CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand (1894-1961)

CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand (1894-1961)

Autograph letter signed « Destouches » to Évelyne Pollet
Paris, 14 Sept. 1933, 2 p. in-8°
Pigall’s Tabac letterhead
Light ink smudge on upper margin
Usual central fold

Upcoming speech in tribute to Zola and translation of Journey to the End of the Night

« Good heavens, I really don’t like Zola at all, so I’ll talk about myself — though I don’t like myself much either. » 

When Céline confesses that he never wants to reread his novel — a work widely regarded as one of the greatest in 20th-century French literature

« Chère Amie,
Vous voici toute stimulée par le changement de domicile. Je vous vois partie pour de longs romans. Certainement j’irai à Anvers en décembre, pas avant. Je ne puis plus m’absenter cette année. Je me suis assez ennuyé en Bretagne et au surplus je n’étais pas très bien. Il faut encore que je parle sur Zola le 1er octobre et voilà qui m’achève. Pour faire plaisir à Descaves et à ses amis. Juste cieux je n’aime pas du tout Zola, alors je parlerai de moi-même mais je n’aime pas beaucoup non plus. Tout cela est bien ennuyeux. Tout Paris parle de l’Affaire Nozières¹ [sic]. Il va y avoir dans l’ombre des incestes en masse. Cet été n’en finit pas. Je n’aime pas le soleil. On s’en doute un peu. Le Voyage va être traduit en hollandais.
Je reprends samedi mon dispensaire². Tout cela est une telle farce !
Je vois que vous finirez par connaître le Voyage par cœur. Moi je ne l’ai jamais relu et ne le relirai jamais. Je trouve tout cela ennuyeux et plat à vomir. C’est curieux que tout ce cabotinage finisse par séduire le lecteur. Je crois qu’il a envie d’en faire autant. Tout es là. Enfin on se connaît mal. Nous sommes recouverts d’immondices civilisés. N’oubliez pas de me donner votre nouvelle adresse.
Amicalement
Destouches »

A breakaway speech:
In the summer of 1933, Lucien Descaves approached his friend Céline, asking him to deliver a speech in tribute to Zola at the annual Médan pilgrimage. Céline did not hold the naturalist writer in high esteem, and it was out of friendship for Descaves that he agreed. Thus, on October 1st, 1933, before an audience composed of the Parisian literary elite and other notable figures, the writer took the floor.
Where previous speeches had remained within the expected register of homage, Céline’s intervention stood in stark contrast — and caused a scandal. The audience had no idea what was coming. Already a master of staging his public persona, Céline deliberately chose to go against expectations and handed the floor to Ferdinand Bardamu, the protagonist of Journey to the End of the Night. He even hinted at this shift when he said, “Good heavens, I really don’t like Zola at all, so I’ll talk about myself.”
Through Bardamu, Céline delivered a dark and deeply critical vision of contemporary French society. Though the speech begins as a genuine tribute to the father of the Rougon-Macquart series, it soon gives way to the characteristic disillusionment of Céline’s universe.
The writer clearly signals a definitive break with Zola’s naturalism: the Great War had, in Céline’s eyes, discredited the modernist hopes pinned on scientific progress and the promise of a fairer society. In this speech, Céline effectively buries the legacy of naturalism that Zola had championed.

Translation of Journey to the End of the Night:
Published the previous year, Journey to the End of the Night had caused a sensation and catapulted Céline to the forefront of the Parisian literary scene. Already translated into several languages, he reassured his Dutch translator, J.A. Sandfort, in a letter dated September 10th, demanding that his text be translated in full:
“Under no circumstances should there be any abridgment of Journey. I do not want it — not a quarter, not a page, nor a line […]” He added, “There are already 10 foreign translations of this book, all absolutely complete” (Lettres, no. 3393).

1- Violette Nozière (1915–1966), barely 18 years old, was arrested, accused of poisoning her parents. While her mother was resuscitated, her father did not survive. Although her mother initially joined the civil lawsuit, she eventually forgave her daughter. Sentenced to death on October 12, 1934 — a sentence commuted to life imprisonment on August 29, 1945 — Violette Nozière was granted early release on August 29, 1945.

2- Céline attempted to practice medicine privately by opening a practice in Clichy in November 1927, which he quickly closed due to lack of patients. He eventually took a position as a suburban doctor at the Clichy dispensary, directed by Grégoire Ichok. Dr. Destouches resigned from the Communist municipality of Clichy on December 10, 1937.

Born in Antwerp in 1905, Évelyne Pollet took the initiative to write to Céline after reading Journey to the End of the Night, eventually coming to “know it by heart.” They met in May 1933 and became lovers. She went on to write eight novels and collections of short stories, including a fictionalized account of her relationship with Céline, written in 1942 and published in 1956 under the title Escaliers (La Renaissance du livre). Évelyne is also the name of the heroine in La Naissance d’une fée, the first of the three ballets in Bagatelles pour un massacre.