a social agenda, that is a practice that brought their aesthetic theory onto the street and into the cafe. If they didn't want to change the world, then they wanted to destroy it. Dada blasted the social order that had brought about WW1, a war in which many Dadaists had been drafted, clearly one of the stupidest and most brutal of wars as indicated by its first-of-a-kind comprehensive title.
Of course the Dada/Surrealists were doomed to fail, perhaps demonstrated by Breton's various hypocrasies such as decrying “professional” writers while making a profit selling Surrealist painters. On the other hand it was Tzara, the Dada figurehead, who admitted Dada was meant to come up short. Tzara dealt with the whole notion of logic by refusing to make sense, and comes off much more lighthearted than Breton, who at first invited Tzara to Paris and then rejected him in the “literary” trial.
Despite hypocrasy and failure, the book was quite heartening, making clear the various progressive or dissident artistic cycles taking place in 1920s America and Europe – trends that were practically forgotten before they were taken up again. The in-your-face of Dada clearly and surprisingly connects to the Diggers of San Francisco or the Punks of London.
On page 199 George Grosz says, “Dada kicks you in pants and you like it.”
So perhaps the neighsayers are now fathoming a destructive, anti-social aspect that they can't quite get on board with. Not to worry as all sides of the fray are taken up in this memoir with the author himself stating on page 322, after taking part in quite a few of their provocations, “I was up in arms about the Surrealists”. The positive is manifest in the stories of the sincere struggles of creative types who value the life of the mind more than the comforts of home, who pursue their art by whatever means possible, from living on coins, to becoming a janitor, to siphoning off the excess income of the wealthy.
There is still yet something unresolved, a malaise that has worn down the idealism of artists who now find their role more often to be directed towards the BFA, the MFA, the museum. The energy of the Surreal Dadaist Punk may foist negative, but it strives for an out, a way out through the grime, a beautiful failure. As Louis Aragon states towards the end of the book, “ (my generation) . . . occupied itself mainly in saying nothing magnificently and with the greatest freedom of expression. And now that we have found what we have to say . . . can we ever say it well enough?”
But Life Among the Surrealists concerns much more than card carrying Surrealists, being a kind of social history of American artists and writers (chiefly writers) who moved between New York City and Europe during the 1920s. Some of those who are presented anecdotally in more of less detail are: William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, H.L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, and Gertrude Stein, not to mention the characters implicit in the title, Breton, Tzara, Hans Arp, Max Ernst, Louis Aragon et al. as well as many lesser known but essential players.
I have always been attracted to Dada/Surrealism as they had a social agenda, that is a practice that brought their aesthetic theory onto the street and into the cafe. If they didn't want to change the world, then they wanted to destroy it. Dada blasted the social order that had brought about WW1, a war in which many Dadaists had been drafted, clearly one of the stupidest and most brutal of wars as indicated by its first-of-a-kind comprehensive title.
Of course the Dada/Surrealists were doomed to fail, perhaps demonstrated by Breton's various hypocrasies such as decrying “professional” writers while making a profit selling Surrealist painters. On the other hand it was Tzara, the Dada figurehead, who admitted Dada was meant to come up short. Tzara dealt with the whole notion of logic by refusing to make sense, and comes off much more lighthearted than Breton, who at first invited Tzara to Paris and then rejected him in the “literary” trial.
Despite hypocrasy and failure, the book was quite heartening, making clear the various progressive or dissident artistic cycles taking place in 1920s America and Europe – trends that were practically forgotten before they were taken up again. The in-your-face of Dada clearly and surprisingly connects to the Diggers of San Francisco or the Punks of London.
On page 199 George Grosz says, “Dada kicks you in pants and you like it.”
So perhaps the neighsayers are now fathoming a destructive, anti-social aspect that they can't quite get on board with. Not to worry as all sides of the fray are taken up in this memoir with the author himself stating on page 322, after taking part in quite a few of their provocations, “I was up in arms about the Surrealists”. The positive is manifest in the stories of the sincere struggles of creative types who value the life of the mind more than the comforts of home, who pursue their art by whatever means possible, from living on coins, to becoming a janitor, to siphoning off the excess income of the wealthy.
There is still yet something unresolved, a malaise that has worn down the idealism of artists who now find their role more often to be directed towards the BFA, the MFA, the museum. The energy of the Surreal Dadaist Punk may foist negative, but it strives for an out, a way out through the grime, a beautiful failure. As Louis Aragon states towards the end of the book, “ (my generation) . . . occupied itself mainly in saying nothing magnificently and with the greatest freedom of expression. And now that we have found what we have to say . . . can we ever say it well enough?”
September 20, 2018
There is a lot to like in this book. It's essentially a decade of social and intellectual history, both in Europe and in the US. There is a lot of detail, much of it interesting. However, this is not at all a history of the Surrealists. They are not even discussed until more than half way through the book, and one does not learn much about them.
The strongest aspect of the book is actually the history of Dadaism. I have always found this movement amusing and interesting, but Josephson has helped me understand the dark side of it -- a basic nastiness and cruelty, in relation to both people in the movement and those it attacked, which is decidedly unpleasant. There are altogether too many people to keep track of, but Andre Breton does emerge in a complete and forceful -- and very negative -- portrayal.
