Il mio rapporto con la realtá é sempre stato complicato. Ho avuto spesso momenti in cui ho guardato con diffidenza gli specchi. Momenti in cui non mi sento piú sola in casa. Le pareti piene di sagome, voci dappertutto. La realtá mi si presenta in enigma. In Nadja ritrovo le stesse sensazioni.

Col tempo ho trovato un leggero equilibrio in queste sovrapposizioni di realtá e mi sono messa alla ricerca di libri in cui il surreale sconvolge il mondo dei personaggi.

Nadja (1928), il secondo libro pubblicato da André Breton, è una delle opere simbolo del movimento surrealista francese. Inizia con la domanda "Chi sono io?" e termina con "la bellezza sarà convulsa o non sarà” ( )

Der literarische Surrealismus erschließt sich mir nicht. ( )

Ok, I keep picking on Breton. He's always struck me as a pompous, overbearing bore. But then how wd I know? It's not like I met the guy. "Nadja" was probably my favorite bk by him. Nonetheless, I remember being mainly bored. I don't think I'll blame it on the translator, Richard Howard, b/c this is an Evergreeen Original & I take it for granted they do a good job. ( )

Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.

I found this artful. It worked on a cloudy Friday, a holiday from work. Shorn of ambition and venturing out for a pint (or two) of Czech pilsner. A man of letters encounters a beguiling woman. Something like synchronicity develops, though with blurred edges that suggest a chemical imbalance.

This brief novel reaches out to other works, other authors. There are plenty of photographs and drawings from the mysterious Nadja. The capricious perforations denote the surrealist logic. Nadja is a lodestar in milieu where the masses froth and scream for prophets and assassins. ( )

Nadja is Andre Breton’s second book, originally published in 1928 and is apparently the first surrealist romance novel. Breton, the founder of surrealism, seems to have based some of the story on a short relationship in Paris with a woman who perhaps later went mad and was institutionalized. Included are photographs of places in Paris that Breton found as surreal or that he visited with Nadja. There are also some drawings she made for him. It’s difficult to tell what’s real and isn’t – which was Breton’s point I assume. My favorite quote: “There is no use being alive if one must work.” That’s pretty real. ( )