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The dream years av Lisa Goldstein
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The dream years (urspr publ 1985; utgåvan 1986)

av Lisa Goldstein

MedlemmarRecensionerPopularitetGenomsnittligt betygOmnämnanden
2106127,974 (3.65)9
An unusual love story set in Paris that moves in time from the 1920s to the late 1960s.
Medlem:AntAllan
Titel:The dream years
Författare:Lisa Goldstein
Info:London: Orion/Unwin, pb, 181pp
Samlingar:Ditt bibliotek, § Fiction
Betyg:
Taggar:♻ cover: Danny Flynn, ↪ novel, ⌘ pbB, ≈ fiction, ≈ science fiction

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The Dream Years av Lisa Goldstein (Author) (1985)

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Surrealism and time travel and revolution in a lushly written view of Paris as it was, and perhaps one day will be.
( )
  JimDR | Dec 7, 2022 |
review of
Lisa Goldstein's The Dream Years
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 15, 2017

Maybe some day I'll start writing flash fiction reviews & I won't need to redirect you anymore. In the meantime, my full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/543085-he-said-s

Another new writer to me. While I was reading this I coincidentally ran across an excerpt from a Damien Broderick book where he discussed the difficulty of pigeon-holing this as SF (or some such). That interested me. &, yeah, I wdn't call it SF, it's more of a romantic art history fantasy. I liked it.

The basic premise is that a fictional member of the Paris 1924 circle of Surrealists encounters brief glimpses of a woman who turns out to be from 1968. Then he gets brought forward in time to the May 1968 revolution in France partially impelled by attraction to the mysterious woman. Other nightmare forces get drawn into the revolutionary conflict & more Surrealists from 1924 enter the fray as magicians that'd partially inspired the revolution.

Given that I like Surrealism, esp the paintings & movies, & given that all of the Surrealist characters, except for the main one, Robert, are based on historic figures, & given that I have some interest in the Parisian events of May, 1968, I enjoyed this.

Chapter one begins w/ this epigraph:

""Putting life in the service of the unconscious."

"Maurice Nadeau,
THE HISTORY OF SURREALISM"

I have Nadeau's bk, it's one of at least 20 Surrealist bks I have, & when I read the above quote I assumed that I'd read it. SO, for the vague purposes of this review I decided to pull the bk off of my shelves & to leaf thru it looking for something useful & was surprised to find that it's one of the bks about Surrealism I haven't read. As punishment to myself, I then flung myself out the window, I live on the 41st floor of a home for incurably sane threats-to-the-status-quo, only to find myself right back at my desk again where I'm writing this review. Weird. While I haven't read the bk, it appears that one or more rats have nibbled at its lower right corner. Make of that what you will.

When I read these bks for review I write notes in pencil on the inside front cover. This bk has a browning cover whose age is causing it to fall apart. Pencil notes on this browning jacket are hard to read, they're even harder to read once the cover has tape over the notes to hold it together. As such, I struggled to read the note for p3: "_____ & the _______ TOWER"? "Breton & the ______ tower"? It even occurred to me that I might've thought of some reason to refer to the bk about the 'unabomber' & the Harvard professor who reputedly sadistically used him. But, no, it says: "BRETON & THE FORTUNE TELLER". Too bad, I had higher hopes.

""Objective chance," the fortune-teller said. It was obvious from the way she spoke she didn't understand the words. "He's right. You'll see."

""See what?" Robert said. "Are you going to put a curse on me?"

""Unbelievers," the woman said scornfully. "I think that some day we will go on strike."

""You will?" André said. His somber mood of a moment ago was gone. "For what? For higher wages?" He put a hand in his pocket and drew out a few coins. We'll eat lightly tonight. Robert thought as André gave her a few francs.

""For belief," the woman said. "For magic."

""For dreams," André said seriously. "Go on strike for your dreams."" - p 3

Jacques Rigaut is another character. He's obsessed with suicide & he eventually kills himself. Whenever I think of Surrealist suicides I think of Jacques Vaché instead. Vaché was dead by OD by 23, Rigaut by shooting himself at age 30. Don't commit suicide, folks, if you're sensitive enuf to be that depressed you're probably adding to the well-being of the world more than the brutes who cruelly plow their way thru w/o getting depressed or feeling much of anything other than the occasional triumph of their sadism. Don't let them have the upper hand.

""Nobody will get anything when I die," Jacques said. "I don't have anything. And I won't have anything in four years, either."

""You're sticking to your schedule then?" Robert asked. He had heard Jacques's story before but it still intrigued him. What would it be like to place yourself under a death sentence? André, he knew, was fascinated.

