Aurélia by Gérard de Nerval

Jan 12, 2008 Kimley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Proust fans, dreamers, escapists, the mentally unstable

Shelves: 19th-century, french

I suspect that most of us have some kind of reality escape hatch that removes us from the inevitable difficulties both large and small of everyday existence. Whether it's religion, drugs/alcohol, reading too many books (!!!), there's another world outside the one we experience with our five senses that most of us look to in order to survive this one. The majority of us can delineate between the "real" world and the "other" world we imagine but there are those for whom the line between these I suspect that most of us have some kind of reality escape hatch that removes us from the inevitable difficulties both large and small of everyday existence. Whether it's religion, drugs/alcohol, reading too many books (!!!), there's another world outside the one we experience with our five senses that most of us look to in order to survive this one. The majority of us can delineate between the "real" world and the "other" world we imagine but there are those for whom the line between these worlds becomes less and less defined. Nerval is one of those people whose "other" world became his "real" world. And while it's clear it ultimately gave him much pain (he ended up taking his own life), it leaves us with this beautifully ethereal book that takes us into his self-created alternate universe.

Written while institutionalized or shortly thereafter (I'm not clear on this), we get a look into a strange amalgam of other worlds that his mind takes him to. Some are beautiful and reassuring where he is reconnected with departed loved ones and taken to beautiful landscapes. Other times, he goes to places dark and terrifying and it's clear he's having doubts about the existence of a Christian heaven. On a spiritual quest, he looks to not only the Christian God but Greek, Roman and Egyptian gods, as well as simply looking to the stars for some sign, any sign that there is something more. He'll take it wherever he can conjure it up.

Escaping to these other worlds becomes a kind of addiction for him and he loses all interest in the "real" world. The book begins with a seemingly realistic narrative about lost love and slowly bleeds into his imaginary world where it's difficult to tell if he is relating true events or imaginary dreams. Eventually it becomes irrelevant because you just feel privileged to have access to this mysterious man's mind.

Written in a dream-state, stream-of-consciousness style in the 1850's considerably ahead of his time, it's obvious why he was so influential to the surrealists and other writers of the early 20th century such as Proust.

"My imagination gave me infinite delight. In recovering what men call reason, do I have to regret the loss of these joys?..."

Indeed! Who needs reason when you can read this book! ...more

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Jan 23, 2018 ليلي rated it liked it · review of another edition

حقیقتا که خب نات مای تایپ. :)) و اگر به خودم بود احتمالا نه تنها الان، بلکه در کل هم سراغش نمیرفتم. ولی خب پیشنهاد، و هدیهی یک دوست عزیزی بود که کتاب موردعلاقه شه این، در نتیجه خوندمش دیگه.
کلا خب من اونقدری ارتباط برقرار نمیکنم با اساس سورئال بودن قضایا، حالا اعم از داستان یا نقاشی یا حتی فیلم و اینها. و همه چیز رو رئال و حتی خیلی رئال، در حد پرداختن به روزمره میپسندم.
و خب به عنوان کسی که کلا خواب هم نمیبینه(یا البته گویا میبینم در حقیقت ولی طوری که هیچوقت چیزیش یادم نمیمونه) خوندن کتابی که بر ...more

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Dec 20, 2015 Maria Thomarey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Με κάποια βιβλία συμβαίνει κάτι σχεδόν μαγικό . Αρχίζεις να τα διαβάζεις, ενώ όσα μαθαίνεις εκείνη την περίοδο απο τις σπουδε σου ,το αφορούν . Ακριβώς αυτό έγινε με αυτό το παραληρηματικό υστερορομαντικο κρεσέντο-ποίημα .
" το όνειρο είναι μια δεύτερη ζωή "έτσι αρχίζει η διήγηση ονείρου-πραγματικότητας που σφιχταγκαλιασμένα σέρνουν τον ήρωα-συγγραφέα στο θάνατο .

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May 16, 2015 S̶e̶a̶n̶ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015, somewhere-else, oneiric

Dream is a second life.

