REMARKS ON SURREALISM IN THE MICHAUX-HELLENS CORRESPONDENCE: 'ON ULTRA-CONDENSED STYLE'

par Branko Aleksić

The development of a oneiric poetics via Franz Hellens' Mélusine and the Brussels journal Disque vert; the friendship with the Belgian surrealist Camille Goemans and real contacts with André Breton's surrealist group in Paris during the years 1924-1925: the exact facts—"right in the midst of new Michaux" (letter no. 20, 1924)—emerge clearly for the first time in the collection Sitôt lus, lettres à Franz Hellens 1922-1952, edited by Leonardo Clerici at Fayard in Paris in 1999 (180 p.). These mostly unpublished letters are a central source that was missing for the editors of Michaux's Complete Works in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, as the note (vol. I, p. 1018) admits. Leonardo Clerici, philosopher and poet, founder of the "Istituto di Scriptura" in Brussels, author of l’Oracle de l’Avant-garde, a sophistic dictionary (Brussels, 1994), fortunately published these letters in an anastatic edition, with "his unpublished variations, an algebraic style that aims at things and not words' (p. 8). In the appendix, he notably reproduced the first handwritten draft of the essay on dreams ↑ as well as several other documents—the review of the tables of contents of journals such as Disque vert and the relevant publications, both by Michaux and his associates. The historical value of this epistolary book goes beyond Michaux's later concern, "already a traveler of all journeys without luggage" (in Ecuador), who did not want to take with him letters of introduction or recommendation for the "Lords of Death." These precious poetic documents must be read, as Clerici did in his preface, with the warning in the letter of 13-IX-1952: keep "eyes and mind attentive," for one can sleep on a line with eyes wide open. Can the gain be given otherwise than in Michaux's manner—"ultra-condensed'! I have focused here on the three points of the envelope triangle:

a/ the poetic revelation of Michaux the green discus thrower in Brussels
b/ his friendship with Camille Goemans
c/ his settling in Paris—helped by Philippe Soupault—leading to a critical collaboration with the surrealists.

The Green Discus Thrower in Brussels

From 1922, Michaux studied scientific works on dreams and made his debut in Disque vert no. 5, in September 1922, with an essay entitled Cas de folie circulaire, where "He believes himself to be Maldoror" while discussing the incongruous question of whether "The application of soft iron to the nape produces a new personality"... Was not the rediscovery of Lautréamont first made by the Belgian intelligentsia before returning to the surrealists Aragon and Breton? Even written in prose, "Maldoror, the kid..."—all that is poetry, asserts Michaux (letter no. 10, 1923). At the same time, paying tribute to Franz Hellens' oneiric novel Folie circulaire, which represents the extension, the young author hopes to find in "a volume of science ... a striking example of his theory on Mélusine" (letter no. 1, 1922). He is ready to make a whole journey—like Rimbaud's to Charleville—to get hold of a scientific volume he lacked (letter no. 2). Obviously, from this too passionately conceived scientific interest, Michaux draws his poetic product, which he announces (letter no. 5 of 12-XII-1922) as "new style literature." These will be the Énigmes, of which he proudly presents the "bizarre logic" as "invention and originality" (letter no. 6 undated). The result is essays on Freud's psychoanalysis and finally a poetry more than a philosophy (letter no. 13 of 1923), even if it was rather a philosophical discourse that Michaux was preparing for his first interlocutor. Michaux promised Hellens: "as for being an original critic; that will surely be," but from the critique of Mélusine only the indication remains that he considered this work by Hellens as transcendental. The critique of Mélusine will nevertheless become—will provoke, as letter no. 5 says—the first book by Michaux, published under the title: Les Rêves et la jambe, in Antwerp, in 1923. Thus are laid the foundations of a common interest with the surrealists for a poetic oneirocritique.

"My friend Camille Goemans' (letter no. 3, 9-XI-1922)

Of the early Belgian surrealist group formed around the journal Correspondances (published as 22 tracts between 1924 and 1925), Michaux first shared his interests with a classmate, Camille Goemans, who dedicated his text "Fog" ("to Henri Michaus", sic) in Disque vert no. 6, as early as October 1922. It was to Goemans that Michaux sent in January 1923 a first draft of "some stories in cursive style" (letter no. 8 still announces the Énigmes); he considers Goemans' poetic judgment "sagacious." Goemans and Michaux appear together among the contributors to the journal Écrits du Nord (November 1922), then among the members of the editorial board of Disque vert (1923, I/4-5-6) where they write reciprocally about each other's works (1923, II/1). Michaux suggests to Hellens to push Goemans towards criticism: "He will do something good there" (letter no. 4). Did relations sour during Goemans' marriage in 1923 when Michaux made "a blunder by not writing anything to Camille about his engagement"? Goemans' contribution to the journal Correspondances is well known (Goemans would direct the journal Distances from Paris in 1928), and I would like to recall the excellent article he published in La Révolution surréaliste no. 12, in Paris, in December 1929: "De l’amour à son objet" (p. 22): he considers that a couple of lovers should not close in on themselves in the face of the threats of the current state of things.