""Yes, I am," Jacques said. "In 1919 I gave myself ten years and I haven't seen anything since then to dissuade me. In fact it makes life easier, simpler. I make no plans for the future. I put nothing off until later. I haven't saved any money—I don't need it. If someone asks me what I want to do with my life I just say, 'Die.' "

"That's a stupid question anyway," Robert said. He's bluffing, he thought. He likes the attention. It's just a game he's playing. But he's been playing it for so long, about six years. "Have you got a date picked out?" he asked.

""Oh, yes," Jacques said. "Ten years to the day from when I first made my vow. I don't tell anyone when it is. I don't want anyone to stop me."" - p 111

Hadn't these people heard of "intervention"?! You know, where you realize that your friend, who you care about, has a self-destructive problem & you try to assist them to work thru it?! Rigaut made his vow to commit suicide when he was 20. That's hardly an age when one has reached maximum wisdom. Rigaut was in the midst of the creation of Surrealism, certainly that alone was worth living decades longer for. What a stupid waste. I'm glad, eg, to've lived long enuf to witness 37 yrs of Neoism. Rigaut's vow & subsequent suicide make for a good story but surely his continued life wd've been worth more.

"["]I—" he paused to emphasize the word—"have never been arrested."

""I'm not so sure that's something to be proud of," André said. "All the great men and women of history have been put in jail. In jail or in mental institutions. Nietzsche, de Sade . . ."

""I'm just as crazy as they were," Jacques said. "I just don't get caught. And when have you ever been arrested? But I don't mean to begin an argument. I wanted to show you, gentlemen—" he opened the newspaper—"our advertisement, which came out today." - p 8

"André looked through the newspaper. "Here it is," he said finally. " 'Bureau of Surrealistic research, 15 Rue de Grenelle. We welcome all bearers of secrets: inventors, madmen, revolutionaries, misfits, dreamers. Relate to us your stories, answer our questions, tell us your dreams, leave your work and play with us. We sow the seeds for the new night-blooming flower. Open 1-5.' " He closed the paper. "All right," he said. "We'll see what kind of response that gets."" - p 9

Now I was hoping to find the Bureau in the index to Nadeau's bk so I cd conveniently quote from it about when it started & what some of the 1st accounts of it have to say. Alas, zilch. I cd look for similar info online but that gets too easy & boring after a while so I decide to consult other bks on Surrealism in my collection instead.

It's not in the index of Wayne Andrews's The Surrealist Parade, one I just picked up t'other day. Tsk, tsk. There is no index in André Breton's Manifestoes of Surrealism & I didn't look thru it thoroughly enuf to see if the Bureau's mentioned. It's not in the index of Marcel Jean's The History of Surrealist Painting. Tsk, tsk. There is no index in Herbert Read's Surrealism, flipping thru Read's lengthy introduction I find no mention of the Bureau. The index to Sarane Alexandrian's Surrealist Art doesn't mention it. Tsk, tsk. The Lucy R. Lippard edited Surrealists on Art doesn't have an index & the Table of Contents doesn't appear to point to anything promisingly relevant. Tsk tsk. I skip over José Pierre's 2 little volumes: Surrealist painting 1919 - 1939 & Surrealist painting 1940 - 1970. The index to the Marcel Jean edited The Autobiography of Surrealism doesn't mention the Bureau. I even looked briefly at the Jack Hirschman edited Artaud Anthology but got nothing useful out of that except a reminder that he & I share September 4th as a birthday. These are all bks that Goldstein might've seen before the release of her bk in 1985.

I remember the Bureau as something I'd read about so I'm surprised to not find mention of it in any of the above. Alas, I resort to looking online. Wikipedia provides this: "Located at 15 Rue de Grenelle, it opened on October 11, 1924 under the direction of Antonin Artaud, just four days before the publication of the first Surrealist Manifesto by André Breton.

"According to art critic Sarane Alexandrian, the public at large was invited to bring to the Bureau "accounts of dreams or of coincidences, ideas on fashion or politics, or inventions, so as to contribute to the 'formation of genuine surrealist archives'."' ( https://en,wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Surrealist_Research ) Perhaps I shd've looked deeper in Alexandrian's bk.

Robert time travels:

"Robert ran after her. The street seemed to elongate as he turned the corner; the houses moved for a moment and then were still. Someone shouted. A loud blasting noise came from the direction of the river. Terrified he ran on, hoping he hadn't lost her. he felt horribly disoriented now. Where was he? "The police!" a high woman's voice said to his right. "The police are coming!"

"He blinked, blinded again as his eyes teared from the smoke. Those impossibly tall buildings—surely he would have noticed them before." - p 11

Imagine running & having your environment morph into its future self around you. Nice. I have to wonder sometimes how many authors write passages imagining how they'd play in motion picture form.

