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Edition 69
Launched in 1931 by Jindřich Štyrský, the series Edition 69 comprised six volumes of erotic literature and illustration that followed the path marked out by Louis Aragon's Irene's Cunt and Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye. Given the censorship laws of the day, the Edition 69 series was not for sale, and print runs numbered no more than 200. This volume brings together English translations of the two most important texts in the series: Nezval's "Sexual Nocturne" and Štyrský's "Emilie Come to Me in a Dream," supplemented by the original essay from psychoanalyst Bohuslav Brouk, a fellow founding member of The Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia. Edition 69 represented a sustained attempt by the interwar Czech avant-garde to investigate the taboos of bourgeois culture.
136 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1931
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 10, 2016
Disturbing and astounding Czech surrealism: It is always reasonable to expect that surrealists, with the reliance on dream states as texts, will produce unsettling texts, which is just what they do here. The authors, Nezval and Štyrský, were members of a circle of interwar Czech artists who became the core of Czech surrealism, heavily influenced by the Parisians. This short book is made up of five elements, three of which are heavily interrelated, originally published in subscriber only editions in Prague in 1932 and 1933.
Nezval’s is a sexual coming of age tale packed full of disrupted outlooks and identities (not surprising, given his Valerie and Her Week of Wonders ) that takes an autobiographical tone drawing on his experiences as a schoolboy in Třebíč and accompanied by Štyrský’s collages. As with much surrealist writing it swings wildly between the explicit, the grotesque, the poetic and prosaic to carry and convince the reader that the surreal is viable and bourgeois conventions readily violable. As with Štyrský, Nezval works in the world of the perverse as a psychoanalytic state, similar in some respects to the more recent feminist-perverse texts of writers such as Kathy Acker but in an era of a different sexual politics.
Štyrský’s piece is much more difficult and disturbing, evoking his dead sister who is concurrently absent and inaccessible, the focus of incestuous desires and locked in the surrealist dream state – and therefore all the more threatening for that. It is accompanied by a series of his collages, in which many of the images are drawn from 1920s German pornographic publications, but as components of constructivist collages incorporating other images (such as boiling mud pools or seaside resorts) these now teeter on the brink between pornographic and erotic, surreal and objectifying – combining to intensify the sense of the perverse: this is a section best avoided at work or on public transport…… What makes it more unsettling is the third element of this section, written by Bohuslav Brouk – largely unknown outside Czech cultural circles but with a significant impact on the inter-war Czech avant garde, especially this circle of artists known as Devětsil (Nine Forces) who shifted from Poetism and Constructivism to become the Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia. Brouk’s short piece (11 pages long) is an assault on bourgeois cultural sensibilities in the context of the hypocrisy many of the avant garde saw in their willingness to censor. The final section then is a series of dream extracts from Štyrský’s work.
All together these make up an interesting if rather specialist set of pieces from the interwar Czech avant garde – intriguing, unsettling and clearly influenced by other strands in surrealism but with a distinctive local flavour as well as more accessible than some of the other work in the arena, including the Švankmajer/Švankmajerova husband and wife duo – the most well-known spin off from this group now.
The text is intensely politicised but in the manner of the cultural politics of the avant garde – high modernism at is best and worst – weaving together constructivist visual work (in the form of Štyrský’s drawings and collages) and adding in the kind of dream-state writing that keeps psychoanalysts busy for years. It is very much of its time, and given the subscription only basis of publication (mainly to avoid the censors) the reissue of these two short texts is to be welcomed (if not to everyone's taste).
Nezval’s is a sexual coming of age tale packed full of disrupted outlooks and identities (not surprising, given his Valerie and Her Week of Wonders ) that takes an autobiographical tone drawing on his experiences as a schoolboy in Třebíč and accompanied by Štyrský’s collages. As with much surrealist writing it swings wildly between the explicit, the grotesque, the poetic and prosaic to carry and convince the reader that the surreal is viable and bourgeois conventions readily violable. As with Štyrský, Nezval works in the world of the perverse as a psychoanalytic state, similar in some respects to the more recent feminist-perverse texts of writers such as Kathy Acker but in an era of a different sexual politics.
Štyrský’s piece is much more difficult and disturbing, evoking his dead sister who is concurrently absent and inaccessible, the focus of incestuous desires and locked in the surrealist dream state – and therefore all the more threatening for that. It is accompanied by a series of his collages, in which many of the images are drawn from 1920s German pornographic publications, but as components of constructivist collages incorporating other images (such as boiling mud pools or seaside resorts) these now teeter on the brink between pornographic and erotic, surreal and objectifying – combining to intensify the sense of the perverse: this is a section best avoided at work or on public transport…… What makes it more unsettling is the third element of this section, written by Bohuslav Brouk – largely unknown outside Czech cultural circles but with a significant impact on the inter-war Czech avant garde, especially this circle of artists known as Devětsil (Nine Forces) who shifted from Poetism and Constructivism to become the Surrealist Group of Czechoslovakia. Brouk’s short piece (11 pages long) is an assault on bourgeois cultural sensibilities in the context of the hypocrisy many of the avant garde saw in their willingness to censor. The final section then is a series of dream extracts from Štyrský’s work.