I also enjoyed the final chapter, on America on the eve of the Great Crash. This, too, gave me a new perspective, this time on the Jazz Age.
It is interesting to read the book in light of today's United States. Reading about government censorship (and of material which these days would not raise an eyebrow), Prohibition and the mindset of industrial leaders really seems contemporary.
Unfortunately, too much of the book is rather dull, in particular the chapter on Josephson's brief stint as a stockbroker. But throughout the book there is endless name-dropping (he seems to have known everyone of consequence in the world of literature at the time), trivial gossip, and physical descriptions of individuals.
I also got a bit tired of the author. He seems a bit old-fashioned, pompous and prudish, even while considering himself daring and avant garde. His prose tends to be pretty stuffy and full of judgments. He takes too many opportunities to defend himself against criticisms by others, which reminds the reader that the book is really about him more than the art movements in which he participated. It is also striking how many of the Americans were graduates of only two schools, Harvard and Princeton.
Most striking of the lapses of perception is in his consideration of women, who rarely come to life in the book except as appendages to men, usually their husbands. he sees women as having fully achieved equality by 1929 (oh dear!) and at the end of the book has a truly offensive discussion of women as "sexual huntresses," seducing and abandoning vulnerable men at will.
There is a hidden second aspect of social history here -- how men who thought themselves liberal viewed the world in 1962. Within six or seven years, this will have changed dramatically.
This is a book very much worth reading, even though it is overlong and far from perfect. I found much of it interesting, even if I ended up not especially taken with the author.
The strongest aspect of the book is actually the history of Dadaism. I have always found this movement amusing and interesting, but Josephson has helped me understand the dark side of it -- a basic nastiness and cruelty, in relation to both people in the movement and those it attacked, which is decidedly unpleasant. There are altogether too many people to keep track of, but Andre Breton does emerge in a complete and forceful -- and very negative -- portrayal.
I also enjoyed the final chapter, on America on the eve of the Great Crash. This, too, gave me a new perspective, this time on the Jazz Age.
It is interesting to read the book in light of today's United States. Reading about government censorship (and of material which these days would not raise an eyebrow), Prohibition and the mindset of industrial leaders really seems contemporary.
Unfortunately, too much of the book is rather dull, in particular the chapter on Josephson's brief stint as a stockbroker. But throughout the book there is endless name-dropping (he seems to have known everyone of consequence in the world of literature at the time), trivial gossip, and physical descriptions of individuals.
I also got a bit tired of the author. He seems a bit old-fashioned, pompous and prudish, even while considering himself daring and avant garde. His prose tends to be pretty stuffy and full of judgments. He takes too many opportunities to defend himself against criticisms by others, which reminds the reader that the book is really about him more than the art movements in which he participated. It is also striking how many of the Americans were graduates of only two schools, Harvard and Princeton.
Most striking of the lapses of perception is in his consideration of women, who rarely come to life in the book except as appendages to men, usually their husbands. he sees women as having fully achieved equality by 1929 (oh dear!) and at the end of the book has a truly offensive discussion of women as "sexual huntresses," seducing and abandoning vulnerable men at will.
There is a hidden second aspect of social history here -- how men who thought themselves liberal viewed the world in 1962. Within six or seven years, this will have changed dramatically.
This is a book very much worth reading, even though it is overlong and far from perfect. I found much of it interesting, even if I ended up not especially taken with the author.
September 2, 2014
A really great book. This guy hung out with the lost generation, the dadaists, the surrealists, then went to work on wall street, went back to France to see the end of surrealism. Mostly everyone just drank and argued with the english speaking freaks devolving into brawls while the french went for felonious and seemed to think if a brawl wasn't a near riot then it didn't quite count.
Read this with Harry Crosby's "Shadows of the Sun:the diaries of Harry Crosby", "Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20'th Century" and Gwendolyn Bays "Orphic Vision :seer Poets from Novalis to Rimbaud.
Read this with Harry Crosby's "Shadows of the Sun:the diaries of Harry Crosby", "Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20'th Century" and Gwendolyn Bays "Orphic Vision :seer Poets from Novalis to Rimbaud.
December 13, 2010
A disappointing and mis-titled read. The Surrealists are only in a small handful of chapters, and in those chapters Josephson is openly biased against them and Breton. This book is more gossip than anything. Josephson's connection to Wall Street pretty much destroys all of his credibility when dealing with revolutionary matters. On the positive side, he was very in with much of the American literary avant-garde. I'll give him credit there.
November 12, 2010
This book is hypnotizing. If you're interested in the development of creative and artistic thought, then you simply must read this book.
It's also a very personal story, about a young man who joins a movement, becomes disenchanted and eventually realizes it was really a cult of personality and when he questions it at all he's shunned. Sad, but Josephson came out on top, ultimately, so it's okay for him.
It's also a very personal story, about a young man who joins a movement, becomes disenchanted and eventually realizes it was really a cult of personality and when he questions it at all he's shunned. Sad, but Josephson came out on top, ultimately, so it's okay for him.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews