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Review: Nostalgic Surrealist

Reviewed Work(s): Hebdomeros by Giorgio de Chirico


Review by: Alan Burns
Source: The Kenyon Review, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jun., 1967), pp. 423-427
Published by: Kenyon College
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4334741
Accessed: 10-06-2018 00:48 UTC

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REVIEWS

Alan Burns appropriate. It is a method of


violence, destroying the con-
ventional image by breaking
NOSTALGIC it up, making its constituent
elements fly apart and resettle
SURREALIST in new places with unfamiliar
neighbors.
HEBDOMEROS by Giorgio de The book moves with the
Chirico. The Four Seasons unexpected velocity of a
Book Society, $7.95; paper, dream, as Hebdomeros lives
$3.95. through disconnected epi-
sodes linked only by the
Neglected for over thirty association of ideas. Within
years, Giorgio de Chirico's less than ten lines we go from
surrealist dream novel, being passengers in a "highly-
Hebdomeros, has recently been advanced submarine" to a
resurrected. The surrealist in- "large aquarium" to "a pianist
cursion into the unconscious is playing his instrument without
again relevant and necessary. making a sound."
Today we reach into the un- Chirico violates not only his
conscious from an atheistic images but his own person. He
craving to deify ourselves by negates his autobiographical
discovering in our own minds hero by saying: "He was only
the pattern of the universe, or happy when nobody took the
as a formal reaction against slightest notice of him." He
the dominance of science, a repeatedly eliminates living
need to go where the sociolo- people from environments such
gists can't penetrate, to move as town squares, which are
in mysterious waters. deliberately drawn in a way
The surrealist method of that creates an insistent de-
fantastic juxtapositions is thus mand for the human presence.

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424 REVIEWS

As a result, the static word- a sublime lesson. He gives


pictures which can be dis- glimpses of pure happiness and
tinguished in series through describes landscapes of in-
the book re-create Chirico's comparable beauty. He de-
haunting paintings of deserted clares "in lights on the main
towns: "Departure of a gateway which formed the
Friend," "Nostalgia for the central part of a gigantic
Infinite," and "Melancholy of triumphal arch" that "Happi-
an Autumn Afternoon" (in ness has its rights."
each, two shadow figures As in his youth spent in
stand together in an otherwise Greece, the weather is
empty square). Again, book frequently marvelous: "the
and paintings have in common sky was as blue as a piece of
the obsession with stone taut paper; it was no whiter
statues which project the near the horizon; it was blue
author's desperate desire to be all over from top to bottom; a
petrified, expressing not a veritable ceiling stretching
wish for immortality but the over the town." Or rain comes
extreme of self-denigration. down "in long packed strands,
The violence extends to the and in perpendicular sheaves,"
destruction of society and the falling into the lake "water
end of the world. What per- into water."
haps most recommends this In these lyrical passages,
book to modern readers is its Chirico tempers what might
relentless background of hints have become mere sentimen-
and prophecies: "Some said tality with his purity of
that a comet was coming and language and the bold irony
with it the end of the world"; with which he defies the ro-
"the corpses uncovered at mantic mood-as, for example,
Pompeii . . ."; "All these in his remark that "the table-
people lived in a world of their cloths strewing the floor wrap
own, a world apart; they knew themselves like elephant traps
nothing about anything"; around the feet of the hurrying
"May the universe crumble"; waiters."
"suddenly the immense iron Deep nostalgia underlies
gates of the garden were sent these scenes of happiness. Such
crashing as if at the passage of interludes are invariably
a hurricane, and the barbarians brought to an end in an abrupt
appeared at the door of the and cruel manner by the
salon. . . father's presence: "With shrill
We have all become experts cries the swallows cut through
in catastrophe. It is in his the air in long black streaks.
evocation of the antithesis of In the middle of the euca-
ruin and loneliness that Chirico lyptus park the father's house
teaches contemporary artists maintained a stubborn silence

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ALAN BURNS 425

behind its closed shutters, and To subject Hebdomeros to


as if in sympathy everything this type of analysis is partly
else fell silent too." to betray it. The surrealist
His stem and authoritative mode is to distrust ideas and
father's early death was the have faith in the creative role
decisive event in Chirico's life. of language itself. "Images
Hebdomeros contains a series think for me," Paul Eluard
of father-figures who appear said. Chirico himself disliked
successively as a locomotive "discussion of eternal
engineer (his father's pro- questions." In his book, he
fession), a general, the "di- diverts one such disputation
rector of an important shipping into exaggeratedly serious con-
company," a policeman, a sideration of the merits of var-
philosopher, and as a stone ious foods. A solemn classifica-
figure to which he attaches a tion of foods into the "moral"
quickly dying snatch of life. and "immoral" is a typical
Hebdomeros' dual reaction to surrealist joke about the idiocy
each encounter is nostalgia of arbitrary moralities.
and guilt. Nostalgia for his Chirico's best joke was
youth when his father was played on his followers when
alive, laced with pity for the he broke totally with the
dying man, pity for himself surreabst movement that had
who will also die. The father's idolized him, saying: "I never
puritanical attitudes created thought Surrealism was more
in Chirico a shame, a continu- than a bottled joke!" Surreal-
ing sense of being unclean, an ism is self-questioning; it
Oedipus-guilt for his father's challenges the validity of art
death which intensified during itself. Thus, Chirico's remark
the years he lived with his at the height of his apostasy
equally dominant mother. was profoundly surrealist in
As in his paintings, Chirico's content, irreverence, and shock
mother rivals his father in the effect. His sudden and total
power of her presence, ex- rejection of the movement is
pressed in architectural forms no mystery. A similar experi-
-"porticos, arches, columns, ence befell Duchamp, who
corridors," all of which demon- stopped painting in 1925.
strate perfection and security. Those who play dangerously
He yearns for womb-like with an art that questions its
rooms: "he liked nothing but own existence may face them-
rooms, good rooms where one selves with unanswerable
could shut oneself up, with questions, and so create situ-
curtains drawn and the doors ations which demand their
closed; and especially the own elimination.
corners of rooms with low Hebdomeros, among its
ceilings. . . ." other preoccupations, chroni-

