Hebdomeros, with Monsieur Dudron's Adventure and Other Metaphysical Writings

by Giorgio de Chirico, John Ashbery (Introduction, translator), Louise Bourgeois (Translator)

The artist Giorgio de Chirico's novel, Hebdomeros is a dream-like book of situations and landscapes reminiscent of his paintings. In his introduction John Ashbery calls the book "the finest work of Surrealist fiction," noting that de Chirico "invented for the occasion a new style and a new kind of novel . . . his long run-on sentences, stitched together with semi-colons, allow a cinematic freedom o f narration . . . his language, like his painting, is invisible: a transparent but dense medium containing objects that are more real than reality." Hebdomeros is accompanied by an appendix of previously untranslated or uncollected writings, including M. Dudron's Adventure, a second, fragmentary novel translated by John Ashbery.

Genres: Fiction, Art, Literature, Italy, Italian Literature, France, Novels

258 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. His most well-known works often feature Roman arcades, long shadows, mannequins, trains, and illogical perspective. His imagery reflects his affinity for the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and of Friedrich Nietzsche, and for the mythology of his birthplace.

After 1919, he became a critic of modern art, studied traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seems like everything about de Chirico was mysterious. Even when he switched to painting classical pastiches in an effort to escape his mysteriousness he was mysterious.

John Ashbery's intro gives an amusing history of the publication of the book. No one knows who even translated it! Mysterious.

The consensus is that de Chirico lost his prodigious magic in the late teens/early 1920's, when his prodigious elitism got the better of him and he spurned all modern art and turned to pastiche (not that he considered it pastiche).

Then nearly a decade after losing his magic he published this magical book. And for some mysterious reason he wrote it in his second language, French. It's more atmosphere and specific description than narrative, but in its essentials it's a prodigal son story. It is also the greatest surrealist novel.

Hebdomeros is one of those books I prefer to read in one sitting, to not break the spell of it.

[knig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phew, Krasznahorkai has been reincarnated back in time and re-emerges with the fanfare and drumroll of the indomitable black lava of words belched in projectile as a slow moving morass of non paragraphed sludge. But this works in a hypnotic way, because this experimental piece has no pretensions: it is the quintessential book of nothing, which it delivers with aplomb.

The crown apotheosis of surrealist writing, Hebdomeros has no plot, as everyone knows. The eponymous Hebdomeros walks about, but always ends up back at the same place (a house he has been renting for ten years), and well, ruminates. Sententiously. At times he is accompanied by a faithful entourage of disciples who have no idea what he’s on about, and who vanish like the Cheshire cat at the most incongruous moments. And if there is an undercurrent of the sententious in this parade of metaphysical meanderings, its probably because the overarching tenor of the dream like sequences is to invoke a ‘Christ and his disciple’s biblical meme.

Which is headily Massala-ed with Classical reference against a background of shifting, ephemeral narratorial texture: violent battles, assassinations, revolutions and centaurs (don’t ask) steamroll in the background, whilst Hebdomeros eulogises, forefront, on the morality of eating certain fruits and vegetables.

The overall ambience is replete with melancholy (Hebdomeros ‘s head is an inch above the bourgeois parapet which confines his brethren, so he is alone and misunderstood), and the passing cortege of vignettes are reminiscent of flicking paint on a canvass with a casual, concentrated panache tempered with this dream merchant’s ‘Pictor Optimus’ engraving.

[Nate D · Rating 2 out of 5]

As if written by a whole committee of de Chiricos as an Exquisite Corpse exercise, this 1929 "novel" is both consistent in feel and entirely disconnected from itself. Unclearly delineated episodes drift in and out of vague philosophical discussion and occasionally compelling imagery unconstrained by plot. Like de Chirico's paintings, the best prose here conveys a kind of architectural longing, but the utter lack of narrative tends to leech their resonance. At least for me. I suspect this would be vastly better if small passages were read aloud in isolation, rather than trying to take in the whole in a couple sittings, as I did.

[Matthieu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giorgio de Chirico wrote this lovely, hallucinatory novel in 1929, a good ten years after his 'metaphysical' period. This 'novel' (if you could call it that) has no real plot and no definite characters—the only true character as such present is the titular protagonist. Hebdomeros goes about his life as a sort of metaphysician; he is accompanied by a group of friends at the start of the text as they arrive at a large building that looked very much like the German consulate in Melbourne—from there, they encounter a long staircase, the apparition of a bear, gladiators wearing diving helmets, a pianist playing an instrument that emits no sound, a tragic melody emanating from an orphanage, and many other strange sights and sounds.

The text itself flows like a sort of dream (not pure automatism, but tracelike). Like his early paintings, Chirico issues forth a series of startling images ("word strokes"—to borrow a phrase from Ezra Pound) that draw the reader into an oneiric world of windy mountains, summer storms, changing seasons, clouds, night, day, etc.