All together these make up an interesting if rather specialist set of pieces from the interwar Czech avant garde – intriguing, unsettling and clearly influenced by other strands in surrealism but with a distinctive local flavour as well as more accessible than some of the other work in the arena, including the Švankmajer/Švankmajerova husband and wife duo – the most well-known spin off from this group now.
The text is intensely politicised but in the manner of the cultural politics of the avant garde – high modernism at is best and worst – weaving together constructivist visual work (in the form of Štyrský’s drawings and collages) and adding in the kind of dream-state writing that keeps psychoanalysts busy for years. It is very much of its time, and given the subscription only basis of publication (mainly to avoid the censors) the reissue of these two short texts is to be welcomed (if not to everyone's taste).
January 20, 2011
Read surreptitiously during Jury Duty this morning. Originally published as two editions (of 69 each, of course) of a six-folio series in the early 1930s, these were part of artist and publisher Jindřich Štyrský's answer to the censorship of the recently Czech-translated Les Chants de Maldoror et autres textes: the private proliferation of surrealist erotica. I bought this as it's the only other prose work by fantastic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders author Vítězslav Nezval, and his section, taking up the whole first half with Štyrský's delightfully prurient collages as illustration, totally delivers. A strange reminiscence of early sexual experiences, hung up on the physical spaces that memory collects in like dust and on the sheer suggestive power of words, even misunderstood words. Pretty great. Must find more Nezval, if such exists. Štyrský's half collects another set of collages with dream-musings on his long-dead sister (the twin poles of life, mortality and sensuality), plus an essay on so-called pornophilia, and dream-diary excerpts. Totally interesting, all.
Shortly after these were published, Štyrský and Nezval would help found the Czech Surrealist Group, the first surrealist group outside Paris, and one of the longest-surviving.
Shortly after these were published, Štyrský and Nezval would help found the Czech Surrealist Group, the first surrealist group outside Paris, and one of the longest-surviving.
July 24, 2007
I am totally hooked to the pleasure that is reading Czech surrealism.
November 30, 2024
My first venture into surrealist erotica prose (and erotica in general) and I was definitely not let down…
I picked this book up in Prague at the National Gallery as I’ve always been enamoured by the work of Stryrsky and i didn’t know there was any written works by or about him in english. So when I saw this in the gallery shop i picked up without second thought.
The highlight of this for me was probably the pornographic collagework. I feel like i can’t and perhaps shouldn’t elaborate so I’ll just leave it at that.
The written sections of this were interesting (..?) but maybe a step beyond my wheelhouse. Some of the poetry was very passionate but all just a bit mental. The story by Nezval from his time as a student I actually really enjoyed, it was very claustrophobic and so so full of shame.
I gave this a 3 but really I haven’t got an opinion on it. It’s so far removed from what I know that I feel I can’t judge it, only digest it and I found it pretty interesting overall.
I picked this book up in Prague at the National Gallery as I’ve always been enamoured by the work of Stryrsky and i didn’t know there was any written works by or about him in english. So when I saw this in the gallery shop i picked up without second thought.
The highlight of this for me was probably the pornographic collagework. I feel like i can’t and perhaps shouldn’t elaborate so I’ll just leave it at that.
The written sections of this were interesting (..?) but maybe a step beyond my wheelhouse. Some of the poetry was very passionate but all just a bit mental. The story by Nezval from his time as a student I actually really enjoyed, it was very claustrophobic and so so full of shame.
I gave this a 3 but really I haven’t got an opinion on it. It’s so far removed from what I know that I feel I can’t judge it, only digest it and I found it pretty interesting overall.
June 22, 2023
This is the classic Czech surrealist erotica collection, which shortly followed other such classics as Bataille's Story of the Eye, Louÿs's The She Devils, and Aragon's 1929 and Mad Balls: Surrealist Erotica and Irene's Cunt. Includes two stories, one section of poetry, Štyrský's surrealist collages in the vein of Max Ernst, as well as an essay on pornography that precede's Sontag's famous essay by decades.
It's a little tame, but worth it for Štyrský's collages. Will be selling this one.
It's a little tame, but worth it for Štyrský's collages. Will be selling this one.
