Anicet ou le Panorama

by Louis Aragon

Rare Book

Genres: Fiction, France, French Literature, 20th Century, Novels, Classics

288 pages, Pocket Book

First published April 1, 1921

About the author

French writer Louis Aragon founded literary surrealism.

Louis Aragon, a major figure in the avant-garde movements, shaped visual culture in the 20th century. His long career as a poet, novelist, Communist polemicist and bona fide war hero secured his place in the pantheon of greats.

With André Breton and Phillipe Soupault, Aragon launched the movement and through Paysan de Paris (Paris Peasant), his novel of 1926, produced the considered defining text of the movement.

Aragon parted company with the movement in the early 1930s, devoted his energies to the Communist party, and went to produce a vast body that combined elements of the social avant-garde.

Aragon, a leading influence on the shaping of the novel in the early to mid-20th century, gave voice and images to the art. He, also a critic, edited as a member of the Académie Goncourt. After 1959, people frequent nominated him for the Nobel Prize.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beauty of DADA is that it came from total disaster, in other words, total destruction. Out of the ashes of World War One, came DADA. Like pollen floating in an air stream across Europe, writers/artists got a whiff of it, and it stayed within their DNA. Perhaps the first literature to come out of the French DADA world is Louis Aragon's "Anicet or the Panorama." It's a dis-jointed tale of crime life, but told by a writer that is not overly concern about narration from A to Z. That map is re-written by Aragon, who uses the life surrounding him at the time, which means Andre Breton, Max Jacob, Picasso, and others, who all make an appearance in this work of "fiction."

World War 1 changed the young doctor Aragon, and the future World War 2, will change him again. So what we have here is a very young Aragon facing up to, as well as articulating the world around him - which is Paris 1918/1919. A snapshot of the time especially with the cinematic references (Pearl White serials, Fantomas) but nevertheless, a snapshot taken by a poet with his poetic sensibilities in place.

Once again, Atlas Press, goes beyond their duty to come out with another beauty of a production, which is this book.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Title: Anicet ou le panorama

Author: Louis Aragon

Release Date: March 21, 2018 [EBook #56801]

Language: French

Produced by Laura N.R. & Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (Images generously made available by the Internet Archive.)

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and it will be published by Project Gutenberg.

Opening lines:
Anicet n'avait retenu de ses études secondaires que la règle des trois unités, la relativité du temps et de l'espace; là se bornaient ses connaissances de l'art et de la vie. Il s'y tenait dur comme fer et y conformait sa conduite. Il en résulta quelques bizarreries qui n'alarmèrent guère sa famille jusqu'au jour qu'il se porta sur la voie publique à des extrémités peu décentes: on comprit alors qu'il était poète, révélation qui tout d'abord l'étonna mais qu'il accepta bonnement, par modestie, dans la persuasion de ne pouvoir lui-même en trancher aussi bien qu'autrui. Ses parents, sans doute, se rangèrent à l'avis universel puisqu'ils firent ce que tous les parents de poètes font: ils l'appelèrent fils ingrat et lui enjoignirent de voyager. Il n'eut garde de leur résister puisqu'il savait que ni les chemins de fer ni les paquebots ne modifieraient son noumène.

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Composed under the shadow (or even from within the trenches) of the first world war, under the twinned patronage of Fantomas and Irma Vep, moving from the Symbolist era into the advent of Dada just before it fell away into Surrealism, this is Louis Aragon's first novel, a tour of changing times amid the Paris arts scene. The catalogue of contexts above may create an overly enticing image, though -- Aragon would experiment much more wildly, and entertainingly, in his following The Adventures of Telemachus, whereas here, flashes of innovation are interspersed with coded conversation on various contemporaries, and some pretty drearily one-sided conceptions of love and relationships. The latter to expected I suppose, given era and context, but still.

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 3 out of 5]

ANICET OR THE PANORAMA is a book that works far better as a historical curiosity (and I guess it works quite well as such) than as a literary act in and of itself. Aragon would seem to have been emboldened by the youthful accomplishments (beyond considerable) of Rimbaud and Lautréamont. Indeed, ANICET essentially begins w/ a momentously ill-conceived dialogue between the titular protagonist and a Rimbaud stand-in (near-identical biography, exhaustively reproduced) not-very-inventively named Arthur. Aragon's novel is in a sense a roman à clef. All of the characters are stand-ins for real life people. (Picasso, for example, in a gesture that may make you cringe, is renamed Blue.) That being said, the book is a fanciful phantasmagoria and could not possibly be taken by anybody except for a madman as a fictionilization of actual events. Aragon was at the time close with André Breton, future scion of the surrealist movement. At the time they both quasi-identified as dadaists (hence the appended subtitle of the Alias edition). Dadaism as exemplified by the screeds of the day and manifested in Aragon's novel is not a whole lot less reactionary than futurism. Art and traditional values are the big bugaboo. Murder and suicide are sexy (as is crime in general), desecration is cool. What makes Aragon seem so déclassé as a dadaist (besides his, you know, having written a novel) is how gaga he gets in regards to desire and the amorous. (He shares this in common w/ Breton and much of the thrust of early surrealism.) He is clearly also gaga for cinema (still then an extremely fresh phenomenon). The very smart decision of Alias to put silent film star Musidora on the cover of this edition tellingly brings these two strands together; Musidora was the star Louis Feuillade's serial LES VAMPIRES, and as Irma Vep in said serial she represented both revved-up sex appeal and criminal anarchy. There is absolutely no overlooking the fact that ANICET is clearly influenced by Feuillade's serials, which is all well and good. Less appealing is Aragon's adolescent reification of the outsized amorous object. The bulk of what is wrong with ANICET is ultimately attributable to the woefully underdeveloped nature of young Aragon's overall sensibility. Few literary creations of any significance whatsoever (and I will concede that this is definitely a significant work, though hardly a satisfying one) feel so irritatingly childish. Though you may find plenty of wonderful epigrams here (my favourite (and least favourite) is "If, rather than any other hobby, I prefer women's breasts, it is because the horizontal hourglass is the most dangerous of pillows"), there is also a great deal of ridiculous high-blown tomfoolery. Parts of it are a real chore to read, and it lacks thrust. It does pick up in the later sections. The chapter entitled "The Body Caged," contains some of Aragons best stuff, consistently, over the course of about ten pages. But this is still clearly the writing of a self-inflated little punk. If you've hung out with a lot of twenty-year-old poets, you probably know what I'm talking about. I might add that this is subversion served decidedly tepid.