Gérard de Nerval sets out to break down the barrier between dreams and waking life. I’m on board with this. Aurélia is a lucid recitation and exposition of not only dreams, but various fugue states, metaphysical visions, hallucinatory episodes, and accounts of incarcerations in numerous asylums and clinics around the Paris metropolitan area. What is it about?! Everything! Alchemy! The creation of new life! Deconstruction and manipulation of religious iconography for

Dream is a second life.

Gérard de Nerval sets out to break down the barrier between dreams and waking life. I’m on board with this. Aurélia is a lucid recitation and exposition of not only dreams, but various fugue states, metaphysical visions, hallucinatory episodes, and accounts of incarcerations in numerous asylums and clinics around the Paris metropolitan area. What is it about?! Everything! Alchemy! The creation of new life! Deconstruction and manipulation of religious iconography for covert purposes! Mythology made manifest! Obscure references to apocryphal texts! Transcendence from the corporeal world! The degree of autobiography contained within the text is irrelevant. Who cares. Suffice it to say that the man led a fascinating life, he really lived, and he wrote a fascinating book into which he likely poured a lot of raw material from that life. Here’s just a sample to whet the reading appetite:

From the moment I became certain that I was subject to sacred initiatory rights, an invincible force entered my spirit. I considered myself a living hero in the eyes of gods. Everything in nature took on new aspects, and secret voices emanated from plants, trees, animals, and the smallest insects, in order to warn me and encourage me. The language of my companions held a mysterious refrain which only I was able to comprehend, objects without shape or life lent themselves to my mental calculations; – from combinations of pebbles, from the shape of corners, crevices or openings, from the patterns of leaves, from colors, odors, and sounds, I saw emerge harmonies which had hitherto remained unknown – how, I asked myself, have I been able to exist estranged from nature for so long, without identifying with her? All things live, act, and relate to one another; magnetic rays emanating from myself or from others cross, without obstacle, the infinite chasm of all creation; these form a transparent network that covers the globe, and each separate thread communicates, one by one, to the stars and planets. Momentarily captive upon the earth, I take part in the universal chorus, which shares in all my joys and sorrows!

...more

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Nov 05, 2018 Meric Aksu rated it really liked it

“Mavimsi bir dağın zirvesinde küçük bir çiçek doğdu. Unutmabeni! Bir yıldızın pırıltılı bakışı değdi üzerine bir anlığına ve yanıtı duyuldu çiçeğin ahenkli bir yabancı dilde. Myosotis!”

Şizofrenik bir kalemi var Nerval’in. Miş daha doğrusu. Türkçeye kazandırılmış bir eserini okuma şerefine nail oldum nihayet. Rüyalarında kendisine açılan kapılardan girdiği dünyalardan ve orada yaşananlardan bahsediyor sıklıkla. Hayatımızın üçte birini dolduran, günlerin acısını veya hazlarımızın cezasını ...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Branden William rated it it was amazing

As a member of the eccentric Bouzingo group in France, in the 1830s, Gérard de Nerval was eventually praised by André Breton as a "prophet" of Surrealism for Nerval's pursuit of the significance of dreams, and for his "persistent vitality of an esoteric conception of the world." Nerval's 'Aurélia & Other Writings' is a beautiful collection of Nerval's most coveted short stories, including the novella 'Sylvie', which is often considered Nerval's prose masterpiece. These stories encapsulate a As a member of the eccentric Bouzingo group in France, in the 1830s, Gérard de Nerval was eventually praised by André Breton as a "prophet" of Surrealism for Nerval's pursuit of the significance of dreams, and for his "persistent vitality of an esoteric conception of the world." Nerval's 'Aurélia & Other Writings' is a beautiful collection of Nerval's most coveted short stories, including the novella 'Sylvie', which is often considered Nerval's prose masterpiece. These stories encapsulate a deep and passionate longing for idolized woman, esoteric deism, and autobiographical traveling. Breton placed Nerval in the highest echelon of Surrealist heroes for a good reason. There is a particular reclusiveness that lies within Nerval's writing that identifies solely with a limited number of individuals. For this reason, Nerval will not be understood by everyone that attempts reading his dream-inspired writings. "Surrealism's official enthusiasm for Nerval seemed to take strongest hold with artists on the fringe of the group, those more alone rather than in the midst of Breton's collective campaigns." Nerval's insanity reached its conclusion when he hung himself from an apron string he called the garter of the Queen of Sheba, from a window grating in 1855. Left are these documents; short story accounts of an author's unnerving downfall.

