This article is long on name-dropping and sounding erudite, but it doesn't give an answer.
Well, that's a book review. All it can do is review the book. But that means that either it's a bad book review, or the book didn't give an answer either.
So, either surrealism actually doesn't matter, or people are doing a lousy job of explaining why it does. (Or, I suppose, the book title is the equivalent of clickbait.)
Aye, I didn't feel like this review gave me anything useful. A good book which does explain why surrealism matters would be "The politics of surrealism" by Lewis. It would be nice if, in all the meandering musings on Waldberg and Chouca, some mention was made of how the book under review compared with other books on the same subject. Instead, the author of the review seems to need to establish their bonafides before telling us how the author of the book is wrong, and that surrealism doesn't matter when it comes to the struggles of today (see the paragraph starting "Polizzotti wants...").
But hey, at least he is gatekeeping in the style of Breton!
I appreciate gen z/alphas surrealism, often a blend of blown out audio, weird lingo, and heads in toilets with exaggerated expressions.
Despite not fully understanding it, I genuinely appreciate that youth are finding their surrealist touchstones and developing a shared cultural lexicon. It's so fun to watch them building the things they'll be nostalgic for in 35 years.
