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The Congo and all of its consequences

10 handwritten notebooks of the surrealist group

Manuscript

Author

Authors non identifié, Max Morise, Pierre Naville
Person cited Louis XI

Description

A small notebook containing an automatic text from 1924 under an anonymous cover (Pierre Naville, Max Morise?).

With an anonymous cover, this small notebook contains an automatic text that struggles somewhat to move away from simple enumeration to what one might be tempted to call syntax. The writing, especially the form of the lower case ‘d’, seems to designate Max Morise. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005] In the sale catalogue, it is attributed to Pierre Naville. [André Breton website, 2013]

Handwritten manuscript, 1924
Notebook in 8 with handwritten text in blue and red ink on the first four pages:
‘The Congo and everything that follows from it. The weighted sky, the black nature, the bluish and transient destructiveness of Africa’s afflictions, sodomy raised to the rank of a paradisiacal institution... nonchalance carried on a donkey’s back.’
Some small drawings on the cover.
(Cover detached). [sale catalogue, 2003]

This is probably an attempt at ‘automatic’ writing apparently with two scribes; the differences in ink colour also correspond to differences in spelling. As for the motives or themes evoked in the course of the pens and increasingly ‘fed’ by the influx of nonsense and delirious images (or not) - as during a warm-up that accelerates the rhythm - they are in phase with other writings in the Surrealist milieu [...]. Isn't it in a way a kind of ‘open’ exquisite corpse? FL [Françoise Levaillant, 21 August 2013]

In 2021, Georges Sebbag had no hesitation in attributing it to Pierre Naville. [André Breton website, 2021]

*This entry was translated from the French by Michael Richardson.

Bibliography

- Georges Sebbag éd., Dix cahiers surrréalistes, avril 1924, Jean-Michel Place / Dilecta, Albias / Paris, 2021. Rep. p. 149 - 152.