Leonora Carrington, the great surrealist painter and writer, created in The Hearing Trumpet an occult reimagining of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — a classic work of surrealist literature. And as Luis Buñuel once said: “By reading The Hearing Trumpet, we free ourselves from the miserable reality that surrounds us.”
Leonora Carrington introduces us to one of the most unpredictable literary heroines of the twentieth century: Marian Leatherby, a hard-of-hearing, vegetarian elderly woman with an immense appetite for life despite being ninety-two years old.
When her closest friend, Carmella, gives her a hearing trumpet, Marian regains her hearing and discovers that her family is planning to place her in a nursing home.
The news deeply upsets her, for it means she will never fulfill her dream of traveling to Lapland. Instead, she finds herself confined in a bizarre retirement home where the residents live in strange buildings, endure the absurd sermons of the proprietors, and dine beneath the sly gaze of a mysterious portrait of an abbess.
And when one of the residents secretly gives Marian a book recounting the abbess’s life, an extraordinary surreal adventure begins to unfold… and perhaps, in the end, Lapland itself might somehow come to Marian.
The Hearing Trumpet, an occult reimagining of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is a classic work of surrealist literature. And as Luis Buñuel once said: “By reading The Hearing Trumpet, we free ourselves from the miserable reality that surrounds us.”
