More than 15 years in the making, David Nadeau’s L’Arche utopique: le surréalisme et la loge maçonnique Thébah is finally out!
Here’s a translation of the back jacket blurb:
An article by Jean-Pierre Lassalle entitled “André Breton et la Franc-Maçonnerie” (Literary Histories, number 1, January 2000) revealed to the public the existence of a core of active Freemasons within and on the fringes of the Paris Surrealist Group from the 1950s onwards. These individuals were linked to a lodge of the Grand Lodge of France that was founded in 1901 and bore the distinctive name Thebah (“The Ark” in Hebrew). Begun in 2004, this study expands on Jean-Pierre Lassalle’s and Patrick Lepetit’s work on the relationship between Surrealism and Freemasonry. It presents the various Surrealists associated with the Thebah lodge around the period 1959–1963: René Alleau, Elie-Charles Flamand, Bernard Roger, Guy-René Doumayrou, Roger Van Hecke and Jean Palou. The question of the relationship between the alchemists Henri Hunwald and Eugène Canseliet and the Surrealist movement is also addressed. The second part examines the main themes on which these Surrealists worked in their research and creations: the Marvellous, utopia, architecture, chivalry, the Holy Roman Empire and the blacksmith gods. The third part consists of an anthology of texts by the various protagonists.
The book – which is in French, obvs – is available now, in paperback from Lulu.
L’Arche utopique book cover reproduced under fair use.
Take a peek behind the veil.
Merl Fluin 