Fictionally autobiographical in nature, Aurélia is Nerval's account of his descent into madness, spending his life in and out of a mental asylum. Aurélia is a hallucinatory diary-like journey through the perils of obsession and madness, and the despairing realization of the truths surrounding mundane existence. This realization, Nerval explains, "is enough to drive a wise man mad; let us ensure that there is enough to make a madman sane." Nerval simply uses escapism to battle insanity. "Dreams are a second life," he begins. Aurélia, Nerval's obsession and muse, is the object of his fixation, however it is through dreams that Nerval finds peace and understanding. "I do not think the human imagination has invented anything which is not true either in this world or in others." Nerval's belief in immortality provides him with a newly founded strength, and his complete descent into madness concludes his curious investigation into the abyss, for "Who knows if there is not some link between those two existences and if not possible for the soul to unite them now?"

'Sylvie' on the other hand, is an esoteric break with conventionalism, depicting a hero's love for three different woman, all of whom he either loses or fails to attain affection for. This is an incredibly imaginative journey through the Middle Ages and traditions of the past, antiquarian in nature. Nerval shifts back and forth from past to present, proving the reader with a phantasmic perspective in conjunction with heart- break and misery. Melancholy is Nerval's driving force in Sylvie, inevitably obtaining none of the objects of his affection, though painting a beautiful backdrop to this dreamlike account of loves lost and memories attained.

'Isis,' 'Les Chimères,' and 'Pandora' is esoteric poetry at its best. They blend that perfect conjunction of the conscious and unconscious that the Surrealists praised as 'Le merveilleux'. Also popular among the Surrealists was their excessive streetwalking through the boulevards and cafés of Paris. In 'Walks & Memories' Nerval depicts this very scenario, among the slopes of Montmartre, the Château de Saint-Germain, and throughout his travels to Germany and the east. This is a personal favorite of mine--as a traveler and freighthopper myself-- illuminating the reader with antiquarian delights, interesting anyone with a subtle appreciation for the architecture and landscapes of 1850s Europe. These are dream travelogues; inventing a new literary genre of "dream-memoirs". "As I retrace these details I have to ask myself if they were real or I dreamed them."

Gerard de Nerval, precursor to Dada and Surrealism, is a poetic genius-- and aside from being forever known for walking a pet lobster on a leash-- opened illuminating gateways to the beyond; "representing the idea of a descent into hell." ...more

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Jun 26, 2013 Mariana Orantes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Cada vez que le doy un rating a un libro en este lugar, me decepciono. ¿Cómo alguien puede darle menos de cinco estrellas a esta maravilla? lo mismo me pasó con El maestro y margarita de Bulgakov, de verdad que no los entiendo. Se me rompe el corazón cuando leo las malas reseñas que hacen sobre este libro tan hermoso. No lo entiendo. Nerval tenía una sensibilidad inmensa, una forma de narrar tan precisa y sencilla y no por eso menos compleja; tan sencillo y natural en contraste con las cosas tan ...more

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Feb 19, 2018 Etienne rated it it was ok · review of another edition

2,5/5. Grand délire mystique. La première partie est assez intéressante, car le délire est tellement élevé que l'on frôle le fantastique. La deuxième partie est plus religieuse qu'autre chose. Reste à savoir si tout est inventé ou si l'auteur à réellement vécu cette confusion entre rêve et réalité. Dans l'ensemble cela est tout de même que moyennement intéressant. Loin d'être un incontournable!

