CBR18 Bingo – One: it’s been compiled into one volume from 5, but this book could probably be applied to any of the bingo prompts.
Une semaine de bonté by Max Ernst is subtitled ‘a surrealist novel in collage,’ which is accurate and it means ‘a week in kindness,’ which is not.
Ernst was a surrealist, Dadaist, and European. Two of those things tell me that nothing in his novel is going to make any sense. So massive thanks to the volume’s publisher’s note for giving context to this work.
It was originally published in 5 volumes for days of the week (Sun – Wed), with the final volume smooshing the rest of the week together.
It doesn’t really have words, apart from every day of the week being introduced with an element. The elements are deadly, to compliment the deadly sins.
Sunday’s element is mud, as represented by the Lion of Belfort. The lion gets around. He has a guillotine.
Monday is water, represented by water – mostly women in water.
Tuesday’s element is fire and uses dragons. That makes sense and is straightforward, so I assume the flying girl with stigmata is there to balance out the fire = dragon logic.
Wednesday is blood and Oedipus. This day has a lot of birds being sex pests and rapists.
Thursday’s element is blackness and the example are the rooster’s laughter and Easter Island… These birds are worse than Wednesday’s.
Friday is ‘sight’ as shown by three invisible poems. Sure, why not?
Saturday’s element is nothing and the example is “the key to songs.” The publisher’s note said the end got more abstract, and it’s free to be interpreted however. In which case I interpret that he got tired and ran out of material by Saturday.
But I’m not going to criticize a man for getting through the week, especially a week in 1930s Europe. (By the way, this book was from 1930s Europe.)
