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Robin Walz. Pulp Surrealism: Insolent Popular Culture in
Early Twentieth-Century Paris.
Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2000. 206p.
Linda White
University of Nevada, Reno
Cultural historian Robin Walz focuses on mass print culture as one
of the harbingers of modernity and modernism and as one environment
for the emergence of surrealism. In an academic field such as mine
(Basque studies) where post-modernism has dominated the conversation
for the last few years and thinkers such as Manuel Castells and
Joseba Zulaika have shaped the overarching rhetoric, this
retrospective on pre-modernist French culture is a welcome
respite. It also serves as a reminder that modes of thinking
evolve within a physical milieu, and that thinkers are responding
to stimuli as mundane as road construction and the closure of a
favorite coffee shop. The "isms" may define mentalities, but the
mentalities are shaped by physical realities. In literature, it
is easy to lose sight of this seminal fact as the text, or a text
or any text, becomes the point of departure for further layers of
thought and rhetoric.
Students of literature (at whatever stage) can always benefit from
a visit to the specific geography and culture against which a
work is foregrounded. Walz provides those reading the Surrealists
with a time machine in which they may travel back to the Paris
that surrounded, if not inspired, their works. One cannot
appreciate the surrealist touches in Aragon's Le Paysan de
Paris, notes Walz, without having knowledge of the reality of
the Opera Passageway that he describes.
Pulp Surrealism began as a dissertation and was rewritten
into a book. It helps to know this as the reader enters each
chapter, because it explains why the meat of the text is marbled
with occasional dissertational backpedalling as the author attempts
to examine every possible angle of an event or topic. This does not
make the information or the thinking less valuable, but there are a
few pages that are a chore to read.
Walz's fondness for French language, culture and literature are
evident throughout the book, and his viewpoint as a historian allows
him to make statements that few literary specialists would dare
make for fear of sounding simplistic. Nevertheless, such statements
often ring true, and they are an expression of Walz's joy of French.
The conversations in Fantômas are highly theatrical, continually
stating and restating the obvious in stilted and overdrawn terms.
When Fantômas asks Juve's assistance in escaping from prison
in return for revealing Fandor's whereabouts, the detective
responds, "Help you, Fantômas? No! You are the Genius of
Evil. Everything you do yields terrifying results. Never, not for
any price, not even the life of Fandor, would I become an
instrument of your nefarious work...." Such dialog creates its
own sense of enjoyment, beyond the literal meaning of the words
themselves. (49; emphasis added)
Chapters two and three, "The Lament of Fantômas" and "Murder,
Mirth and Misogyny" may be of special interest to detective and
crime buffs. They appear sandwiched between two chapters ("The
Baedeker of Hives" and "Is Suicide a Solution?") that deal in
depth with the topic heralded on the title page, like the creme
filling of an OreoTM cookie and just as yummie. They are
the "pulp" of "pulp surrealism" and offer an excellent excuse for
eating the filling first.
Overall, the book is valuable for its glimpses of early
twentieth-century Paris and the influence of that scene on the
emerging surrealist movement. However, different parts of the
book will appeal to different readers. A journey from cover to
cover may leave you wishing the author had included a Guide
Bleu to the interior of each chapter.
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