my thoughts on "Paris Peasant" by Louis Aragon
While reading "Paris Peasant" by Louis Aragon I was confused a lot of the time. I found it difficult to follow along with the text of the novel, as it did not seem to have much structure or storyline in my opinion. I also noticed that the beginning of the text was not very something that seemed to portray similarity to introductions of other texts that I have read in the past. I noticed that the beginning to this text was abrupt and I was confused initially at the structure of the introduction. That being said, I was able to notice that introduction or beginning of the text was quite meaningful and deep. The beginning of this text seemed to focus on life and its deeper meaning or at least that was the way that I had portrayed it. The text was very descriptive and it was slightly hard for me to follow along, but I was able to understand and interpret what was going on and how descriptive this novel was based on life. When the novel came to talking about certain buildings or places, I was pretty confused. I felt like I was not able to grasp on to the reasoning and the meaning behind the description of these places. My question about the text is what do we think makes the beginning of the novel seem so random or abrupt? During this novel, I had a hard time reading it due to the names of places being in another language. I found that I had more trouble understanding the storyline or flow of the text. I noticed that throughout this novel the author points out things in a way of including the reader in the text. This was interesting to me and helped me have an even deeper interest in the text. I wonder why the information about certain buildings or places is descriptive to the point where it talks about most fo the details you would find or observe when visiting any place. This was interesting to me as it makes me wonder what the purpose was behind the descriptiveness and if it leads to a deeper meaner or way of perceiving this text. I think that it is very interesting how descriptive this text is and I think that it adds beauty to this novel. I believe that this text allows readers to have a deeper level of understanding and meaningfulness.
Hello! I like how you mention that the narrator includes the reader through his observations. I hadn't really considered it in that way before, but it makes sense! I think the reading is probably more enjoyable when you imagine it as a kind of "tour" (like you describe), rather than just the ramblings of an unknown man.
ReplyDeleteHi Taia! I loved reading your blog post, and agree with you. I found the text very confusing too and some times it was so hard to follow along because he would go into such detail about places and I wouldn't understand why. After I watched the lecture that Jon posted I realized that this is a different type of text I had never seen before. It uses the idea of surrealism, and allows our unconscious mind to be activated by using illogical senses and ways to describe these places. After learning that, the novel truly became more beautiful to me and I understood that we were just meant to sit back and absorb the words and let our mind flow. He went into grave detail about the perceived notions people have about some things, like how he mentioned baths and the perceived notion that man associates baths with sensual pleasure. I then realized that under everything our unconscious mind has a way of thinking that we never get to see because we are so caught up in reality. I hope that helps you understand a bit of why it was so random at the beginning! I don"t fully understand surrealism myself but I hope that this book continues to show people a way of different thinking. Dreaming vs. reality.
ReplyDeleteI liked that you pointed out the descriptive nature of his work, and I wrote about this as well. I believe he uses the description to search for deeper underlying messages in the world around him.
ReplyDeleteHello, thank you for your insight. Great point about introductions; I also felt Aragon's introductory part of his book was very different than other novels. It went straight into his deep, somewhat "random" thoughts, whereas other novels tend to introduce us to characters and the setting. Likewise, the lack of plot was also unique. However, I enjoyed this lack of plot. Although it was hard to undersand with an expectation of conventional novels, Aragon's style allowed me to let go of any preassumptions and observe/ perceive information as it was being given. It felt very natural and close to real-life observations.
ReplyDeleteDaniel C
Hi hi :D I am glad to see someone talk about the introduction. It was so different from the usual introduction I see in fiction and really caught me off guard. Really just chucked the reader into some deep philosophical type thing haha. I guess it made sense considering the rest of the story, as it wouldn't have made sense to introduce the character.
ReplyDeleteHi Taia! You mention that you were uncertain as to why Aragon would include such detailed and lengthy descriptions of places in the streets of Paris. I wonder if, after our in-class discussions last week, you have come to some conclusions about this!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post!
This was my initial response to as this was the first Surrealist work that I've read. But it definitely provokes you to think differently and do things differently. As I was reading it, I saw elements of a travelogue in there, but not quite because the writer is not really going around the entire city and identifying touristy landmarks, but ordinary places that he makes seem extraordinary. This has inspired me to read more Surrealist works.
ReplyDelete