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Surreal Lives: The Surrealists 1917-1945
In the years following World War I, a small group of writers, painters, and filmmakers called the Surrealists set out to change the way we perceive the world. In Surreal Lives, Ruth Brandon follows the lives and interactions of such firecracker minds as the movement's didactic "Pope," Andre Breton, and the ambitious and manic Salvador Dali, as well as Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, Max Ernst, and filmmaker Luis Bunuel. It charts their shifting allegiances, and their ties to muses and patrons like Gala Dali and Peggy Guggenheim. Ruth Brandon spins the many stories of Surrealism with wit, energy, and insight, bringing sharp analysis to an eccentric cast of characters whose struggles and achievements came to mirror and define the way the world changed between the wars. "Fascinating, impassioned... admirable [for] the masterly storytelling, the richness of anecdotal incident, the keen reporting of intellectual enthusiasms and artistic collaborations, and the panorama of a spectacular cultural galaxy." -- The New York Times Book Review; "Superbly entertaining... A cousin to Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return." -- Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World; "A lively and absorbing complement to [the Surrealists'] work." -- The New Yorker
554 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 8, 2014
An exercise in the higher gossip. (Criminally lacking in images.)
Not that it’s necessarily bad—indeed, Brandon’s technical skills are impressive—but limited.
The book looks at the lives of the surrealist authors, painters and film-makers between the beginning of the War to End All Wars and the end of the next world conflict. There is Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Francis Picabia, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dalí, but the focus of the story, the one about whom the narrative constantly revolves—even as it digresses for long periods—is André Breton, who clearly confounds Brandon.
And when I say looks at the lives—I mean the lives. Brandon rarely strays beyond their immediate lives: their is just enough context to make their action’s understandable, but not enough to show why what they did was important or interesting. Sure, there are bits a reader may pick up about surrealism, its history, meaning and mechanisms, but these are really only interesting to Brandon in how they motivate the people—one is tempted to say the characters, since often this reads like a novel.
Fortunately, though, she avoids one of the faults such a narrative can fall into: the easy psychoanalyzing. Not that the people are empty shells: she plumbs their emotions and thoughts, but she roots these in statements they actually made, or activities they actually engaged in. There are occasional flashes of odd interpretative frameworks: he constant, subtle references to the philosophical differences between Francophones (theoretically inclined) and Anglophones (pragmatic), but these are dressing and do not fundamentally alter her analyses.
The focus on lives in interesting for the first few chapters, when in a couple of nice set pieces, she brings the people most of us only know by name to life. And she is very clever in how she shapes the narrative, tying together the various networks of artists as they came from Spain, from the East, met in Paris, ventured to and from New York. It is a layered story that looks easy on the page but must have taken an intense amount of concentration and work to flow.
But over time, the book flags, because these people are only people in her handling. There are only so many affairs, so many betrayals, so many hypocrisies and crises that be kept straight. A novel would solve the problem by focusing on a few of these. A history by trying to find their larger meaning to the culture and society. Brandon’s work falls in between. Unless one is really invested in surrealism, already, when coming to the book the importance of a lot of the details is hard to fathom. It starts to read like a tabloid.
Which is not to say that Brandon doesn’t have a sense of surrealism’s history or development. She sees it growing out of Dada, which was consumed by its own contradictions: artists who proclaimed the death of art, a reliance on chance—but with a purpose to subvert. Breton created surrealism by resolving these contradictions: he found a purpose, uniting surrealism with communism, and a method—automatic writing, borrowed from spiritualists, but not to speak to the dead, rather to plumb the unconscious.
Eventually, surrealism suffered from its own contradictions. Communism posed a problem for all leftist artists: be an apparatchik or class traitor. Surrealism required support from the very middle class it disdained. And Breton, for all his talk of ultimate freedom, was quick to ex-communicate anyone who did not meet his own very exacting standards. The need to please was especially hard on Aragon, an excellent writer who was forced to account for his novels—Breton had declared novels an illegitimate form of art.
