Aurelia & Other Writings [Paperback]

Gerard De Nerval (Author), Geoffrey Wagner (Translator), Robert Duncan (Translator), Marc Lowenthal (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2004

Aurelia is French poet and novelist Gérard de Nerval's account of his descent into madness--a condition provoked in part by his unrequited passion for an actress named Jenny Colon. One of the original self-styled "bohemians," Nerval was best known in his own day for parading a lobster on a pale blue ribbon through the gardens of the Palais-Royal, and was posthumously notorious for his suicide in 1855, hanging from an apron string he called the garter of the Queen of Sheba. This hallucinatory document of dreams, obsession and insanity has fascinated artists such as Joseph Cornell, who cited passages from it to explain his own work; Antonin Artaud, who saw his own madness mirrored by Nerval's; and André Breton, who placed Nerval in the highest echelon of Surrealist heroes. Geoffrey Wagner's translation of Aurélia was first published by Grove Press in 1959, but has remained out of print for nearly 20 years. Also included in this volume are previously untranslated stories by Marc Lowenthal, and poet Robert Duncan's version of the sonnet cycle Chimeras, making this the most complete collection of Nerval's influential oeuvre ever published in English.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Exact Change (February 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 187897209X
• ISBN-13: 978-1878972095
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,619 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars tragic search for the infinite, March 1, 2004

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Aurelia & Other Writings (Paperback)

simultaneously one of the saddest and most hopeful books i have ever read, this is an account of gerard de nerval's descent into insanity and his frantic search for something beyond what the positivists offer, a "spirit world". nerval obsesses over an actress who barely knew he existed, idealizing her to a seriously nutty point--but during all this he visits funerals, graveyards other places, apparently believing he is in touch with something metaphysical. i read this book awhile ago but i do remember his reference to his rejection by the woman, aurelia:"one's only option after these kinds of events is whether to die or go on living." touching, mystical, and sad.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars like Proust condensed, November 6, 2000

By 

Erik Ketzan (Germany) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aurelia & Other Writings (Paperback)

that's the best way to put it: like condensed Proust. De Nerval's stories of place, love, and memory have found a permanent place in my heart. As other reviewers have noted, these stories seem the very definition of romanticism-- an unexpected quality in a writer often remembered most for his madness, eccentricity, and ultimately, suicide.

this edition by Exact Change Press is also worth remarking upon: the paper feels great, the design is perfect... hmm, running out of synonyms for "good."

all in all, a great volume by a lesser-known master.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best explanation of a Romantic, February 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Aurelia & Other Writings (Paperback)

Because this book shows what a real romantic means beyond the common meaning of "being in love". Because De Narval is a Romantic, he behaves trying to be the center of everything, no matter the price or the pride. He loves as a tool to make women move around him. His dreams are an extension of his life, so he can live any dream as real because the memorie of the real is the same as the memorie of the dream.