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Vinny Reads's avatar

Thanks for the Matthias Enard recc. I read "Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants" last year and adored it. Would love to read more from him.

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Greg's avatar

I guess you've preempted my youthful reading of Nadja so now if I say it is a foundational text of my life and a true undersung classic I just sound like a sad pervert. But you're wrong*. Also, read Mad Love, which is a later book (this time he marries the subject, has a child, eventually divorces her) that connects to the earlier one in certain key ways. I hope to have a piece up on this soon, drawing on an interview with Pollizotti, who is not only a great translator but Breton's primary biographer in English. Perhaps it will change your mind a little.

*You are not wrong that Breton is using Nadja for his own purposes, just that you're wrong that the book is bad.

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