The movement started to die off in the 1930s, only to be saved first by Luis Buñuel and his movies and then by Dalí—Dalí who would eventually destroy surrealism even as he became its face. Surrealism was supposed to surprise no matter what—and he surprised by supporting Fascists. Breton could not follow that. Indeed, he watched in sad confusion as Dalí became the face of surrealism and turned it into only another gewgaw to be sold in the marketplace. Dalí became rich—and a parody of himself—while Breton remained poor, always refusing to profit from his work, and forgotten.
At the end, Brandon contrasts the various fates of surrealism with the existentialists who came up behind the surrealists, influenced by them but looking for a way forward. She notes that the existentialist writings—particularly those of Camus—remain read and vital, while surrealist works languish—deservedly so, she says. Dalí made surrealism into a bit of pop culture fluff. But Breton was important, even if his influence was subtle: he named an aspect of life that had not been named before, and so gave the 20th century a new way of looking at the universe.
It is an effective ending, even if what came before is sometimes too gossipy.
Not that it’s necessarily bad—indeed, Brandon’s technical skills are impressive—but limited.
The book looks at the lives of the surrealist authors, painters and film-makers between the beginning of the War to End All Wars and the end of the next world conflict. There is Marcel Duchamp, Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Francis Picabia, Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dalí, but the focus of the story, the one about whom the narrative constantly revolves—even as it digresses for long periods—is André Breton, who clearly confounds Brandon.
And when I say looks at the lives—I mean the lives. Brandon rarely strays beyond their immediate lives: their is just enough context to make their action’s understandable, but not enough to show why what they did was important or interesting. Sure, there are bits a reader may pick up about surrealism, its history, meaning and mechanisms, but these are really only interesting to Brandon in how they motivate the people—one is tempted to say the characters, since often this reads like a novel.
Fortunately, though, she avoids one of the faults such a narrative can fall into: the easy psychoanalyzing. Not that the people are empty shells: she plumbs their emotions and thoughts, but she roots these in statements they actually made, or activities they actually engaged in. There are occasional flashes of odd interpretative frameworks: he constant, subtle references to the philosophical differences between Francophones (theoretically inclined) and Anglophones (pragmatic), but these are dressing and do not fundamentally alter her analyses.
The focus on lives in interesting for the first few chapters, when in a couple of nice set pieces, she brings the people most of us only know by name to life. And she is very clever in how she shapes the narrative, tying together the various networks of artists as they came from Spain, from the East, met in Paris, ventured to and from New York. It is a layered story that looks easy on the page but must have taken an intense amount of concentration and work to flow.
But over time, the book flags, because these people are only people in her handling. There are only so many affairs, so many betrayals, so many hypocrisies and crises that be kept straight. A novel would solve the problem by focusing on a few of these. A history by trying to find their larger meaning to the culture and society. Brandon’s work falls in between. Unless one is really invested in surrealism, already, when coming to the book the importance of a lot of the details is hard to fathom. It starts to read like a tabloid.
Which is not to say that Brandon doesn’t have a sense of surrealism’s history or development. She sees it growing out of Dada, which was consumed by its own contradictions: artists who proclaimed the death of art, a reliance on chance—but with a purpose to subvert. Breton created surrealism by resolving these contradictions: he found a purpose, uniting surrealism with communism, and a method—automatic writing, borrowed from spiritualists, but not to speak to the dead, rather to plumb the unconscious.
Eventually, surrealism suffered from its own contradictions. Communism posed a problem for all leftist artists: be an apparatchik or class traitor. Surrealism required support from the very middle class it disdained. And Breton, for all his talk of ultimate freedom, was quick to ex-communicate anyone who did not meet his own very exacting standards. The need to please was especially hard on Aragon, an excellent writer who was forced to account for his novels—Breton had declared novels an illegitimate form of art.
