Philippe Soupault's Search for a Maximum of Adventure

Paul Maziar looks at Lost Profiles: Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism (City Lights, 2016), "a collection of work by French poet Philippe Soupault, rendered into English mostly for the first time by Alan Bernheimer."  In addition to poetry, Soupault also wrote novels and autobiographical work, Maziar notes. "Along with Louis Aragon, Soupault and Breton formed the so-called 'Three Musketeers,' collectively searching for 'total liberation, not only from ways of thinking but also from preestablished means of expression' — for, in Breton’s words, 'a maximum of adventure.'" More, from Los Angeles Review of Books:

Soupault’s split with Surrealism was due in large part to the fact that others in the group “made the mistake of wanting to put Surrealism in service of a political party.” In his view, this approach detracted from the value of artistic practices conceived as unburdened acts of freedom. Soupault was also dissatisfied with the movement’s dogmatism, competitiveness, and academic rarefaction, as personified in the egoistic Breton. Yet even in exile (he was ousted from the group in 1924), Soupault remained loyal to its ideas and creative energy, and he kept its compositional practices — such as automatic writing — alive. “I have never ceased to be a Surrealist,” he writes of his later years. “Indeed, Surrealism is not a literary school or a religion. It is the expression of an attitude and a state of mind and especially the expression of freedom.”

Despite his preference for poetry, Soupault writes prose with gusto and élan. He beautifully conveys the passage of time and its impact on individuals and their relationships. “I had the somewhat vague but persistent impression that I was witnessing the end of a world,” he writes in 1958 in his profile of Apollinaire. He rigorously avoids sentimentality and misty-eyed nostalgia in favor of a keen expression of feeling. Throughout Profiles, Soupault vividly recalls his encounters with a wide range of writers and artists. Marcel Proust, he attests, was endlessly curious, inquiring “what time of year, exactly […] do the cherry trees bloom in the orchards of Cabourg, not apple trees, cherry trees?” Though very social, Proust always “seemed to be in a hurry to get back to his room and the silence.” James Joyce was likewise “compelled to write,” and “abandoned himself entirely to it,” while at the same time having “a unique pleasure of being in contact with the crowd” at the theater, the opera, and other entertainments. “Everything pleased him, even the crudest vaudeville.” The book includes a striking 1931 photo of Joyce and Soupault looking over a manuscript together. 

Find the full piece at LARB.