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The Dream Years
One strange and magical winter day in 1924, a young surrealist follows a dark-haired woman down the avenues of time to the paris riots of 1968. Together they learn the awesome power of the imagination to turn lies into truth, death into love, darkness into light...
195 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
About the author
Lisa Goldstein
97 books103 followersAka Isabel Glass.
Lisa Goldstein (b. November 21, 1953 in Los Angeles) is a Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award nominated fantasy and science fiction writer. Her 1982 novel The Red Magician won the American Book Award for best paperback novel, and was praised by Philip K. Dick shortly before his death. Goldstein writes science fiction and fantasy; her two novels Daughter of Exile and The Divided Crown are considered literary fantasy.
Elizabeth Joy "Lisa" Goldstein's father was Heinz Jurgen "Harry" Goldstein (b. June 08, 1922 in Krefeld, Germany; d. May 24, 1974 in Los Angeles), a survivor of concentration camp Bergen-Belsen; her mother, Miriam Roth, was born in Czechoslovakia and survived the extermination camp Auschwitz. Her parents came to the United States in 1947 and met in an ESL class.
She has published two fantasy novels under the pen name Isabel Glass. She chose to use a pseudonym to separate the novels from her other work. The "Isabel" is from Point Isabel, a dog park, and "Glass" was chosen because it fits Tor's requirements for pseudonyms.
With her husband since 1986, Douglas A. "Doug" Asherman, she lives in Oakland, California.
Lisa Goldstein (b. November 21, 1953 in Los Angeles) is a Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Award nominated fantasy and science fiction writer. Her 1982 novel The Red Magician won the American Book Award for best paperback novel, and was praised by Philip K. Dick shortly before his death. Goldstein writes science fiction and fantasy; her two novels Daughter of Exile and The Divided Crown are considered literary fantasy.
Elizabeth Joy "Lisa" Goldstein's father was Heinz Jurgen "Harry" Goldstein (b. June 08, 1922 in Krefeld, Germany; d. May 24, 1974 in Los Angeles), a survivor of concentration camp Bergen-Belsen; her mother, Miriam Roth, was born in Czechoslovakia and survived the extermination camp Auschwitz. Her parents came to the United States in 1947 and met in an ESL class.
She has published two fantasy novels under the pen name Isabel Glass. She chose to use a pseudonym to separate the novels from her other work. The "Isabel" is from Point Isabel, a dog park, and "Glass" was chosen because it fits Tor's requirements for pseudonyms.
With her husband since 1986, Douglas A. "Doug" Asherman, she lives in Oakland, California.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 16, 2017
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/...
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_... ) 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
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/...
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_... ) 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
April 15, 2017
I can’t remember how I found out about this novel, presumably a list of recommendations somewhere? The combination of surrealists, dreams, time travel, and revolution had obvious appeal and the library didn't have it, so I bought a cheap copy off eBay. Unfortunately I think it had been stored in a damp shed for the past twenty years, if the smell was anything to go by. That aside, ‘The Dream Years’ had flashes of brilliance yet didn’t quite live up to its potential. The narrator, Robert St Onge, didn’t seem weird enough to be a surrealist; he mainly behaved like a slacker. (Not that laziness isn’t subversive under capitalism.) I liked his intense and thorny relationship with André Breton, though, especially this little moment:
The plot takes a little while to get going, but once it does the last quarter of the book is great fun. The surrealists go on a trip through time and reality, discovering that they can fight conformity with literal manifestations of their imaginations. When this promised weirdness kicks in, I was willing to forgive earlier sluggishness and Americanisms (how I detest ‘gotten’). On the other hand, once I finished ‘The Dream Years’ I realised I’d read another, better version of a very similar concept. Tony Ballantyre’s Dream London and Dream Paris also deal with surreal incursions of alternate times and realities into capital cities, causing conflicts of abstract political ideals to turn literal. The former also uses the revolutionary role of music in an interestingly similar way to ‘The Dream Years’. While this was an enjoyable read overall, the romance sub-plot was extremely flimsy and things should have got surreal earlier. I'm inclined to recommend Ballantyre's version instead.
"Hello," he said as Robert sat down.
“Hello,” Robert said. A sudden awkwardness came between them. “How- how are you?”
“Yes,” André said, as if that were a possible answer to the question. He sipped his drink.
The plot takes a little while to get going, but once it does the last quarter of the book is great fun. The surrealists go on a trip through time and reality, discovering that they can fight conformity with literal manifestations of their imaginations. When this promised weirdness kicks in, I was willing to forgive earlier sluggishness and Americanisms (how I detest ‘gotten’). On the other hand, once I finished ‘The Dream Years’ I realised I’d read another, better version of a very similar concept. Tony Ballantyre’s Dream London and Dream Paris also deal with surreal incursions of alternate times and realities into capital cities, causing conflicts of abstract political ideals to turn literal. The former also uses the revolutionary role of music in an interestingly similar way to ‘The Dream Years’. While this was an enjoyable read overall, the romance sub-plot was extremely flimsy and things should have got surreal earlier. I'm inclined to recommend Ballantyre's version instead.
August 19, 2009
A little amateurish in style -- sounds like a creative writing project -- but still a noble attempt to be whimsical. Visual imagery needed to be fleshed out better; the descriptions were too vague and sometimes clichéd. All of the characters were flat and stereotyped into representations of an idea, versus a person. This is the kind of book I would have liked in high school, but now it seems silly.