The movement started to die off in the 1930s, only to be saved first by Luis Buñuel and his movies and then by Dalí—Dalí who would eventually destroy surrealism even as he became its face. Surrealism was supposed to surprise no matter what—and he surprised by supporting Fascists. Breton could not follow that. Indeed, he watched in sad confusion as Dalí became the face of surrealism and turned it into only another gewgaw to be sold in the marketplace. Dalí became rich—and a parody of himself—while Breton remained poor, always refusing to profit from his work, and forgotten.
At the end, Brandon contrasts the various fates of surrealism with the existentialists who came up behind the surrealists, influenced by them but looking for a way forward. She notes that the existentialist writings—particularly those of Camus—remain read and vital, while surrealist works languish—deservedly so, she says. Dalí made surrealism into a bit of pop culture fluff. But Breton was important, even if his influence was subtle: he named an aspect of life that had not been named before, and so gave the 20th century a new way of looking at the universe.
It is an effective ending, even if what came before is sometimes too gossipy.
April 2, 2022
The first thing that comes to mind associated with Surrealism is Lobster Telephone ( my husband's was Persistence of Memory) . Brandon's book gives you a far richer understanding of the Art Movement, from its genesis originating with the long angry howl of Dadaism", against the insanity of the carnage of World War 1, to Breton and his ideas about what it should mean, and all the various players-artists, writers, poets, filmmakers. I didn't really know, till this book, that surrealism started as their way of making sense of a world where millions could be sent to their deaths-when reality and the actions of politicians were nonsensical, chaos seemed like the rational response. Her descriptions of how the artists evolved and refined their ideas is fascinating, and enhances your understanding of what they were trying to convey. It was actually a deeply political way of viewing art. Breton however, comes across, oddly enough, as a tyrant-he proclaimed a manifesto of absolute freedom of thought, while maintaining tight control over the members of his exclusive clique( such as it was). That seems extremely paradoxical. Another facet of the surrealists I found strange was that for people who espoused radical ways of thought as a foundation, they seemed to have no role for women apart from mother/maiden/crone, a departure from Dadaism that was co-founded by a woman, Emmy Hemmings. She traces the paths the movement took, and all the various schisms and the ways in which artists tried to reconcile a contradictory world-a lot of the surrealists gravitated towards leftist thought, against the creeping tide of fascism, but were confounded by what to make of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, for instance. Stalinism and the censors were anathema to the surrealists, and again, how did one reconcile their loyalty towards the force against the fascists, with Communist dictatorships? She also has a fascinating chapter on the rise and success of the Spanish surrealists, and how their entry into Breton's little world added another dimension to it. I didn't know that Bunuel and Dali were such close collaborators! Excellent writing.
Duchamp, for one, seems to have handled all these internal contradictions by withdrawing from art entirely, some others died by suicide. Some (like Dali) supported Fascism when it was politically expedient for them to do so, exposing some of the complications of Breton's militant insistence on absolute freedom- what if your version of that infringed in someone else's? Clearly more nuance was required! Some of them were able to see that, who broke entirely with Breton,- Aragon and Tristan Tzara who subsequently were active members of the French Resistance ( a fascinating outcome for someone who decided that the best response to a senseless war was gibberish, who realised that in some wars, you do have to pick a side). Breton was strangely intransigent for the founder of a movement based on freedom of expression,and he carried those views to America where he was a refugee, and after that on his return to Paris. Brandon explains how this alienated him from his followers, and friends, and served to reduce surrealism to the far more commercial and accessible artworks of Dali. It's an excellent read on engaging with the thoughts and ideas behind it, beyond the associations we have of Surrealism with mere dreamlike abstraction. The ideas behind it are still relevant, in a world that's seeing the rise of fascism.
