Customer Reviews

Ralentir Travaux: Slow Under Construction

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I was extremely fortunate to discover this rare translation by Keith Waldrop in a used book store. Written as a collaboration between Andre Breton, Rene Char and Paul Eluard in a span of five days on a drive through the country side, this is a beautiful gem that deserves more attention.

Concise words, images dance magical:

I will remove my shoulders
Each step provokes a misfortune

To be lost in the vast of my temples

Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, and Rene Char, Ralentir, Travaux (Exact Change Press, 1990)

Written over the course of five days, Ralentir Travaux (Slow Under Construction) is a series of collaborative poems written by Breton, Eluard, and Char during the height of the surrealist movement. (No word on whether they're exquisite corpses or just regular collaborations.) If you're a fan of any of the three, you're going to like this. (If you're a fan of any of the three and not of all three, for the love of god why?) If you've never been introduced to the work of any of them, it makes a great starting point; the quality is about the same as you'd get from any of the three individually, but the style is slightly different from any of them on their own. And, as always with Exact Change, the quality of the book itself is just as high as the writing contained within it. From the point of view of the simple joy of holding a well-constructed book, as I keep saying, Exact Change has been heading the field for a long, long time. This small volume may be the best way to acquaint yourself with Small Change's offerings; you can not only fall in love with the quality of their books, but with three poets at the same time.

If there is a downside to the book, it is that Keith Waldrop's translation sometimes seems uncharacteristically flat. I'm a fan of Waldrop's, along with being a fan of the poets who wrote the original manuscript, and usually love his translations; here, it seems like once in a while a line got translated a bit too literally, perhaps, without the usual thought to whether the rhythm of the piece in English would work the same way it did in French. However, it's a minor thing, that affects maybe half a line out of every five to ten pages of the book, and certainly shouldn't drive you away.

Another winner from Exact Change. *** ½