He referred to this work as autobiographical. Was Hebdomeros based on Chirico's life (his adolescence, travels, thoughts, feelings, etc.)? One would tend to think so, given the similar occupations. Hebdomeros worked as a metaphysician—an individual in the constant pursuit of seeing; or rather, one who looks beyond the surface of everyday things; fifteen years before, Chirico followed a similar path (see above). Hebdomeros might have been a sort of double for Chirico— who longed to escape back into the world of unrestricted dreams, but was bound to stay in the waking state by various events/circumstances (namely the war). By utilizing Hebdomeros, de Chirico could once again slip back into that hidden world of reverie, showing that he could still paint—this time with transparent, poetic prose—just as well as with his oil colours.

[Karl Ivan Farthegn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once a seldom time I will bring this book with me to an outdoor cafe and there I will read two pages. Then I will glass eyed put it away for another day when it again is the right time to read in Hebdomeros. Sixteen years have past since I began this ritual and I'm still not at its end, reaching it, is a moment I want to put off for as long as possible, for when I've reached its end there is no more.

[Andrew]

There's a certain type of surrealist writing that I call the "descriptive assault," in which images are simply hurled at the reader, and we are left to put the pieces together. It's something that I find to be sometimes annoying but more often fantastic. Bataille and Roussel stand out as fantastic representatives, and De Chirico stands squarely alongside them. We follow our character, the metaphysician, through dark corridors and into extended lectures of the nature of melancholy. Shit like this is my bread and butter.

[Billy Degge]

how the hell do you even review this?

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

A GR-Friend notes well that the first 15 pp or so of this are astounding. The remaining, though far from poor, still less so. I would venture to say the first 20-25, in fact, constitute some of the very best and most imaginative prose there is.


What is life? What is death? Is life possible on another planet? Do you believe in metempsychosis, in the immortality of the soul, in the inviolability of the laws of nature, in ghosts foretelling disasters to come, in the subconscious of dogs, in the dreams of owls, in what is enigmatic about cicadas, quail’s heads and the spotted skin of the leopard?

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume includes not only the novella Hebdomeros but several short stories and essays artist Giorgio de Chirico also wrote. One of these, "Meditations of a Painter: What the Painting of the Future Might Be," outlines his philosophy of modern art as a rejection of the old ways of representation ("everything routine and accepted") in favor of a sort of neo-Platonic "aesthetic synthesis" that reveals the true essence of objects and scenes. He illustrates this with several prose poems describing various places and things, such as a train station which evokes feelings of happiness with its little flags cackling under the clear blue sky.

This philosophy seems to form the basis of Hebdomeros, often credited as one of the few great works of Surrealist prose. The titular character is a guru of sorts who makes speeches about life and metaphysics to his followers. And that's pretty much it - there's no plot, just Hebdomeros moving through a dreamscape of fantastical images and situations that shifts from paragraph to paragraph like slides through a viewfinder. According to John Ashbery's introduction, de Chirico's muse seems to have been the old Italian city of Turin, a jumble of palazzos, arcades, towers, statuary, and narrow passages altogether expressing some 2400 years of history. There is definitely a kind of architectural structure to Hebdomeros's meanderings, like the movement down a hallway and into one room after another, each revealing something different.

In "Meditations of a Painter" de Chirico proclaims the ultimate goal of art to be the creation of "previously unknown sensations" through the juxtaposition of disparate elements (Surrealism in a nutshell) and that seems to be his purpose here as well. Hebdomeros was written to inspire, not relate a tangible story. A difficult aim whose emphasis on subjectivity runs the risk of incoherence, but de Chirico pulls it off. A very unique book.

[Monty Milne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn’t take this nonsense seriously and I doubt if anyone could, except perhaps for a certain sort of Gallic intellectual kept over long in an overheated library. I don’t believe the author took any of it seriously himself. A lot of it is so absurd and turgid that reading it is tiresome. Nevertheless, it is not entirely devoid of pleasure or interest. There were some parts which made me laugh out loud, such as the bizarre denunciation of eating oysters and other even more innocent foods (reminiscent of some of Saxo Grammaticus’s rants against food types he disliked). I also enjoyed the descriptions of the narrator’s father, who suffers from leukophobia, and insisted on an Etruscan bed. I daresay I am not the only person on GR to have a father with odd habits, but this is rather splendidly strange by anyone’s standards.

Overall, however, I thought the whole thing just a bit too pointless and tedious to be really enjoyable.

[Deanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really into surrealism, however the inclusion of some of de Chirico's paintings add to the imagery of his writing. His descriptions of the places and people whom Hebdomeros comes into contact with are vivid, and it becomes obvious that his first love was art, de Chirico only wrote the one book.

[P · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read a lot of strange books and liked them. This one I could not finish. Incoherent, plot-less, pompous and boring. I like books where nothing happens, but this simply lacked the required atmosphere.

[F.a. Nemo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting read to say the least. Recommended for people who like long sentences and dreams.

