France Is Bored Analysis

The societal and collective notion that art is more valuable in its original state has pervaded our culture. So much so that certain original works of art sells for millions upon millions of dollars, and copies sell for mere pittances. Interestingly, there is no tangible difference between a copy, or a photo of the original, and the original itself. But for whatever reason, the culture of art places arbitrary value on what was originally and painstakingly crafted by the artist. Walter Benjamin, in his unfinished work The Arcade Projects, inventively quotes other people in a thematic archive of sort, and synthesizes it with his own thought. Benjamin’s innovative magnum opus challenges cultural norms, forcing his audience to question whether

or not his series of quotes can be considered literary, or perhaps even artistic.
Benjamin’s long collection of quotes initially appears annoyingly trivial.

To most readers, one might ask the intellectual or literary importance of including the words of another author. One of his quotes simply reads “France is bored” (16). At first glance, the quote lacks any academic worth, not only for its inconsequentiality, but because the quote is the word of somebody else. However, one begins to see the quote as intellectually and artistically worthy in context of the entire collection. This particular collection of quotes is archived according to the topic of boredom, specifically as it relates to Paris and France. Another of his quotes reads “the crowd appears as the supreme remedy for boredom” (17). With these two quotes looked at together, Benjamin creatively constructs a revealing juxtaposition and oxymoron. That is, the crowds of France and Paris perhaps gather around these arcades as a solution for their own perpetual boredom. Still, these two quotes together are absurdly paradoxical. If a crowd is the solution to boredom, how can the crowded city of Paris still be bored? The dichotomy is most telling when one considers that these two quotes are the words of separate authors, a testament to the complexity of Benjamin’s archive and the themes it

reveals.
By thematically grouping these quotes together, Benjamin artistically paints an intricate portrait of Paris. The juxtaposition, contradictions, ironies, and similarities between so many different quotes and authors reveals the city of Paris to be a multifaceted location, constantly moving and booming, growing and waning… The reader begins to see Paris as a character of its own, almost as if it was abstractly painted or personified in a novel. Another of his quotes discusses the “monotonous flow of an hourglass that eternally empties and turns itself over” (20). This quote, in relation to the theme of monotony and boredom, relates itself to another quote about eternity, meaninglessness, and the cosmos. It reads “man, nonetheless, that indiscoverable insect/crawling about the hollows of an obscure orb” (24). Again, although the words of two separate authors, the quotes in comparison to one another speak magnitudes about the inherent purposelessness, smallness and tedium of the world, or when looking through a smaller lens, of Paris.
It is when looking at the entire context of the archive that one sees Benjamin’s project holds immense artistic, literary and intellectual worth—just as a painting, novel, or any other conventional piece of art. The mere fact that Benjamin replicated the words of another author does not and should not preclude his project from having worth. Rather, the series of quotes, construed together by Benjamin, holds immense worth for what it reveals about Paris and the inhabitants that walk through its arcades.