Roger and the (not magical) jumping beans
In “Approches de l'imaginaire” Roger Caillois speaks about a letter addressed to André Breton in which he expressed his most profound disagreements with him and the surrealist movement as a hole. The object of dispute was a bunch of Mexican jumping beans.
Breton saw the behavior of the beans as a surrealist event, as an act of magic. The marvel was there, in front of his very eyes. Dreams were more real than the real. Or, even better, dreams were the only real. He showed the beans to Caillois who was as amazed as his friend. However, something very different was happening in each other’s minds. Caillois didn’t feel in front of a miracle. He urged Breton to get a knife and open a bean. He refused to do so, because for him this would entail killing the magic. He knew very well that there was nothing exceptional behind, that opening the beans would lead to unbearable disappointment.
Caillois gets the knife and opens a bean to discover a worm inside. It had been a worm all the time. But in the letter to Breton Caillois declares not being disappointed at all. On the contrary, for him the very fact that worm would dig a hole in a seed to leave in darkness and “jump” incessantly was enough miracle. Breton was a conservative, opposing nature to magic, dreams to reality. He could not see any wonder in everyday existence. This became a catechism for several French theorists. The world is horrible. There is nothing in it to be saved. Further, it lacks any inner force to transcend itself. Only a God can save us, or some miracle or radical “otherness”.
Breton had to prohibit himself any action that could put dreams at risk. He wanted to dream perpetually. He was not aware that dreams may save us from reality and that reality can save us from self-deceit and even nightmares. In any case, his world was very fragile. And fragile worlds require enormous amounts of energy and force to be kept going. But Caillois was a realist. But real realists grant the real great capacities of invention.