Surrealism is Fucking Awesome

[mildlyaroused]

I was recently re-reading Kazuo Ishiguro's most polarising novel, 'The Unconsoled', and was struck by just how much I loved it. The book follows a famous pianist named Mr Ryder during his stay in a small town and, simply put, it's bizarre. It reads like a dream. It got me thinking about how powerful surrealism can be.

When I look back on the books that made me think deeply about themes or philosophy, there are a lot of surreal titles on that list. I think I've found some (piece of the puzzle) sort of reason as to why that is for me.

It came when I was looking into Ishiguro's thoughts on his book, and found that he described his techniques in the narrative as "The language of dreams."

Just now, the two of us are having this conversation in this room with nobody else in the house. A third person is introduced into this scene. In a conventional work, there would be a knock on the door and somebody would come in, and we would say hello. The dreaming mind is very impatient with this kind of thing. Typically what happens is we’ll be sitting here alone in this room, and suddenly we’ll become aware that a third person has been here all the time at my elbow. There might be a sense of mild surprise that we hadn’t been aware of this person up until this point, but we would just go straight into whatever point the person is raising. I thought this was quite interesting. And I started to see parallels between memory and dream, the way you manipulate both according to your emotional needs at the time. The language of dreams would also allow me to write a story that people would read as a metaphorical tale as opposed to a comment on a particular society.

What I like about surrealism is that, by removing a fundamental logic or physical realism to a story, you force the reader to make other connections. You force them to look for patterns. When I read surrealist work, my brain can't find as many logical connections as it'd like to, so it forces me to look elsewhere - usually, to the abstract, to theme or metaphor or philosophy. This often causes me to engage with the real guts of a story in a way I wouldn't had the narrative been more straightforward. Often that has a profound impact on me.

It's a very different experience to more sensical narratives. It's not better or worse, just different. I'm sure there are dozens of more conventional narratives that I haven't quite processed in the deepest way I could - but this is exactly why I love surrealism. It forces me to process those deeper messages, since I have to forget the parts of stories that I usually engage with (plot, progression, clever narrative) in favour of the language of dreams.

Do others like surrealism as I do?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Question is, how many surrealists does it take to change an lightbulb?



















---Yellow

 

[MillieDynamite]

In surrealism, lightbulbs don't burn out.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

A thought for you.

A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until - “My God,” says a second man, “I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn.” At which point, a dimension is added which makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third dimension only spreads it thinner and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience... “Look, look!” recites the crowd. “A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.”

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard​

 

[Tio_Narratore]

In surrealism, lightbulbs don't burn out.

In Surrealism, light bulbs!

 

[MillieDynamite]

Well, lightbulb is the surrealistic spelling of light bulb. though my floating spell checker doesn't dislike it as one word. It must be a surrealistic spell checker.

In Surrealism, light bulbs!

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Well, lightbulb is the surrealistic spelling of light bulb. though my floating spell checker doesn't dislike it as one word. It must be a surrealistic spell checker.

We know that light can bulb, but have any surrealists tried bulbing heavy?

 

[SimonDoom]

Surrealism is not a heavy part of my reading diet, but I've enjoyed some of it. I enjoyed Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, which I'd describe more as magical realism than as surrealism, but it's so strange I think it can be called surrealistic. Kafka, of course.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'd like to see surrealistic erotica. I think it could work well. I cannot recall having read anything I would describe that way.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I'd like to see surrealistic erotica. I think it could work well. I cannot recall having read anything I would describe that way.

I think it could work quite well, since love and romance can be so abstract and hard to think about logically. Not sure there'd be much of a market for it though...

 

[NotWise]

I'd like to see surrealistic erotica. I think it could work well. I cannot recall having read anything I would describe that way.

Several of my stories originated as dreams, but I've generally written out most of the dream-like qualities. For "Hurricane Twyla" (in FIrst Time) I kept a lot of the dream-like nature. I've gotten enough of a "WTF?" reaction to the story that I must have kept enough to be at least a little surreal.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I'd like to see surrealistic erotica. I think it could work well. I cannot recall having read anything I would describe that way.

Try this letter I received from a writing partner some years ago. If you like the Garcia Lorca-esque Surrealism, I'll send you my reply; all of it's too much for a forum thread.

My love,
I cannot promise I'll be back, for I keep seeking refuge from all things sane. I must run, please don't deny me that pleasure. But for now, I will confess that they lie upon the cold-blooded sea, with their white legs and round bellies rotting against the surrounding scenes. I only did to them what the sparrows would have wished. I have murdered the women that could take you from me. Yes, the young and the meek, the old and the weak. Forgive me, my magnificent creature of centuries past, as with you I cry when it is fashionable to laugh and I hate when it takes less courage to love.
And now I sit here in my room, with velvet drapes cascading all the way down to my ankles, and my pen threatening this paper. I will now write for you. And you will read for me. Do your coal eyes roam as though wanting to get away? Stay. My words are about to nail down your hands, and wrists, and you will not be dragged from this moment. No, you will stay and read this letter while birds of foreign tongue speak to me. My eyes press hard to print my heart into your bones, until it becomes the garret of this fairy palace I have created for us, where the real world could never come. My smiles are spider bites; my laughs are assassin's attempts, with glances in the corners of your own which I will soon possess. My whispers are whips and my caresses are the last hooks of a castaway, with love-tricks hidden deep within the whorls of my cunt. Keep reading my love, and crawl over the floors like an animal dragging a great trap, and until your screams get stuck in the wall...
In this last paragraph, allow your head to fall apart into sleep like the two halves of a lopped melon. And here, now take my hands and fingers, and wear them until dawn. And I promise that when you finally awake -- we will wear each others face...
Adieu mon amour.

