I AM more than positive that the name of Céline is not a stranger to a great number of readers. Born Louis-Ferdinand Destouches in 1894, he would revolutionise the French literature by authoring many books, the most famous of them being Journey to the End of the Night that was an international hit in 1932 and was translated into practically all the languages.
Céline bitterly criticised the ‘exaggeratedly over-refined style’, of the authors of his time and himself used an everyday language in his writings. His works influenced a wide array of contemporary novelists; the most famous of them being Jack Kerouac whose On the Road would become a legend in its own way and set off the ‘Beat Generation’ literary movement.
Journey to the End of the Night is a bustling, uncompromising account of a man’s struggles in life, starting from the colonised African continent, moving across the Atlantic to the United States, then coming back to France.
A nonconformist all his life, during the Second World War Céline openly supported the Axis powers i.e. Germany, Italy and Japan. He also wrote pamphlets criticising the Jews for trying to dominate the European societies by their control of banks, businesses and stock exchanges.
Following Hitler’s defeat in 1945, Céline happened to be in Denmark. He would be arrested and kept in jail for many years until his return to France in 1951.
Writers and artists have enjoyed a special status in this country and their political or ideological viewpoints, no matter how much in conflict with the officially or socially accepted thinking, never come in the way of their being intellectual idols. No wonder iconoclasts like Somerset Maugham, Lawrence Durrell and James Joyce worked and spent their lives here, as did painters such as Picasso and Van Gogh.
Oscar Wilde, who lived his last days in Paris, succinctly described this attitude: “A good writer is the one who writes well, whether you agree or disagree with his point of view.”
But times are changing fast today and it is enough to read any newspaper or watch TV news to see that one is expected to conform to a singular opinion imposed upon the societies through the so-called ‘social networks’.
Not surprisingly therefore, the name of an individualist like Céline is hitting the headlines once again nearly 60 years following his death in 1961; one can imagine him turning in his grave!
Two biographical works have come out on Céline’s two loves of life, both professional dancers. Elizabeth Craig, a Célinian Life, is the recount by Jean Monnier of the romance Céline had during his stay in California in the 1930s. Elizabeth Craig would finally leave him for a Mafia boss.
The other book Madame Céline, written by David Alliot, tells the story of Lucette, a Montmartre dancer who married Céline after encountering him in the nightclub shortly before the Second World War, and would remain close to him until his death.
As she owns authorship rights to Céline’s essays criticising the Jews, hell broke loose last month when Lucette Destouches authorised Gallimard Editions to publish them in a book form. Accused of wanting to make money, she answered: “Life is like a tap that oozes drop by drop. Soon there will be no water left. What do I need money for at age 105?”
But, facing growing criticism, the publishing firm finally renounced the project last week. The two books nevertheless remain interesting and exciting accounts of the tumultuous lives of Céline and his two dancing girls.
—The writer is a journalist based in Paris
Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2018
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