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Jul 20, 2016 Fereshteh added it · review of another edition

کتاب سختی بود. پشت جلد کتاب نوشته صادق هدایت گفته اگر این کتاب رو زودتر خوانده بودم بوف کور را نمینوشتم.
ولی این کتاب خیلی پیچیدهتر از دنیای بوف کوره. اینجا هم نویسنده در یک فضای مالیخولیایی سیر میکنه و دنبال حقیقت زندگی و مرگ و خیر و شر در تاریخ بشریته؛ توش پر از اشاره به اساطیر و نمادهای دینیه. با یک بار خوندن آدم زیاد متوجه خیلی چیزا نمیشه و تمرکز روی متن کتاب برای من سخت بود ...more

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Feb 16, 2016 tomasawyer rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: je-les-donne

Trop de religiosité et de délires ésotériques malgré quelques passages plaisamment poétiques. Je sature de ces textes où Dieu est seul juge de nos vies. Je suis plutôt heureux de vivre dans une époque qui se débarrasse peu à peu de toutes ces conneries religieuses qui ralentissent l'humanité.

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Jun 28, 2019 Shayan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: نیمه-خوانده

روایت عجیب و سورئال بین واقعیت و رویا
خیلی جاها گیج کننده میشد و هدف داستان مشخص نبود
اولش خیلی جذاب شروع شد ولی بعدش نتونست دیگه منو جذب کنه واسه همین نتونستم کامل بخونمش

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Jan 09, 2018 ardavisura rated it liked it · review of another edition

!همیشه چیزی که عاقلی را دیوانه کند وجود داشته است، بکوشیم چیزی که دیوانه ای را عاقل کند هم وجود داشته باشد
ص.115

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Jul 24, 2008 Travis is currently reading it

The ravings of a madman? A cleverly constructed artifice? Both in different places? Nerval really did spend his adult life in and out of asylums, but he was also friends with lots of the biggest and best artists, writers, etc. in Paris in the 1840s and 50s.

Aurelia is about the "outpouring of the dream world into real life." Maddened by unrequited love for Aurelia, who at various points converges with the Virgin Mary, Cybele, Isis, etc. and is based on the real-life Marie Pleyel, Nerval passes ...more

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Jan 05, 2019 Ranj rated it liked it · review of another edition

راستی چرا کتاب اسمش اورلیا بود؟ آیا اورلیا در صحنه های کتاب حضور پر رنگی داشت یا روح او بود که دائم در کالبدهای متفاوت ظاهر می شد؟
خلسه ها و نگرانیهای شخصیت اصلی داستان یا بهتره بگوییم خود نروال از جایی شروع شد که خواست بعد از اورلیا(معشوقه ی سابقش) به زنی دیگر ابراز علاقه کند که خود نیز پشیمان شد. نروال روحی سرگردان بین زندگی و مرگ، بین شرق و غرب. روح او دائم به شرق سیر می کند!
از کتاب:
ما در نسل خود زندگی می کنیم و نسل ما در ما زندگی می کند.
درون تمام انسانها یک تماشاچی و یک بازیگر هست، یکی حرف ...more

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Apr 30, 2009 J. Lynn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: french-and-fabulous, needed-more-context, epic, classics-that-aren-t-crap

I loved it even before I realized it was a 90 page struggle against castration.

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Aug 09, 2019 Aslı Can added it · review of another edition

Dikkatimi çok dağıtan bir kitap oldu doğası gereği. Savrulup giden hezeyanların hızına yetişemedim.

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Apr 30, 2009 K. rated it it was amazing

Mystical and febrile novella, reminiscent of a William Blake print.
This, along with the writings of Unica Zurn, is true Surrealism.

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Mar 24, 2016 Amber rated it it was amazing

Shelves: western-classics, french-lit

A more French, more mystic Catcher in the Rye. I could (should, otherwise I'm a rude person) probably say more, but I'm sleepy.

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Jan 27, 2017 Ariane Brosseau rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Ça faisait longtemps que je n'avais pas lu quelque chose d'aussi nul. Je ne suis même pas sûre si j'ai donné cette note à un autre livre que Fifty Shades of Grey (pour des raisons totalement autres, évidemment).