November 19, 2015
Zatímco Štýrského Emílii jsem četl už dříve a ještě doteď mi sem tam radostí ustřelí trochu semene z penisu, Nezvalovo Sexuální Nocturno pro mě bylo novým kouskem a musím říct, že jsem si při čtení docela živě dokázal vybavit, jak jsem v Třebíči chodil kolem kurev a otáčela se mi kudla v kapse. V jeho podání je výlet do bordelu nezapomenutelný a já si na oslavu tohoto excelentního, sugestivního díla zaonanuji.
Právě teď. Když to čtete.
Právě teď. Když to čtete.
August 2, 2021
10 years ago, a casual reference from musician Grey Malkin made me discover the wonderful surrealist Czech film, Valerie and her Week of Wonders. It was love at first sight, and ever since, I've wanted to dive in the deep waters of czech surrealism, but for some reason, it never really happened... until now.
This slim, beautifully produced volume offers three very alluring works. Well, to be honest, I am somewhat lukewarm towards Halas'collection of poems, Thyrsos. Translator Jed Slast chose to keep the rhyming pattern of the original poems, but I think that this kind of additional constraints frequently hinders the translation of poetry, a very arduous task in itself. The poems are pleasant enough, but I could not get rid of an impression of awkwardness in some sentences, some rhymes, etc (though, English not being my native language, I may be entirely wrong here). With all due respect to Slast, I suspect that much was lost in translation in this case -- perhaps inevitably.
Nezval's Sexual Nocturne was way more enticing. This narrative about the first sexual experiences of a boy apparently rather similar to young Nezval himself was almost... well, not exactly straightforward, but let's say the main events seemed clear enough. But this almost linear narrative was interlaced with distorted memories and lots of mysteriously beautiful surreal images, suggesting a kind of pervasive mystery.
Štyrský's prose poem Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream felt more like a continuous flow of images, some of them echoing others, and the haunting memory of Emilie coming back like a refrain. I found these images particularly inventive and striking, and there was even a strange poignancy to the whole (and to its dark conclusion).
The author's collages were also intriguing, though nowhere near as good as Ernst, in my opinion.
Marxist psychoanalyst Brouk's postscript about "pornophilic" art and its subversive potential proved less than illuminating, though. Let's say it has the charm of a time capsule.
All in all, a short delightful book and, for me, a wonderful entry into Czech surrealism. Now, I have to read Nezval's Valerie, and to find other things by Štyrský.
This slim, beautifully produced volume offers three very alluring works. Well, to be honest, I am somewhat lukewarm towards Halas'collection of poems, Thyrsos. Translator Jed Slast chose to keep the rhyming pattern of the original poems, but I think that this kind of additional constraints frequently hinders the translation of poetry, a very arduous task in itself. The poems are pleasant enough, but I could not get rid of an impression of awkwardness in some sentences, some rhymes, etc (though, English not being my native language, I may be entirely wrong here). With all due respect to Slast, I suspect that much was lost in translation in this case -- perhaps inevitably.
Nezval's Sexual Nocturne was way more enticing. This narrative about the first sexual experiences of a boy apparently rather similar to young Nezval himself was almost... well, not exactly straightforward, but let's say the main events seemed clear enough. But this almost linear narrative was interlaced with distorted memories and lots of mysteriously beautiful surreal images, suggesting a kind of pervasive mystery.
Štyrský's prose poem Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream felt more like a continuous flow of images, some of them echoing others, and the haunting memory of Emilie coming back like a refrain. I found these images particularly inventive and striking, and there was even a strange poignancy to the whole (and to its dark conclusion).
The author's collages were also intriguing, though nowhere near as good as Ernst, in my opinion.
Marxist psychoanalyst Brouk's postscript about "pornophilic" art and its subversive potential proved less than illuminating, though. Let's say it has the charm of a time capsule.
All in all, a short delightful book and, for me, a wonderful entry into Czech surrealism. Now, I have to read Nezval's Valerie, and to find other things by Štyrský.
March 16, 2024
This is a Avante-Garde collection of 1930s Czech surrealist ideas. It is a mix of poems mainly about genitals and sex, a novella about the first sexual experiences and a selection of explicit photomontages based on porn of the day (quite a few erections!).
I took it to be a genuine attempt to bring the human condition using the printed tools for sex available (porn, sexual poems and adult novels) into the regime of art and literature.
Interesting and for me a timeless piece of art/writing.
I took it to be a genuine attempt to bring the human condition using the printed tools for sex available (porn, sexual poems and adult novels) into the regime of art and literature.
Interesting and for me a timeless piece of art/writing.
February 18, 2025
czech surrealism makes sex disturbing (and sexy) again!
September 30, 2008
The Štyrský artwork is fucking amazing. Talk about an underrated brilliant fucking artist! The book design is also gorgeous as is the content. If you like strange space sex collage this book is for you.
Want to read
June 19, 2007GIMME!!!
October 3, 2010
Exquisite & erotic Czech surrealism, compliments of Twisted Spoon Press.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews