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| Surreal Lives |
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| New Papermac edition, MACMILLAN 2000 |
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| Mention the word 'surrealism' today, and certain
visual images spring to mind. Man Ray's glass tears, Magritte's rain of
bowler-hatted men, Salvador Dali's waxed moustaches and soft watches,
are familiar to millions. And images such as these inevitably lead to
certain assumptions about Surrealism: that it was primarily concerned
with the visual arts; that it was about jokes; that it was designed with
a beady eye to the market. |
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| Nothing could be further from the truth. Surrealism
began among poets whose aim was to create a revolution, both political
and artistic, combining the visions of Freud, Marx and Sade. Jokes always
formed part of the mix, but the movement's leader, André Breton,
was a man of the utmost gravity - indeed, almost totally without humour
- to whom commercialism was anathema. And although the group always included
some painters, it was not until fairly late that the visual arts came
to occupy a dominant place in the Surrealist canon. |
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| Surreal Lives shows how one man - André
Breton - moulded a group of wild and brilliant spirits to the vagaries
of his character. His charm was legendary. Yet his qualities were not
particularly attractive: he was rigid, bullying, humourless and unforgiving.
Passionate about freedom, both personal and artistic, he was totalitarian
in his impulses, a dictator in the age of dictators. What was the secret
of his charisma? And can these two impulses - to freedom and to total
control - possibly be reconciled? These are the contradictions at the
heart of the Surrealists' story. |
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| '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.' - New York Times Book Review |
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| 'Superbly entertaining' - Washington Post Book World |
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| 'This is a wonderful book' - John Banville |
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