Tout est extraordinairement confus. Gérard de Nerval prétend raconter dans Aurélia l'histoire d'une descente aux enfers. Je peux vous faire un résumé en quelques lignes plus chouette que le livre: Gérard aime Aurélia au point de la déifier. Elle le friendzone. Il rencontre une autre ...more

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Feb 09, 2012 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Aurelia is the name Gerard de Nerval gives his muse, an unattainable love, likely based on a real actress he knew, who more or less provides the framing device for this memoir about going insane and the blurring of dream and reality. The memoir begins by quickly recounting his initial pursuit and loss of Aurelia and the later meeting with her that leads him to lose his grip on what is real and what is not. What follows is a description of what life was like for him as he was trying to navigate ...more

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Dec 23, 2019 Aurora rated it really liked it · review of another edition

ترجمه کتاب خوب بود ، کاش سیلوی هم در دسترس بود

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Mar 25, 2015 Laurent rated it liked it · review of another edition

Romantisch curiosum: het dromenboek van een getormenteerde ziel die door de straten van Parijs zwalpt op zoek naar de grens tussen de droom, slaap en de dood. "De slaap neemt een derde van ons leven in beslag. Hij brengt troost voor de verdrietelijkheden van de dag of straf voor de genietingen; maar ik heb de slaap nooit als rust ervaren. Na een paar minuten van verdoving begint er een nieuw leven, los van de wetten van tijd en ruimte, zoals ons dat waarschijnlijk na de dood te wachten staat. ...more

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Feb 17, 2018 Israel Jaime rated it really liked it

“El sueño es una segunda vida. El sueño ocupa la tercera parte de nuestra vida. Es el consuelo de las penas del día o la pena de sus placeres pero no un reposo”.

De este modo, el que diría Villaurrutia que es punto de partida de la poesía moderna antes que Baudelaire, justifica su expiación a través del sueño. La mezcla entre el mundo interior y exterior cuya narración es siempre romántica.

Fervor, amor, temor, angustia y naturaleza, unidos en pasajes oníricos y febriles que nos hacen acompañar ...more

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Mar 23, 2016 Ian Forsyth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: avant-garde, bohemians, my-top-hundred, psychedelic, mythic, madness

Such lush fantasies and descriptions, some terrifying, others bearing insights of experience perhaps only madness or psychedelic drugs can bring. As he says, it documents the time of when his dreams began to flow into his life.
In these visions he believes be finds reason to believe in reincarnation, that God is lost and powerless and only a sort of pantheistic representation of the sum of all beings all the way down to atoms, and that the life of dreams may be intimately related to the realm of ...more

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Feb 01, 2014 Antoine C rated it it was ok

Sous couvert d'opiomanie, Gérard de Nerval se permet d'extérioriser ses pensées absurdes justifiées par le rêve.
Un beau galimatias sans aucun sens. Le lecture affirmé répondra alors "Mais c'est ce que voulait faire de Nerval, exprimer d'une forme la plus naturelle possible l'épanchement du sommeil sur la réalité". Il n'y a alors aucun intérêt à partager ses visions si celles-ci ne sont qu'absurdes.

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Jun 13, 2019 Yavuz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"Her insanda bir seyirci ve bir aktör, bir konuşan bir de cevap veren vardır. Şarklılar bunda iki düşman görmüşlerdir. İyi ve kötü cin." Ben iyi cin miyim? Yoksa kötü cin mi? "diye soruyorum kendi kendime. Her halükarda öteki bana düşman...

.... sonra, Almanya'da iyi bilinen bir geleneği hatırlayarak ürperdim ;bu geleneğe göre her insanın bir çifti vardır ve onu gördüğünde ölüm yakın demektir..."

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Jan 22, 2018 John rated it liked it · review of another edition

Nerval's prose is unquestionably illustrative and introspective, but the work itself feels distracted, indicative of how Nerval was in this stage of his life. Truly, this is the story that is most interesting, not what is recorded, but the reason for his descent and the players within it. To that end, the exemplary introduction and final ten pages sandwich an otherwise dense, unsatisfying read.

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Dec 13, 2010 Brent rated it liked it

Shelves: classics

This is Nerval's most famous work, and it is easy to see why. The imagery is stunning, the scope is both enormous and microscopic, and the introspection is intense. I had difficulty staying invested, though, possibly because of the story's audacity. I am glad I read this story and have immense respect for it, but I enjoyed the understated Sylvie more.

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