"He walked toward the lights of the Tuileries Gardens, passing quietly through the trees. How could he tell André, after all? He had known André since— He stopped a minute. Since 1917, that awful and miraculous year, the year he had gotten trench fever and been sent home from the front. André, a medical student then, had been working in a mental hospital. They had met in a bookstore, reaching for the same volume of Rimbaud." - p 18

Breton had been a medical student studying mental cases so the above is passably believable. To someone like myself (me, myself, & I) meeting in a bookstore is romantic. Not long ago I tried inviting a woman I was attracted to in a bookstore to a reading. If she had gone it would've been the beginning of an ever-increasing era of sheer ecstasy in her life. She declined. The turkey neck I had tied to the fleshy appendage I was waving at the time should have in no way turned her off. People are so weird. At the Bureau the fictional Robert reports to the historical Artaud:

""Of course not," Antonin said. "All the world will pass through this doorway. First the shamans, the magicians. The Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama might have passed through today—if he did you missed him. And then everyone. Everyone is a magician. Everyone is the Dalai Lama."" - p 29

& the Dalai Lama is named Monty Cantsin. & Artaud turns out to be fictionally correct in more ways than one. But the fictional Robert is having none of it. He'll get his. I'm reminded of the 1970s Maryland Writer's Council's bookstore in downtown Baltimore. The guy who ran it, whose name I'm, alas, forgetting, provided the rare visitor w/ some powerful ranting. The only time I remember meeting him the rant was about Baltimore being like Paris in the 20s. He might very well have had the Bureau of Surrealist Research in mind. I liked him. Other people I talked w/ about him considered him 'crazy'.

Much of the 1924 action takes place in a café where conversation runs rampant:

"Yves Tanguy began to tell a story about a man who claimed that he was employed to live someone else's life. "His employer was too frightened to go out and do anything by himself, so he hired this man to live for him. He'd go to bars and get into fights, went climbing in the Himalayas, became a smuggler in Africa, took monk's vows for about a month . . . And everywhere he went he'd bring back something, some souvenir, so that the employer could claim to have done these things himself. Or that's what he told me, anyway."" - p 35

In my personal experience, it's 'good business practice' for rich people to get other people to take the risks for them & to then take the credit for themselves. I could point to at least 2 'friends' of mine who've done just that. Beware. But let's jump-cut to 1968:

""Look!" Robert said, pointing down the street. A group of people had moved a dining table out into the street and were sitting around it eating and talking. Were they protesting something, perhaps an eviction, or were they celebrating the absurdity of the moment? He laughed. Everyone is a surrealist, he thought. We just do what everyone would do if they could. As they watched, a reporter came up to the group, took out a pad of paper and a pen and began to ask them questions. With great solemnity someone at the table began to butter the reporter's tie. The reporter stepped back." - p 57

On page 60, a threatening nightmare character appears, a nightmare on the side of the forces of hierarchy. If only the characters could learn to avoid places like page 60 & the back cover they wd've been fine.

"Someone screamed or cried out. A fifth man had appeared among the players, a man wearing a mask of horns and fur and metal, a fantastic mingling of man and machine. The players jumped from the stage. Robert strained to see clearer. Was that really a mask? Where was it joined to his body? He shuddered, seeing a creature come fresh from his nightmares, from the dreams he could never remember in sunlight. Than man raised his hand and the earth rocked. More people screamed." - p 60

Now imagine this: 'Robert & Solange sat peacefully in the café on page 59, enjoying each other's company. Robert knew that Solange was nervous about something but was afraid to express it. Finally, she burst forth with: "Robert, we have to find a way to avoid the next few pages or one or another of us might be injured or killed!" Not as prescient as Solange & inclined to put on a conventional masculine front, Robert replied: "It's ok, I know the author, (s)he wouldn't let anything really bad happen to her protagonists, she's too romantic." Just then, page 60 was reached, Solange, not convinced by Robert's ill-justified bravado, reached off the page & flipped the pages furiously until they were safely out-of-trouble & in bed with each other. Life is good.'

Goldstein has Breton criticize Artaud - but then I have to wonder where Breton's money came from & how Artaud supported himself. These things matter.

""He doesn't take surrealism seriously," André said. "All he sees are commercial possibilities. We aren't an art movement but a movement to change the world. We aren't surrealists to make money."" - p 66

Breton's criticizing Artaud's acting in movies. The selected filmography provided by Wikipedia includes "Graziella" (1926), "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928), "Verdun: Visions of History" (1928), "La Femme d'une Nuit" (1931), "Lucrezia Borgia" (1935), & "Koenigsmark" (1935) - none of which wd've been made as of the time of Bréton's fictional (but plausible) criticism. In retrospect, this fictional criticism seems unfair given the way Artaud led his life in contrast to the way Bréton led his.