December 4, 2020
This is a fairly odd fantasy from the mid eighties. There are mainly two setting and movements in the story. The protagonist, Robert, is a surrealist poet/novelist and a member of a real group centered on André Breton and his (Paris) Bureau of Surrealist Research (in Wikipedia so maybe true) circa 1923. Solange is a 19 year old student from the student protests of 1968, also in Paris. Solange has made Roberts life her study project when she was still in school. As the student protests reach a dead end somehow the group breeches the walls of time to look for help and Solange contacts Robert. Robert is also having problems with André, his familiy, and his goals in life. I don't really need to tell exactly what happens but both spend time with each other in each other's time period.
There is no science involved in the time travel and no obvious magic; everything happens in a confused dreamlike fashion leaving the participants with a lot of insights about their current life.
My dad picked up this book long ago at BookBaron and I was curious about Goldstein's writing. It is Interesting that the dedication includes the author Richard Kadrey long before his books showed up. I suppose he could have been publishing stories although his career as a photographer may have made him widely known for all I know.
There is no science involved in the time travel and no obvious magic; everything happens in a confused dreamlike fashion leaving the participants with a lot of insights about their current life.
My dad picked up this book long ago at BookBaron and I was curious about Goldstein's writing. It is Interesting that the dedication includes the author Richard Kadrey long before his books showed up. I suppose he could have been publishing stories although his career as a photographer may have made him widely known for all I know.
December 31, 2018
Much of the book is 4/7 stars -- the story isn't dry but the writing sometimes feels a bit so -- but the ending made me so happy that it pushed my opinion of it up to 7/7. I think that I may end up reading the last few chapters of it again later in my life. It's at the same time a critique and an affirmation of the Surrealist movement: finding its grounding most of all in love and wonder.
April 12, 2019
Surrealism and time travel and revolution in a lushly written view of Paris as it was, and perhaps one day will be.
January 14, 2023
Really beautifully done. (Might have enjoyed it a smidgeon more as a novella).
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December 14, 2010I rather enjoyed rereading this, although at this point I find the sections set in the future (1968 and the 21st century) somewhat unsatisfactory. The portions set in 1924 convey certain aspects of early surrealism, yet--perhaps in an attempt to keep the cast of characters manageable--makes the surrealist group of 1924 seem very small and a pale shadow of what comes across from actual surrealist documents and photos. Also, having the central character be a completely fictional surrealist ended up not satisfying me this time around. The problem there is less his not being a historical person than his coming off as too trivial and non-surrealist a personality to really fit the role he's been given as a close friend of Breton and someone who inspires people from the future. Nonetheless, I still admire the author's boldness. She was one of the more interesting young American writers of speculative fiction during the 80s, and I wonder what she's been writing more recently.
August 13, 2007
It's a long time since I read this book and though I'd read better written books, I loved it's subject matter.
Not what has become known as science fiction (as there are no gadgets or aliens) time travel is used as device for those caught up in the uprisings of May 1968 in Paris to contact the Surrealists who helped pave the way for Situationist thinking that came to the fore in that period.
Not full of heavy Marxist or Bakunite economic theory, it is a love story and something that inspires you to live your dreams and be true to your self, no matter where it leads.
Not what has become known as science fiction (as there are no gadgets or aliens) time travel is used as device for those caught up in the uprisings of May 1968 in Paris to contact the Surrealists who helped pave the way for Situationist thinking that came to the fore in that period.
Not full of heavy Marxist or Bakunite economic theory, it is a love story and something that inspires you to live your dreams and be true to your self, no matter where it leads.
January 18, 2015
Very interesting storyline blending fantasy with the surrealist movement. Characters move in time between the surrealist movement of the 1920s with the real characters of that time to the French worker/student near revolution of 1968 and beyond mixing history, character, and philosophy. Very enjoyable.
May 22, 2016
André Breton, a major character in this novel, was a real person. (19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) He was "a French writer, poet, anarchist and anti-fascist. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto (Manifeste du surréalisme) of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"."
July 23, 2011
A lovely and haunting little sci-fi novel that's set amongst the Surrealists of Paris in the 1920s, a novel where the Paris of the early postwar, the Paris of May 1968, and the Paris of a doomed future all intersect. Excellent read.
October 2, 2009
Interesting 1985 novel about Surrealism. Andre Breton & Company become unstuck in time, bouncing back and forth between 1928 and May of 1968, where student revolutionaries have brought them for inspiration. The 1928 period is well-imagined and well-rendered.
December 4, 2015
A slender sweet fantasy set in Paris. Paris in winter 1924 and in the famous spring of 1968. Surrealists and Paris. Blues musicians and Paris. A time-travel love story and Paris. As is said in that city, Tous au bistro!
May 7, 2009
A surprisingly strange, and good, book for something I picked up completely randomly.
October 17, 2011
I've always been interested in surrealism. But Surrealism and time travel. AWESome.
June 16, 2013
A classic. Urban fantasy before there was urban fantasy.
See my blog for a more detailed review.
See my blog for a more detailed review.
December 3, 2023
I’m rereading this book again. I don’t typically reread novels. This one really spoke to me.
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