Michaux among the Surrealists in Paris

Letters from 1924-1925 reveal a real state of affairs that contradicts Michaux's later statement that he "had no personal relations with the surrealists' (Memo-letter at 5 a.m., 1946, deciphered in the Complete Works vol. I, pp. 6 and 997). It seems that later Michaux felt obliged to defend himself from the "influences' of surrealist poets, while admitting those of painters such as Dali, Masson, and Klee... The letter of 27-XI-1924 is irrefutable (it corrects the anachronistic information such as that contained in the article on Michaux in the Dictionnaire général du surréalisme, 1982, p. 281, that "From 1925, he became aware of S[urrealism]": it was already at the end of 1924 that Michaux had his first meeting with André Breton, Paul Eluard, Roger Vitrac, "and another young man whose name I have forgotten and who is even more surrealist and ardent to me," he writes to Hellens. It is obviously not Aragon, whom he would meet a few days later, but a lesser-known surrealist: I think of Pierre Naville, who at the time was in charge of the journal La Révolution surréaliste, or J.-A. Boiffard, who, with Naville, signed the preface to the first issue of the journal. Michaux is especially interested in the survey on suicide in La Révolution surréaliste and gets closer to Jean Paulhan who, with André Salmon, was also on the editorial board of Disque vert for France. He finds "Paulhan—good'; letter no. 25 alludes to Paulhan's response in LRS no. 2, 15-I-1925, p. 10 (letter no. 28 then comments on the response of Robert Desnos, also met by Michaux). Michaux managed to obtain the collaboration of Breton"s group in Disque vert, which he relaunched from January 1924, first through the Van den Berg bookstore in Montparnasse (Michaux thinks he can sell 500 copies instead of 100). Then he also goes "to Six" (letter no. 17): that is, to the Librairie Six opposite 5, avenue Löwendhal, founded by Soupault in 1921. And it is thanks to Soupault that Michaux found a job at Kra publishers, directed by Léon-Pierre Quint, who also published Soupault"s Revue européenne. "I will have stories in the Revue européenne in February, I think...", Michaux logically writes to Hellens at the end of December 1925; he gives Hellens the address of Kra where he must write to him. Nevertheless, while maintaining his independence, in letter no. 24 ↑ he announces for Disque vert "judgments on surrealism and its applications' that will be severe. Surrealism is not authentic (letter no. 25). Michaux justifies his point of view to Hellens: "It is looked at a bit from above, you would say, seen from a bit far. Be careful not to get too carried away with 'Surrealism.' Poisson soluble... it's superficial transposed into the domain of the 'marvelous,' it remains superficial, Breton lacks foundation" (letter no. 27). The famous article "Le Surréalisme" published in Disque vert in January-March 1925 (with a caustic article by Pascal Pia about Aragon's Libertinage), repeats this judgment: Breton's supposed automatic text, "'Le Poisson soluble' is unemotional, monotonous like a clown." In vain did Julien Gracq implicitly criticized Michaux by analyzing the figure of the fairy woman precisely in Poisson soluble and elsewhere in Breton's work—"the woman (so remarkably absent in Michaux)..."; and in vain did Marguerite Bonnet implied that Michaux "nevertheless sides with Breton in the search for the marvelous' (André Breton: Naissance de l’aventure surréaliste, 1975, p. 336). The non-authenticity, the superficiality of Breton's imagination as the product of forced automatic writing did not escape Michaux's criticism[1]. He even went to the Bureau of Surrealist Research, rue de Grenelle, to document himself in order to give an accurate account. In the attendance book (published in 1988, Paris, Gallimard), p. 29, Saturday, December 6, 1924, the duty must have been ensured by Simone Breton (André Breton"s first wife) and by J.-A. Boiffard, who "apologizes"; then "L[ouis] A[ragon] answers Henry Michaux." On Tuesday, December 16, on page 30 of the attendance book, Paul Eluard, who is on duty with Benjamin Péret, notes in turn: "Visit from Mr. Michaux to whom we give a note on the R[évolution] S[urréaliste] for the Disque Vert." Indeed, an announcement for the survey in no. 1 of LRS that had just appeared, "Is suicide a solution?", was published in no. 1 of Disque Vert in 1925, thus dispelling Michaux's fear that with his project on the same subject ("On Suicide") he would collide with Breton's group.

Later, recalling before the circle of Argentine writers, in Buenos Aires, on September 23, 1936, his visit to the Bureau of Surrealist Research, he said that he had seen drawers full of pages of automatic writing. Michaux judges these pages unreadable, "with only a few crumbs of poetry that suffocated." This is the last time he would criticize automatic writing, and the judgment must be understood as final: "It was not poetry, but an astonishing way to get in touch with the subconscious without effort, a vast field to play freely, without reminders to order, without encountering either shame, or pettiness, or even reason." The surrealists failed in their attempts at automatic writing and poetic notations of dreams: they failed to make poetry in series, but their experiments nevertheless remain "a first-rate psychoanalytic document." (see the retranslation of Michaux's lecture, "Busqueda en la poesia contemporanea" from the journal Sur, no. 25, October 1936, in his Complete Works, vol. I, p. 975-977).

André Thirion, who in his memoirs, Révolutionnaires sans Révolution ↑, noted that Michaux's texts were published in Eugène Jolas' journal Transition, to which surrealists also contributed (p. 148), well understood that Michaux always showed "the honesty of the witness and the experimenter" (id., p. 190). Breton himself also honored his independent linguistic experiments, which converged with those of the surrealists (Du surréalisme dans ses œuvres vives, 1953).

    1 — . Should we read ironically the dedication on the title page of Bases du Merveilleux (original edition: Saint-Maurice d’Étalen, "printed in small numbers for the flower of our friends towards the end of the world'): ↩

"One of the Bases of the Marvelous at least will not have completely escaped me. Tiny or great, to whom else to offer the study if not to André Breton?

H. Michaux."

Facsimile reproduction in the auction catalog of the André Breton Collection (Paris, 2003, Calmels-Cohen, Livres II, lot 912). Apart from this collection, Breton owned the Fables des origines (Paris-Brussels, Éditions du Disque Vert, with autograph dedication signed "by Henri Michaux")