[ZOLA] CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand (1894-1961)

[ZOLA] CÉLINE, Louis-Ferdinand (1894-1961)

Original silver print
[Médan, 1st Oct. 1933], 12,1 x 17 cm
Meurisse studio stamp on verso, fine contrasts

Famous photograph of Céline delivering his speech in tribute to Zola

Before an audience one imagines to be substantial, Céline leans against the entrance door at the top of the front steps of Zola’s house in Médan. Before him stretches the avenue of lime trees, once planted by the naturalist writer. This speech delivered by Céline stands out as one of the most striking moments of this commemorative ceremony, held annually since 1903.

A speech of defiance:
In the summer of 1933, Lucien Descaves asked his friend Céline to deliver a speech in tribute to Zola at the annual pilgrimage to Médan. Céline held no great admiration for the naturalist writer, and it was out of friendship for Descaves that he agreed. It was thus before an audience made up of literary Paris in its entirety, along with other notables, that the writer took the floor on 1 October 1933. While the speeches given until then had remained within the expected register of tribute, Céline’s address broke radically with convention and caused a scandal. The audience had no idea what his speech would contain. The writer, already a master of the stagecraft of his public persona, chose to do the opposite of what was expected, giving voice instead to Ferdinand Bardamu, the hero of Voyage. He even let this be half-understood: “Good heavens, I don’t like Zola at all, so I shall speak of myself.” Through Bardamu, Céline delivered a bleak and deeply critical vision of contemporary French society. Though the address opens with a genuine tribute to the father of the Rougon-Macquart, it soon reveals the disillusionment characteristic of Céline’s world. The writer marked a definitive break with Zolian naturalism, the Great War having discredited the modernist hopes placed in scientific progress and the advent of a more just society. Céline buried the naturalist legacy carried by Zola.