Notebook of a Return to the Native Land by Andre Breton

It is safe to say that Notebook of a return to the native land by Andre Breton, is one of the most complicated readings yet. Starting from the first few pages itself was pretty hard to make sense of. Whenever I started to actually get what it meant, something completely out of place pops up and I’m back to square one. For me the fourth paragraph in page four stood out to be the most difficult to understand.  For example; the passage starts with, “At the end of the daybreak, the morne crouching before bulimia,” (Breton 4). Bulimia is an eating disorder, an obsessive desire to lose weight, overeating would usually end up in vomiting or depression. Morne, a small hill or mountain, crouching or bent low because if you look at it, a mountain is usually perceived to be an arc shape or bent over, before the bulimia which is the volcano erupting or vomiting. However I couldn’t make sense what the author meant by “on the outlook for tuns and mills.”  I am not sure if the idea of bulimia, the vomiting, blood…. was  used to describe the morne or the volcano eruption. Therefore, here’s what I did to make as much sense of the paragraph as I could. First of all, I looked up the definitions of all the words I wasn’t familiar with and also the words that didn’t make sense as to why it was in the package such as Bulimia, Morne, tuns and mill etc. Although it didn’t make sense even after defining all the terms, what I understood is that the volcanic eruption had consumed/destroyed everything making it a ditch of fear and there as nothing left but wind.

 

2 thoughts on “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land by Andre Breton

  1. I use the same technique when trying to make something out of the these difficult passages. When I had read this passage, I did not know what the author meant by morne but I know in French it means dreary, something that is dull and bleak. When I had read the passage and after I looked at your analysis, I had interpreted in a more positive way, at the end of daybreak, the dull mountain erupted, cleansing itself from all the boring and sadness.

  2. I really admire your breakdown in understanding the line in “The Notebook.” Throughout the semester, we have been reading complex literatures and I believe that it has surely strengthen our analytical/ “close reading” skills. I agree with the idea of cleanliness but I believed the morne represents the state of the Caribbean island being conquered by the French.

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