Agents of apocalypse

Breton, Philippe Soupault and Louis Aragon were acclaimed by Paul Valéry as ‚the three musketeers‘. In fact, rather than contenting themselves with derring-do, the surrealists were agents of apocalypse. Their fiercest creative glory lay in acts of destruction. Breton and Soupault warned the world in 1920 to ‚get ready for some explosions‘; Durozoi has also unearthed an obscure surrealist periodical, published in London in 1942, with the proud title Arson. / Guardian 9.6.02

History of the Surrealist Movement
Gérard Durozoi
University of Chicago Press £60, pp816