2010 Reading #11: The Dream Years

[snurri]

Books 1-10.

11. The Dream Years by Lisa Goldstein. For some time I've entertained the idea of writing a murder mystery starring some of the original Surrealists--Breton, Artaud, Aragon--as the detectives; this is not quite that novel, but it scratches that same itch, to the point where I probably don't need to write mine. Goldstein ties the story of Robert St. Onge, a fictional founding Surrealist, together with that of the general strike of Paris in May 1968; St. Onge slips through time and falls in love with Solange, one of the student leaders who cite the Surrealists as their political and artistic inspiration. Robert's relationship with Breton and his iron-fist control of Surrealism as a movement is complex; Goldstein has a good handle on Breton's dual nature and the rigidly enforced anarchy that he espoused. Goldstein's conceit has it that Robert, André and the other Surrealists are magi, able to fight the armies of conformity with their unchained imaginations. I won't say too much about where that conceit takes the novel, but I confess I found the final showdown to be a bit of an anticlimax. This is, in the end, a very idealistic novel, with a lot of faith in the power of art. I hope that doesn't sound condescending, because I don't mean it that way; on my better days I have that sort of faith. Just not every day.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

If you like surrealism, I recommend Mieville's Un Lun Dun.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I haven't read much Mieville thus far, though I've got a couple of his books in the to-be-read heap.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Un Lun Dun is YA, and very different from the rest. You can tell he's a horror writer, but he doesn't use disgust as an artistic resource in ULD.

[tim-pratt.livejournal.com]

That's my second-favorite Lisa Goldstein novel! (A Mask for the General is my favorite, and is best read alongside Pat Murphy's The City, Not Long After and Michaela Roessner's Vanishing Point; together the three form an odd sort of Bay Area Post-Apocalypses trilogy.)

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that this is the only Lisa Goldstein I've read; this is embarrassing because I've known about her for going on twenty years, and have been carrying around a copy of Tourists for nearly that long!