The Last Days of New Paris

by China Miéville | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 9781509841882 Global Overview for this book
Registered by lamelemon of București, Wallachia Romania on 4/22/2019
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3 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by lamelemon from București, Wallachia Romania on Monday, April 22, 2019
"Beauty will be convulsive...."

It's 1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer - and occult disciple - Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever.

It's 1950. A lone surrealist fighter, Thibaut, walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Resistance are trapped in unending conflict, and the streets are stalked by living images and texts - and by the forces of hell. To escape the city, he must join forces with Sam, an American photographer intent on recording the ruins, and make common cause with a powerful, enigmatic figure of chance and rebellion: the exquisite corpse.

But Sam is being hunted. And new secrets will emerge that will test all their loyalties - to each other, to Paris old and new, and to reality itself.

Journal Entry 2 by lamelemon at București, Wallachia Romania on Monday, April 22, 2019
This book is truly a work of art. I can see myself re-reading it in a few years, next to it a coffee table surrealist art book, a modern history book and a glass of dry wine. It took me a while to take in the universe's premises and laws, but they stand (considerably better than an Eiffel tower missing its lower part). I loved how the final twist/manif was played, I appreciated how the notes and afterword are so much a part of the story (although I have to admit I skimmed through them). On the lookout for more Miéville, as it is such a ride to get lost in somebody else's weird dreams. Surely not a book for everyone - if you go aboard this one, make sure you enjoy the weirdness ahead of you.

Journal Entry 3 by lamelemon at Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz Germany on Monday, April 22, 2019

Released 4 yrs ago (4/26/2019 UTC) at Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz Germany

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Surprise!
Happy reading :)

Journal Entry 4 by over-the-moon at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Sunday, April 28, 2019
oh gosh, I love China Miéville and thoroughly recommend King Rat and Perdido Street Station, they are absolutely wild and thrilling! Thank you so much for the surprise, lamelemon - multumesc! (sorry I don't have the right accents).

Added photo later: all this surrealism brought to mind the sculptures by Nikola Zaric that are dotted around Lausanne; I particularly like the donkey-man reading in rue Voltaire.

Journal Entry 5 by over-the-moon at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Sunday, May 12, 2019
Old Paris, New Paris... in any case a different Paris, one where the imagination of the Surrealists takes on a physical, threatening form, thanks to the invention of a machine that accidentally triggers a kind of Big Bang. The Exquisite Corpses of André Breton and friends come to life, like the Golem.

I was familiar with some of the artworks mentioned; others I had to look up - everything is real, or rather, surreal, and convincingly woven into the cloth of this amazing novella that took me through the streets of my favourite city.

I liked the "interview" with Thibault (personally I don't think I could sit in a chair for so long without taking at least one bathroom break...) and also the detailed list of artworks at the end that had me googling images frantically.

What a wonderful illustrated edition this would make!

I don't have a photo of the Deux Magots, a pivotal location in the narrative, in my collection, but here is one of Prometheus by Ossip Zadkine, which now stands in the square named for Sartre and Beauvoir, right next to the café. I can imagine it as a manif, surrounded by flames.

Journal Entry 6 by over-the-moon at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Sunday, May 12, 2019
I am going to send the book to someone who likes weird, a bookcrosser who does not have anything by Miéville on their shelf, so maybe I will be opening a new door. Specially for that person, here is one of the artworks mentioned in the book.

Journal Entry 7 by over-the-moon at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Saturday, June 15, 2019

Released 4 yrs ago (6/7/2019 UTC) at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to the US (not sure of the exact date I posted it, some time early June)

Journal Entry 8 by HI77 at Fort Myers, Florida USA on Tuesday, August 6, 2019
A dance of dreams

on the feet of mice,
that holds up an elephant of chance.

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