 

[mildlyaroused]

Adieu mon amour.

Violence and sex somehow seem to go hand in hand. Not sexual violence - that is a different kettle of fish (and not my kettle of fish, though I don't judge others). But there is something very attractive in cosmic-level love stories which leave real violence in their wake, or which are described violently. Maybe because sex and violence are both so raw and visceral. The imagery is evocative

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Violence and sex somehow seem to go hand in hand. Not sexual violence - that is a different kettle of fish (and not my kettle of fish, though I don't judge others). But there is something very attractive in cosmic-level love stories which leave real violence in their wake, or which are described violently. Maybe because sex and violence are both so raw and visceral. The imagery is evocative

Not just sex and violence; at the heart of it is the sense of loss of control, of escaping and transcending the everyday of life. So booze and drugs, trances, and other religious phenomena (remember the ecstasy of St. Theresa) can also evoke the same. There is much literature - non- and fiction on it. The pairing of Thanatos and Eros is possibly akin to this; The intersection of Death and Love has been a staple of fiction from the earliest myths to the present, in high lit and low. Edmund Leach's Two Essays concerning the Symbolic Representation of Time is a good place to start on this theme.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I'd like to see surrealistic erotica. I think it could work well. I cannot recall having read anything I would describe that way.

I wrote a story featuring a magical butt plug, but it still hurts going in, so I guess that's more magical realism than surrealism.

Do others like surrealism as I do?

I adore Kazuo Ishiguro, but was never impressed by surrealism in general... I guess mostly because of the insistence by its progenitors that it ought to be a movement with political force, which imo kinda spoils the point.
I never read the unconsoled but I loved every one of his books I've cracked open.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I wrote a story featuring a magical butt plug, but it still hurts going in, so I guess that's more magical realism than surrealism.


I adore Kazuo Ishiguro, but was never impressed by surrealism in general... I guess mostly because of the insistence by its progenitors that it ought to be a movement with political force, which imo kinda spoils the point.
I never read the unconsoled but I loved every one of his books I've cracked open.

China Mieville's The Last Days of New Paris is worth a read.

It's set in 1950s Paris, which is is still under German occupation, and the Resistance is bringing surrealist art work to life as their weaponry.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I never read the unconsoled but I loved every one of his books I've cracked open.

I'd definitely recommend it if you have a spare few days. Bizarre but brilliant!

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'd like to see surrealistic erotica. I think it could work well. I cannot recall having read anything I would describe that way.

Leonard Cohen's "Beautiful Losers" has some passages that would count, particularly the Danish vibrator scene. I can't say the book really clicked with me, but it has its fans.

 

[SimonDoom]

I wrote a story featuring a magical butt plug, but it still hurts going in, so I guess that's more magical realism than surrealism.

Is that The Lollipop? I'll have to read that.

Now that I think about it, I guess my story A Bikini With A Mind Of Its Own has surrealistic elements. It's not written in what I consider a surrealistic style, but the subject is somewhat surrealistic--a bikini that has magical properties in constantly falling off a woman at the beach no matter how hard she tries to keep it on.

The story has been popular enough in terms of picking up views and favorites, but the score is lower than average, suggesting some readers were turned off by the magical/surrealistic elements.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

China Mieville's The Last Days of New Paris is worth a read.

this looks quite interesting! I'll have to put it on my already way too long read list

I'd definitely recommend it if you have a spare few days. Bizarre but brilliant!

and this as well

Is that The Lollipop? I'll have to read that.

Nope! A Spanish Alchemy, which was inspired by, but otherwise has absolutely nothing to do with The Alchemist.

 

[yowser]

I was a bit astonished to find 67 stories with the tag 'surreal'. Likely none with the strict constructionist interpretation, but remarkable still.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Leonard Cohen's "Beautiful Losers" has some passages that would count, particularly the Danish vibrator scene. I can't say the book really clicked with me, but it has its fans.

Cohen's re-writing of Garcia Lorca's Little Viennese Waltz as Take this Waltz is nice little bit of surrealism with its erotic moments.

 

[MillieDynamite]

This thread reads like a bad nightmare, very surealestic. You open the closet door and step into a crypt with your name on a stone coffin (Yes, I did dream that).

 

[nice90sguy]

I'd like to see surrealistic erotica. I think it could work well. I cannot recall having read anything I would describe that way.

I wrote one, based closely on a dream I had - it didn’t do well. Every time I read it, I’m taken back to that Coleridge world