Book Description
tr David Gascoyne ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

One of my favorite books of all time
I discovered this book at Arizona State University's, Hayden Library when I was in school in 1993 and it totally changed what I thought about literature. Its absolutely intoxicating freedom of creation was like nothing I had ever read except maybe Arthur Rimbaud. This book, I believe, points in the direction of pure human creativity not constrained by logic, form or anything that disconnects us from existence itself. On these roads maybe we can get back to the beginnings, not writing stories but why we write stories, why we scratched on cave walls. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An insider's view of surrealism during the heroic period
This book, along with Desnos' "Liberty or Love" and Soupault's "The Last Nights of Paris", is probably one of the most important texts on the Surrealist movement of the 1930's from the perspective of not only a member, but a president of the club--Gascoyne would later, with his "Journals" and a handful of interviews he gave, be one of the only impartial critics of the movement as it existed during a period of legendary poetic discovery.

On the other hand, for enthusiasts of David Gascoyne's work itself apart from the Surrealist influence, this may be a bit disappointing.Gascoyne was young when he wrote this and was still a little naive about the red tape he would encounter later with Breton and the gang, being a Catholic and having some strength of personality.I was actually surprised that in this text he backed up Breton's Second Manifesto, which ultimately destroyed the movement by ejecting its most valuable members.Later on he would say of Breton: "He was a Trotskyist and you didn't argue with him for long.All the same, Breton was to Surrealism what Freud was to Psychoanalysis."

The youthful naivete notwithstanding, Gascoyne's feverish passion for all things rebellious and surreal makes you feel as though you are there with him in the streets of Paris when the spirit of Rimbaud and Lautreamont were resurrected by a few men who got sick of war, drudgery, and society's determination to make everything banal.

A Short Survey of Surrealism
David Gascoyne's classsic text of 1935 was the first comprehensive work on Surrealism to be published in English. His membership of the Surrealist movement and his association with its leading members - among them Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, Mac Ernst, and Salvador Dali - placed him in an ideal position to witness and record the development and significance of its foremost writers and artists. David Gascoyne lived in France in 1937-39, 1947-8 and 1953-64, during which time he became one of the most distinguished of British poets and translators. He now lives on the Isle of Wight. --- from book's back cover ... Read more

Product Description
Published for the British Council and the National Book League. First published in 1952. Reprinted with additions to bibliography in 1969. ... Read more