Duchamp, for one, seems to have handled all these internal contradictions by withdrawing from art entirely, some others died by suicide. Some (like Dali) supported Fascism when it was politically expedient for them to do so, exposing some of the complications of Breton's militant insistence on absolute freedom- what if your version of that infringed in someone else's? Clearly more nuance was required! Some of them were able to see that, who broke entirely with Breton,- Aragon and Tristan Tzara who subsequently were active members of the French Resistance ( a fascinating outcome for someone who decided that the best response to a senseless war was gibberish, who realised that in some wars, you do have to pick a side). Breton was strangely intransigent for the founder of a movement based on freedom of expression,and he carried those views to America where he was a refugee, and after that on his return to Paris. Brandon explains how this alienated him from his followers, and friends, and served to reduce surrealism to the far more commercial and accessible artworks of Dali. It's an excellent read on engaging with the thoughts and ideas behind it, beyond the associations we have of Surrealism with mere dreamlike abstraction. The ideas behind it are still relevant, in a world that's seeing the rise of fascism.
August 27, 2012
This is a good basic book for understanding the major players in the Surrealist movement. It is also a lively read, as any book on Surrealism should be!
November 24, 2018
This book provides context for the Surrealist movement and the Dada movement before it. I think the fact that it was written by a woman gives it a different perspective than other books on this period. A nice companion piece to "The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali" that I read a few months before this volume by Ruth Brandon.
June 12, 2020
Too eagerly psychoanalytic and reflexively anti-communist, but a solid overview of the lives of the core surrealists.
May 18, 2017
I was fortunate to find this book by chance in the public library where I was living in Midland, Michigan. I was inspired by it then, and it continues to inspire me. I love the story about Jacques Rigaut and Phillippe Souppault going together to a dinner party, only they forget how to get there, so they decide to go to another place where people are going dressed as though for a dinner party, carrying flowers, bottles of wine, etc., and then they have so much fun doing that they decide to do that again and again, only sometimes being not let in or asked to leave. I like the attention to the characters of these artists, since Surrealism emphasizes so much the subjectivity of our experience.
April 5, 2008
A good historical book, describing the lives of a number of prominent Dadaists and Surrealists. Reading about their personal lives and foibles really filled them out in my mind, as well as clarifying for me the history of the art. I was not very aware, if at all, of the sad and stupid impact Stalinism had on surrealism and the surrealists.
Very heavily footnoted, the book makes it easy to dig further into this history. I've already got Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault's "Les Champs Magnetiques" from the library.
Very heavily footnoted, the book makes it easy to dig further into this history. I've already got Andre Breton and Philippe Soupault's "Les Champs Magnetiques" from the library.
May 16, 2013
This is lovely. The writing can be confusing at times - numerous times I thought "who is HE in this sentence"? - but the narrative is a fascinating one. Brandon follows the trajectory of SURREALISM as a kind of entity. And so this is the story of Surrealism as it played out in the lives of its adherents. I love the book, too, for its perspective on Breton. It is a humane, critical, and yet loving portrayal of the man and the monster. Much appreciated.
August 22, 2013
So far it's been fantastic. It's an in-depth look at all of the major players of the movement. The writer is maybe a little too in love with certain figures, leaving you feeling the stories are a bit romanticized, or maybe just that the urban legends are mixing with the reality a bit too much, but this is surrealism after all. It works as a great base of learning, but I think, would also be a good composite read for those familiar with the material.
July 8, 2011
A book that felt like it could have easily been half the length and contained the same amount of information. Since Surrealism began as Dada the first 1/3 of the book is dedicated to that. Pages and pages about French poetry...dada poetry none-the-less. Some interesting stories, but overall it was more chaff than wheat.
September 9, 2007
Excellent account of the personalities and struggles behind the Surrealist movement.
March 24, 2008
a good gossipy read, with some solid insights and good historical context.
October 1, 2008
A good overview of surrealism's beginning, its schisms, and development in Paris, Zurich and New York. No theory here, all historical, personal, with a bit of gossip thrown in.
March 9, 2010
Shallow, charmless recycling of familiar material.
September 4, 2011
Good bibliography.
March 17, 2014
If you are at all interested in the dadaists or surrealists, this is a must. Everyone you ever heard of in either movements are included, even some you don't know. Slow, but enriching.
April 27, 2016
It's obvious the author did a tremendous amount of research. I'm not sure all the details are necessary -- some editing would have made the book even better.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews