A reflection of Argon’s “Paris Peasant”

Going into this novel, all I knew of it was that it is considered one of the major works of surrealism. Knowing very little about this concept, I searched it up in the context of literature. I primarily found it to refer to the attempt of an author to merge reality and imagination. If this definition is correct, I found it relatively difficult to identify within Paris Peasant when the narrator did not mention it directly. To me, it reads as more of a man’s account of Paris changing and evolving throughout time alongside some of his personal experiences. I could not discern where the narrator describing his empirical observations ended and his imagination began (I would imagine in a surrealist novel that it should be easier to make such a distinction). 

Being unable to identify surrealist perspectives in this novel makes me question whether I truly understand the concept itself. The narrator directly mentions surrealism on page 65/66, describing surrealism as “a new vice that has been born” that is the “unconcontrolled provocation of the image for its sake […]” that undergoes a process of metamorphosis to introduce itself to the “domain of representation.” The narrator further says that such an image will force an individual to “revise the entire universe.” Despite reading these two pages multiple times, I find it difficult to reach any comprehensive understanding of what the narrator is trying to convey. The diction used by the narrator is very technical and what I would describe as inaccessible for people that don’t have a solid knowledge of surrealism and accompanying theories.  

Something I didn’t like about this novel was made clear about halfway through when I realized that there was no central plotline. Without clear transitions, the narrator goes from talking about brothels and prostitution to changing landscapes in Paris to cafés or salons and their patrons. He even focuses on the effects of expropriation on the working class at one point in the novel. I understand the author was trying to explain a rapidly changing Paris, but everything he described felt disconnected and hard to follow. Additionally, I found the novel difficult to engage with or keep my attention without developed characters or a central plot. Towards the end of the novel, I concluded that what I read felt more like an essay of various empirical observations and philosophical propositions than a fiction book. 

Overall, a question I would pose to my classmates is as follows: do you feel like this novel gave you a proper understanding of the concept of surrealism? Or do you, like me, find it hard to make any significant conclusions about the importance of surrealist ideology? If you do understand, how would you define surrealism solely from what you’ve read in this novel?