[Patrick Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The only reason that I've given this three stars is that I struggled to make sense of it in the first reading but thought that the language and presentation, without any real structure, was interesting as a strategy for writing fiction. Now I am trying again because de Chirico is definitely worth taking seriously, and this story seems to align well with his metaphysical paintings; my score may change.

On first reading I was expecting Hebdomeros to be framed much in the same way as Zarathustra as in Nietzsche's text, but this character seems to me to resemble Ulysses more; on some kind of odyssey; a quest.

[Tayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giorgio de Chirico is one of those rarest of literary creatures, the poet-artist, and a much-lauded and imitated pioneer in both, though his written work remains for the most part unknown. Like his paintings, his prose is something not so much seen or read as lived in and wandered through as one wanders through a dream or a trance. The foreword and some of the translations feature also from his champion, the equally enigmatic John Ashbery, who knows a winner when he sees one.

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surrealist novel by the guy who rejected Surrealism, with fragments and articles on why his style is better than the modern. While I agree with little he writes, I love to read it. Endlessly fascinating freak.

[Chris Di · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, like a verbal painting. Seems to flow as if it has a plot, but it doesn't. If you are interested in surrealism, this is a great example of surrealist literature.

[Roberto]

baffling

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the 1st 15pp or so I was inclined to give this a 5 star rating. It wasn't long after that the rating slipped down a notch. By the end of the bk I was close to giving it a 3. "Hebdomeros", the longest section, was my favorite. In John Ashberry's introduction he writes:

"The novel has no story, though it reads as if it did. Its soul character is Hebdomeros, a kind of "metaphysician" who evolves through various landscapes and situations, alone or accompanied by a shadowy band of young disciples."

Fair enuf.. & that's what I liked most about it. I often found myself reading something in it & suddenly stopping, thinking 'How did it get here?' & then backtracking a bit to trace the writing from the last part I remembered. Here's an excerpt:

"Sometimes a window would open and against the dark background of the room a figure would appear; but people said they were ancestral ghosts and nothing but a figment of the imagination. Though the district was now unquestionably elegant and so much more lively, Hebdomeros shunned it in favor of the park where the pine trees grew. They were martyred trees, for a strange epidemic was raging among them, these attractive, friendly trees, so healthy and tonic. Each one bore a stairway mode of white wood, twined round its trunk like a giant snake; these spiral staircases ended in a kind of platform, a regular torture-collar which choked the unfortunate tree, on which the man known as King Lear to the habitués of the palace amused himself by spying on the birds, hoping to catch them in little-known poses and expressions. He watched out especially for sparrows. Lying down on the platform, as motionless as a log, he no longer looked like a human being. But he did not look like a staute, either. Even when he turned over to take a few minutes' rest, there was nothing in his attitude reminiscent of those figures that lie on stone sarcophagi, be they Etruscan couples of landgraves armed from head to foot. Nor was there anything that reminded one of those old men with flowing beards and gentle eyes, indecently naked and regally reclining among reeds, with their elbows supported by amphorae lying on their sides, and who in ancient statuary represented rivers, the source of the richness of lands."

Anyway, I like De Chirico's metaphysical/enigma paintings but I've never found them to be impressively made technically. To my surpise, I found the writing more articulate. What I DIDN'T really find to be very articulate, or, at least convincing, was his more manifesto-like writing. In "Hebdomeros" strong opinions wd be put forth & it seemed somewhat arbitrary to me whether Hebdomeros supported the opinions or detested them. Later in the bk there's another story called "That evening M. Dudron . . .". Monsieur Dudron is a painter & may be a proxy for de Chirico. Writing about Dudron's reaction to enthusiasts of his work, there's "Another thing that caused him profound horror was when they spoke of dreams and mystery regarding his pictures." Really? That text may've been written 9 yrs after "Hebdomeros".

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hebdomeros is difficult to read. It is a series of feelings, of moods and day dreams of Hebdomeros. Poetic meanderings without plot or conventional characters. It's all in Hebdomeros' head, He sees something in the real world and it reminds him of something and he expresses a detailed account of his day dreams.I only recommend this to people interested in Surrealism, Metaphysical art and Giorgio de Chirico.There are some additional essays by de Chirico about his art. These are insightful and excellent. Most artists fail to express in words what they express in paint. De Chirico shares his opinions on art.

[Czar]

Started the amazing journey and had to pause.. it is like fine chocolate, so good, every morsel need be savored. I can still taste the first couple of chapters and it makes me salivate.. greedily! A major surrealist work that dances on one's head!

[Erik]

a great book by a great painter, somewhat trying on the patience at times because of the ramble-i-ness, the lack of plot and the continuous surreality
none-the-less a n amazing source of endless visual invention and ever-changing vignettes...

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Surrealist novel (even if De Chirico wasn't a Surrealist proper).

[A L]

The novel was good; the metaphysical pieces were dry if still kinda illuminating.

Update: I got way more comedy/satire out of the second reading.