Surreal Lives: The Surrealists 1917-1945 - Softcover

Brandon, Ruth

3.91

129 ratings by Goodreads

9780802137272: Surreal Lives: The Surrealists 1917-1945

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080213727X ISBN 13: 9780802137272

Publisher: Grove Press, 2000

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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

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Review:

Playful, amusing, frivolous, and bizarre. As Ruth Brandon points out in the preface to her marvelous Surreal Lives, surrealism has passed into everyday life as a byword for the strange. However, as this wonderfully exhaustive book point outs, the intellectual and political drive behind the movement was in fact highly revolutionary. What Brandon proceeds to unfold is a kaleidoscopic cultural history of the movement, which by 1924 had self-consciously adopted the title "surrealism," from its emergence in the midst of the ashes of interwar Zurich dada to its enforced relocation to New York in the 1940s. Along the way Surreal Lives deftly weaves a fascinating account of the cultural, artistic, political, personal, and sexual dynamics of the men and women who defined the movement from the 1920s onward.

The personal and artistic connections between the usual suspects of Apollinaire, Picabia, Man Ray, Duchamp, Bu�uel, and Dal� are all traced in extensive and highly entertaining detail. And at the book's center lies the pompous, autocratic, charismatic figure of Andr� Breton and his creative but highly volatile relations with the entire cast--from his feuds with Tristan Tzara to his ultimate disillusion with Dal�. Following Breton's enigmatic career, the book moves beautifully between the revolutionary aspirations of the movement and the endemic literary squabbles that often blunted its radicalism. Brandon is particularly successful at uncovering the importance of the various women who had such a decisive impact upon the development of surrealism, as well as offering a range of salacious and often wonderfully incongruous encounters, such as the aged Erik Satie's involvement in the creation of Marcel Duchamp's The Gift. How surreal. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk

From Kirkus Reviews:

Brandon (The Life and Many Deaths of Harry Houdini, 1994, etc.), a prominent biographer and fiction writer, explores the aesthetics, politics, and psychology of Surrealism by unraveling the complex personal histories of the movement's key players. Among multiple sources of Surrealism, Brandon highlights two: Marxism and Freudianism. Born of the turmoil of WWI and christened by Apollinaire, this revolutionary artistic trend advocated anarchy, sided with the political left during the interwar period, and aspired to produce an iconoclastic ``anti-art.'' A creative use of dreams, delving into the subconscious, and a preoccupation with sex, death, and excrement complemented the Surrealists' political radicalism. Although nowadays we associate Surrealism primarily with visual art, literary figures like the autocratic Andr Breton headed the movement at its inception. Transgression of boundaries between different artistic media was quite common, and many artists also wrote poetry or prose. After the shock induced by Buuel's films, cinematography advanced as the most immediate Surrealist format. Brandon systematically points out the eccentricities that shaped Surrealists' lives and, consequently, their creative process. Despising conventional moral and family values and considering procreation ``sloppy'' at best, many Surrealists were involved in mnages ... trois, bisexual relations, and unscrupulous leeching off rich American lovers. On the other hand, Elsa Triolet and Gala Eluard successfully exploited their husbands' talents to attain the lifestyle they desired. Elsa made Louis Aragon a national icon and had him endorse her writing; the ``nymphomaniacal harpy'' Gala achieved fame and wealth by transforming (her second husband) Dal's originally subversive art into expensive commercial entertainment, compliant with the Fascist regimes in Spain and Germany. Scattering its principles by the wayside, the Surrealist movement stumbled toward its zenith, torn by internal contradictions. Rooted to a large extent in neurotic obsessions, pathological tendencies, and introspective observation, Surrealism is a rare case where insights into artists' lives facilitate interpretation of their creations. A marvelous job of using biographical material to demystify esoteric art. -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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