Une Semaine de Bonté: A Surrealistic Novel in Collage

"Surrealism" is an overused word these days, drained of much of its original power ... but just open these startling pages of collage & you'll rediscover that it's still just as potent. Both disturbing dream & benign nightmare, the non-narrative accumulates in woozy intensity as you immerse yourself in it, swept away willingly by its ghostly flood of images. Like a genuine dream, there are constant, tantalizing hints of unfulfilled meaning -- it almost makes sense, but never quite does -- but that's not frustrating in the least. Instead, depending on your moods, you'll find multiple meanings ... or you can simply enjoy the experience itself, without trying to find some rational skeleton behind it all. And if it leads you to more of Max Ernst's work, all the better! Highly recommended!

I've never seen a book as random as this. Whether you view it from start to finish, or from finish to start, it makes just as much sense either way. The page you view next has little or nothing to do with the page you have just viewed. It's actually quite fun. Take for example page 10. You see a guy with a mustache staring at an open mouthed monster with a panther head and human body, standing on some steps, carrying a lantern, and wearing some type of backpack along with a cross shaped medal. Then on page 11, you see neither one of these figures, and instead see a similar monster with a panther head and human body also with a backpack, but this monster is calmly smoking a pipe, and stirring what appears to be some spaghetti-shaped substance on top of the headless body of a topless woman mannequin. In both pictures the panther shaped monster has a backpack and a lantern, but you REALLY have to use your imagination if you are to believe they're the same character since they don't look the same and are standing in completely different backgrounds while engaging themselves in completely different scenarios. It should be noted that the picture on page 11 definitely isn't the only picture featuring nudity. Like most surrealist works, this book has its fair share of the stuff. I don't know what kind of a maturity rating you'd give the book as a whole, but it definitely isn't for kids. Which is kind of a shame, because I think kids would really like all the weird creatures that fill up a good half of this work. I mean, we've got monsters with lion heads, bird heads, Easter Island rock heads, and, well, that's pretty much it for the heads, but there's dragons and other monstery stuff too. Then there's all kinds of random, non-monster sights to see, that feature your classic dark humor. I particularly like this picture where some guy is dropping a bat on the ground from a tray, and another one where a guy is just lying face down on the floor like he's dead while a woman's in the room combing her hair like nothing's wrong. My dreams are a lot like the pictures in this book. Not so much that they feature strange creatures, but that they're nothing more than a string of random, isolated scenes that rarely follow any kind of story. Or perhaps each is a story that never stays around long enough to develop any kind of coherency. Each of these Semaine De Bonte pictures looks like it can be a part of a story, but it's up to the viewer to come up with some kind of way that the snapshot picture he or she is seeing could have happened. I'd recommend this book to anybody over 18. It's definitely an interesting, unusual item to have in your own personal library and also a golden opportunity to re-live the long gone European surrealistic fad of the early 20th century.

This is an incredible piece of work, absolutely integral to any collection of anyone who has an interest in the Dadaists or Surrealists. Ernst's intuitive juxtapositions create an intirely seperate and complete logical (or illogical, depending) world of lurid mysticism and dread. Though not without a sense of humor. If you like this, also check out (if you've not already) the work of Joseph Cornell and the writings of Lautremont.

If you're looking for inspiration, you can jar something loose in your head with this beautiful, inexpensive book. This legendary collage masterpiece remains so obscure that most poets & artists aren't even aware of its existance. What does it all mean? I sure don't know but it makes me feel strange in the pit of my stomach. A wild one, kids! Bob Rixon, WFMU-FM