Just as the Surrealists put themselves at an oblique to the rest of society, Raymond Queneau put himself oblique to them – never, for instance, ascribing to the rather silly idea of automatic writing. (Well, I think it’s silly. Still, if you did it for long enough I suppose you might write Macbeth…) He questioned their support of the USSR in the twenties, and later had a big split with Breton, though not with Bataille, Prévert, Desnos…
But he’s not here for all that. He’s here, on the day the original manuscript draft of the Surrealist Manifesto was due to be auctioned at Sotheby’s in Paris, because of his looks. This is 1954. REgular readers know how I like a nice tweed.
And by the way – think it’s a bit surreal for them to be auction off the Surrealist Manifesto? Good Guardian blog by Kevin Jackson here.
7 Comments
May 21, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I’m sure that tweed is on the verge of a comeback, even if I have to initiate it myself. But I will need some support. Ten years ago I tried to single-handedly restore the cravat to its former glory and failed miserably.
Any tweed fans out there?
May 21, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I’m sure you’ll find Madame Arcati on side… and you know, looking at this picture again I just find myself thinking, “how marvellous!”
May 22, 2008 at 6:32 am
Exquisitely twee rarver mate/s tearing forth in a headlong rush to the brave new fuss of this and that, a bit of chat, and well, beyond marvelous, and into the realm where to think of surrealist doctrine is to pose all au contrair, and for one’s position in the japes, be mistaken for that of a person after cheap one nighters with a love buddie who doesn’t mind living with an intellectual gold digger seeking inner royal flush, the nuts of wisdom, eces, poetic, seven long years to enter beneath and follow in the footsteps of these chaps, top flight blathers who created a Group of chancers hoping their brand of bible caught on in the art gallery in which the poetry director is absent after getting all barred from the local public house where, men wear slacks, free from a pointed figure of indivisible prejudices, all jumbled up and in need of airing, the energy, the anger, controlled and directed into print, to see beneath, in the bardic tradition, takes 28 luna cycles, which is the time one traditionally made purchase on the final grade/level of attainment intellectually.
After seven yrs hitting the many books, and constant blather in person and print, the sudden appearance of the moment beyond which, lie the riches of a singularly expressed intellect, communicating the colour one’s heart may cleave to without and within, but never alone, always the tradition, group, movement, poetic truth/s he and she’ s/he God wrung, wrings, beckons and poetry a force, a will to be, a leaning toward, desire to create freedom for the singular and universal both, all or none progress through the many scenes staged on the route to what attinment our wit and instinct acquired, what tower between two streams of vortes gas spinning out of the dome..gra agus siochainn, bring back ‘anging!!!
May 22, 2008 at 11:06 am
I’m currently reintroducing the cardigan -against stupendous opposition (howling derision). Yes, but I will not give up, a poet is shameless -or he’s nothing.
May 23, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Well, his face sure looks silly! Not a very pleasant-seeming fellow at all…
Oh, and Mr. Crowley, as I recall, it takes 32 lunar cycles to reach one’s highest level of intellectual attainment ( :
May 24, 2008 at 12:04 am
I forgave our French teacher everything when he introduced us to ‘Exercices de Style’.
May 24, 2008 at 5:47 pm
crikey Miss Baroque, have you airbrushed out the gauloise to account for modern sensibilties like they did with Malraux on that stamp a few years ago? haven’t visited in a while so glad to see you are still going strong although may not have visited but I have tant rêvé de toi as they say. Hope you are having a super weekend, tata for now