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426 REVIEWS

cles the struggles of a man Hebdomeros was written is


whose motto is "Try to be the announced goal of many
happy and good!" and who modern artists. Witness
understands that work is the Kerouac: "If possible write
key to the attainment of this 'without consciousness' in a
condition. "By work thou semi-trance." Michael Ru-
shalt be saved." For Chirico, maker: "The unconscious
to work is to paint: "To create, nests the actual." Jackson
to search, to remould, to live Pollock: "When I am in my
again." He reveals why at the painting I am not aware of
height of acclaim he a- what I am doing. . . ." And,
bandoned his friends: of Marlon Brando: "his acting
"Hebdomeros felt a sudden has the poetry of free associ-
fear, the fear of solitude, the ation in that state of mind
desolation of loneliness, and he between sleeping and waking,
spoke to his friends of his at the same time clear and
fears. But imagine his as- confused . . . the intellect is
tonishment when these latter, dulled but something else
instead of commiserating . . . takes control . . ." LeRoi
crowded round him and, Jones: "(my 'stories') have
grasping his arms and his literally come together as nar-
hands, cried all together: 'But rative after the accretion of
enjoy yourself, sir. that's the single images, silences, and
important thing!"' The guilt- what I called 'association com-
ridden man (whose shame was plexes.'" And when Chirico
increased by the self-revelatory italicizes: "Suiddenly I saw
nature of his paintings) re- the Ocean," we now thinlk of
quired to be reviled, and his the manic, pantheistic vision
friends provided only con- gained through LSD and other
gratulation. He had both to means.
assert his dominance by re- In a superb sentence which
jecting them, and invite their involuntarily characterizes his
abuse by insulting them. book, Chirico makes each word
Sado-masochism, inherent in snap like a bullet: "Infinite
Chirico's character, figures nostal,gias and sudden bursts
prominently in the book, large- of emotion which . . . took
ly through the obtrusive gladi- on the hierogliphic form of a
ators whose significance as giant grayhound with a body
persecutors and persecuted is of inadmissible length, bound-
analyzed in James A. Hodkin- ing in a rigid leap across the
son's useful introduction. world. . . ." That startling
Chirico's interest and im- adjective "inadmissible" justi-
portance is more than merely fies the surrealist method. The
psychological. The trancelike word could not have been
dream state in which "made up"; no amount of

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ALAN BURNS 427

thought would have hit on it. so passionately devoted -lec-


It can only have been "found" tronic journalism and its im-
in the sense that Picasso says, portance-the eyes of his
"I do not seek I find." audience stop their wandering
History accounts for the and fingers that have been idly
similarity of approach between active around the rims of ash
such diverse American talents trays begin to grope for pencil
as those cited above and the and paper. This book is, phys-
European writing his one book ically and in other respects,
in 1929. The date is significant. remarkably like the man.
Chirico's metaphysical paint- In the introduction, Friend-
ings were done between 1913 ly describes it as "a series of
and 1917, as gestures of with- interconnected essays about
drawal from the Great War. broadcast journalism and an
After a lapse of a decade, the occupational memoir"-but
year of econiomic disaster, even here he does himself less
192'9, produced his literary than justice. There is none of
masterpiece. One notes the the scrappiness that the phrase
parallel with our own cata- "interconnected essays" might
clysmic days. suggest in the introduction to
a book of literary criticism,
say-where it would all too
often betray a hopeful scrap-
Wallace Hildick ing together of reviews, ad-
dresses, and periodical articles.
Friendly's thesis is fully in-
FRIENDLY tegrated all right, if at times
a trifle clumsily, because the
PERSUASION content of the memoir is so
wholeheartedly professional.
DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND The reader will find here no
OUR CONTROL . . . by Fred off-duty gossip, no office tittle-
W. Friendly. Random tattle. The author happens to
House, $6.95. be one of those dedicated men
who rarely if ever do go off
Mr. Friendly is a big, heavily duty, and his sense of public
built man with a deceptively scandal seems completely to
ponderous manner. When have obliterated any nose for
speaking in public, he tends to private dirt. In fact, for the
be something of a slow starter: past twenty years or so,
to tell long, long anecdotes, Friendly's life itself must vir-
the punch-lines of which he tually have been a series of
might very easily fluff. But interconnected essays about
once he is properly launched broadcast journalism.
on the subject to which he is The memoir starts in 1947,

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