Given my liking of Surrealism & my interest in the historical figures placed in this fictional narrative, I enjoy scenes like the following:

""Surrealist morality," Georges said. "That's good. 'It is the highest morality to sleep in a church whenever possible,' ' he said, imitating André's pedantic way of speaking. " 'Ant surrealist who fails to do so must atone for his sin by—' "

""Reciting all of André's poems."

""Backwards."

"They walked in silence for a while. "I'll tell you one of the things I'm tired of." Robert said finally. "Everything André does he does for political reasons. To shock someone. I don't want to sleep in a church if there has to be a reason behind it. I just want to have a good time."" - p 72

""Look at that," Georges said, whispering. By the rays of the setting sun they could see a crudely drawn mural of Christ on the cross. "What if we added a bit to it—a couple over here making love in the corner—"

""What?" Robert said, mock-horrified. "Realism in art?"" - pp 72-73

That's funny. What's really funny is imagining a church that you can walk into & lay down in & go to sleep safely. I remember around 1972, a decade before this novel was written, hitch-hiking w/ a friend & asking a minister if we cd stay the night in his church. The answer was NO. He explained that he'd 'had bad experiences'. Around the same time I hitched into Syracuse to visit my sister. I arrived too early to considerately phone her so I went into a church to lay on a pew. Shortly thereafter, a woman who presumably worked for the church entered the room & saw me & left. Given that even as a teenager I was acutely aware of what bullshit Christinane's purported caring for the poor was I expected the worst so I snuck up into the balcony & hid & peered discretely over the balcony wall to see what wd happen next. It was only a few minutes later when the same woman came in w/ 2 or 3 policemen & pointed to where I'd been laying down. After the police left, I got out of there. So much for Christinane 'charity'.

All too few women seem willing to acknowledge that there're oppressive matriarchies everywhere. As such, it's nice to read a novel by a woman writer in wch the main character parody his rich narrow-minded mom.

"Claude came into the room without knocking. "I've been thinking about your future, young man," Robert said, still sitting behind the desk. "I've decided it would be best for you—best for the entire family—if you became—say, a shepherd. I can give you money for a warm coat and a pair of fleecing shears, but that's all. It's time for you to grow up, you know."

""She's talked to you already, has she?" Claude said.

""Yes, she has," Robert said. He noticed that he was still holding one of the pieces of paper and he put it back in the drawer. "I suppose you're going to take over the family business now?"

""That's right," Claude said, nodding pleasantly. "What do you think? I can use a partner, someone willing to learn. You might even be able to stay in Paris."

"Robert put his feet up on the desk. "I don't even know what the business is," he said. He thought of Rimbaud, trader in darkest Africa. The idea still did not appeal to him. "What do we sell? Black slaves? Objects of religious significance? Cursed stones?"

"Claude sighed. "All right, you're a poet," he said. "I don't understand why poets can't make the effort to get along like everyone else."" - p 79

Imagine fiction w/o all those "he saids". Just sayin'. Or imagine fiction w/ nothing but "he saids". Steve McCaffery cd pull that off.

Probably one of my favorite things about Surrealist writing are the manifestoes:

""Can I read it?" André said, "Here, wait. I brought you these," he said, handing Robert the papers under his arm. "The manifesto of surrealism. I wrote it last week. We're a movement now, with a name and a purpose. I can add your name to the others who have signed it."" - p 85 ( )
  tENTATIVELY | Apr 3, 2022 |
73/2021. The Dream Years, by Lisa Goldstein, is a fantasy (or sf) novel about surrealism, art, revolution, and time travel, set in Paris in 1924 and 1968 and The Future (allegedly 2012 but bear in mind this was published in 1985). Yes, please!

Quotes

!+?=: "Up ahead André Breton and Louis Aragon were arguing animatedly: a short decisive exclamation mark and a cool tall question mark."

Lol: "the flea market, the unconscious mind of Paris" (the charity bookshop, the subconscious mind of the British middle classes)

A happy ending: "Hélène cried out suddenly. She ran to the burning ring and jumped through effortlessly. They saw her land on the other side and turn and wave. Then the ring closed." ( )
  spiralsheep | May 4, 2021 |
I've always been interested in surrealism. But Surrealism and time travel. AWESome. ( )
  marysneedle | Mar 28, 2013 |
I will probably pitch this book. Does not really grab me. ( )
  carterchristian1 | Jun 8, 2010 |
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Goldstein, LisaFörfattareprimär författarealla utgåvorbekräftat
Schorr, ToddOmslagmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
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The flea market in Saint-Ouen: war medals, glass taxidermists' eyes, a bicycle wheel, a leopard's skin, a pack of cards, an acrobat's costume (for Hélène?) with half the pink sequins gone.
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