Free Rein (La Clé des champs) (review)

Book Reviews André Breton. Free Rein (La Clé des champs). Trans. Michel Parmentier & Jacqueline d'Amboise. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 291. $35. This translation by Michel Parmentier and Jacqueline d'Amboise of André Breton's major collection of diverse essays, ranging from 1936 to 1952, constitutes an important addition to works currently available in English and should be of particular interest to an American audience, since La Clé des champs incorporates Breton's American years, as well as his foray into Mexico, the West Indies, and Quebec. La Clé des champs was first published in French by Editions du Sagittaire, 1953, then reprinted by J.-J. Pauvert in 1967. The essays first appeared in the pages of periodicals which Breton dominated—Minotaure, NRF, FIARI, VVV, NÉON—or were part of the exhibition, Le Surréalisme en 1947, or delivered as appreciations on behalf of artists, writers, and an occasional revolutionary (Trotsky). La Lampe dans l'horloge (1948), was first published in book form by Robert Marin (Paris). "La Clé des champs" is the title of the first chapter of Jean Grandville's Un Autre monde (1844): "Par-delà l'infini il y a un monde qui attend son Christoph Colomb: en prenant possession de ce continent fantastique au prix de mille dangers. . . , " writes Grandville , whose echo can be heard in Breton. The keys in alchemy represent the power of access to the lesser and greater mysteries. Breton plays sleuth on lesser and greater matters, which range from his exposure of a hoax claiming the discovery of a new Rimbaud poem (Flagrant délit) to his advocacy of Gnosticism in essays written in the aftermath of World War II. When La Clé des champs was republished by Pauvert, the Times Literary Supplement wrote of these essays (1/18/68): "They provide a curiously accurate insight into the greatness and pettiness, the deep perceptions and strange naiveties of this extraordinary man." Indeed Breton is out there, uncensored, restless, desirous of engaging his enthusiasm by showering praise on Malcolm de Chazal, Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud, Raymond Roussel, Maurice Fourre, Jean Ferry, Magloire-Sainte-Aude, and others. The translation of the title La Clé des champs as Free Rein conveys the Janus-character of Breton, but it erases the symbolism of the French title and its esoteric and literary connotations . Breton might have taken issue with "Nonnational Boundaries of Surrealism" as a translation of Limites non-frontières du surréalisme, as well, especially considering Herbert Read's rendering of it in his Surrealism anthology as ' 'Limits Not Frontiers of Surrealism ." Breton fired Motherwell as editor of VVV because he refused to translate "conscience sociale" into "social conscience." Some of the titles might make a reader wonder about the rationale of the translators. The body of the text, however, is smooth and Breton's sentences, with their chain of subordinate clauses, faithfully rendered. The translation leads us fluidly into the flux of Breton's complex thought and its evolution. Free Rein is published under the auspices of the French Modernist Library series of the University of Nebraska Press, whose series editors are Mary Ann Caws, Richard Howard, and Patricia Terry. They are to be commended for the various ways they have made Breton available to us in English. Barbara Lekatsas Hofstra University 96 Winter 1996 ...