[Camille Bdr · Rating 4 out of 5]

"N'avez-vous jamais versé des pleurs au moment de la volupté ? Elle atteint parfois des régions si intimes qu'elle exige ce tribut des yeux. [...] Je trahis l'enfant que je fus, avec décision, et je ne crains pas de m'avouer la mort des affections anciennes. Les fers tombent : je cesse d'être esclave de mon passé." (p. 63)

"La douleur mord aussi bien les hommes de science que les autres. Mais ceux-là y sont moins préparés, car la douleur est un cas particulier et ils n'ont accoutumé d'envisager que les cas généraux." (p. 97)

"On tient facilement à cinq dans un taxi, mais quand le cinquième est un mort, il ne met aucune bonne volonté à plier ses jambes sous la banquette." (p. 117)

"Véritablement, Anicet, la Femme est ta dernière planche de salut. Pour la conquérir il faudra te battre, pour la conserver il faudra te battre : voici l'intérêt que tu peux encore prendre à la vie. Si cela ne te suffisait pas, mon cher ami, il ne te resterait qu'à plier bagage." (p. 126-127)

"J'ai à ajouter que ce n'est pas ici le procès de quelques hommes et d'une femme qui se fait. Ce n'est pas non plus le procès de la justice. C'est le procès de la vie. Je sais que c'est peine perdue, je sais que personne n'assiste au vrai spectacle qui se donne ici." (p. 196)

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new way of writing, out of the carnage of World War One.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing, bizarre, dream-like—what else would you ask of a century-old Dada novel?

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took a little while to warm up to, and I admit I lost the thread a couple times as the book languished by my bed. But the second half of the book, which is both more playful (drawing on detective, pop culture and filmic themes), more experimental (with dramatic asides, dalliances into automatic writing and casual flourishes of psychoanalysis) and more profound (plenty of meditation on suicide and justice). I want another shot at reading this one. Note to self: Approach this one as if reading a movie script from a time when the conventions of script-writing hadn't yet come together.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anicet was possibly the first post WW1 "novel" out of the gate. Aragon and André Breton with others came back to Paris having been medics during that four year mass slaughter. Out of disgust with the bankrupt conceit of La Belle Époque they vowed to renovate French culture starting with a clean slate. Dada, and then Surrealism grew out of this creative explosion.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite Aragon's own subtitle ("A Dadaist Novel"), this is more of a surrealistic parody of a symbolist novel, injected with heavy doses of Feuillade's "Fantomas" and "Judex" serials (hence the image of Musidora gracing the cover). Not as good as Aragon's "Paris Peasant" (the finest novel the Surrealist movement ever produced) but much, much more funny. Another beautiful edition by Atlas Press.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

Premier roman d’Aragon. Très Dada et surréaliste. Il ne conviendra pas à tous car c’est difficilement accessible je trouve. On retrouve sous d’autres noms Cocteau, Breton, Picasso ou Chaplin.. de mon côté, je me suis laissée guider par ses mots. Je crois que j’aime de plus en plus l’écriture d’Aragon.

[Maude Genter · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai beaucoup lu Aragon, j'adore toujours son écriture et ses idées, ses styles pluriels et ses histoires.
Malheureusement j'ai trouvé celui ci indigeste, les procédés sont intéressants et servent le fond mais ce dernier n'est pas assez dodu pour accrocher la lectrice que je suis. Je reste sur ma faim même si je salue encore une fois l'écriture incomparable de l'auteur, ces beaux mots et concepts, sa prosodie et le charme loufoque de ses personnages.

[Razvan Banciu · Rating 3 out of 5]

În mod clar, majoritatea cărților cer un anumit grad de empatie din partea potențialului cititor. Iar când aceasta lipsește, din varii motive, legăturile rămân în aer, cu sau fără vreo explicație suplimentară.
Povestirea de față are părțile ei ciudate. Tânărul Anicet, protagonistul ce se crede poet, ajunge într-un anturaj nu dintre cele mai bune. Ceea ce urmează...

[Hoella Vallee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bouleversée par la poésie de l’écriture d’Aragon, et les bribes philosophiques entremêlées à l’intrigue..

[Claudia Ortega · Rating 4 out of 5]

sublime, genial, compuesto excepcionalmente... con unos personajes variopintos, excéntricos, sin sentido, y tramas descabelladas, pasionales, criminales, absurdas. un placer.