Leonora Carrington

 
The book was in my house for at least seven years.
During my research for ONCE SHE WAS A CHILD, books where pouring in from many places, by mail and in my luggage.

The House of Fear was one of them.
You know how books tend to behave - they come to you only when you prove yourself worthy.
So here I am today, finally reading this book I've come to love so much.

Surrealism, you know.
Yet Surrealism as a transparent veil behind which not only the writer's face is dreamily visible, but her soul as well. The way truthful literature always shows.

She was nineteen when she eloped with a man thirty years her senior, this daughter of an English textile tycoon.
Unlike her lover, Max Ernst, a leader in the Surrealist movement.

A visual artist in her writing as well, each sentence in the book makes you stop and look and listen:

"The flies seemed to be bloated and unable to fly more than a few yards without dropping to the ground."

"Well, he came into the office with no trousers on and said, 'Gutten Tag, gutten tag Herr Doktor.' Then, when asked to write his residence, nationality, name, name of parents, age, and finally date of birth, he wrote 1914 to every question, added up the result, and presented the answer to the doctor. He was let into Switzerland as a harmless lunatic."
Not an anecdote. It dawns upon me when I remember her own real emotional breakdown when her lover is imprisoned in a concentration camp.

I'm so happy I've bought this book, as it is among those I'll reread many times. To ensure this I keep it at my bedside.

Read and reread: "I try to empty myself of images which have made me blind."

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posted by Corinna at 2:06 PM