LETTRES A LA N.R.F.: 1931-1961)

by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Mon cher Éditeur et ami,Je crois qu'il va être temps de nous lier par un autre contrat, pour mon prochain roman « RIGODON »... dans les termes du précédent sauf la somme – 1 500 NF au lieu de 1 000 – sinon je loue, moi aussi, un tracteur et vais défoncer la NRF, er pars saboter tous les bachots!Qu'on se le dise!Bien amicalement votreDestouchesDe l'envoi du manuscrit de Voyage au bout de la nuit en 1931 à cette dernière missive adressée la veille de sa mort, ce volume regroupe plus de deux cents lettres de l'auteur aux Éditions Gallimard et réponses de ses interlocuteurs. Autant d'échanges amicaux parfois, virulents souvent, truculents toujours de l'écrivain avec Gaston Gallimard, Jean Paulhan « L'Anémone Languide » et Roger Nimier, entre autres personnages de cette « grande partouze des vanités » qu'est la littérature selon Céline.

648 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 1991

About the author

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name of Dr. Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, is best known for his works Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night), and Mort à crédit (Death on the Installment Plan). His highly innovative writing style using Parisian vernacular, vulgarities, and intentionally peppering ellipses throughout the text was used to evoke the cadence of speech.

Louis-Ferdinand Destouches was raised in Paris, in a flat over the shopping arcade where his mother had a lace store. His parents were poor (father a clerk, mother a seamstress). After an education that included stints in Germany and England, he performed a variety of dead-end jobs before he enlisted in the French cavalry in 1912, two years before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. While serving on the Western Front he was wounded in the head and suffered serious injuries—a crippled arm and headaches that plagued him all his life—but also winning a medal of honour. Released from military service, he studied medicine and emigrated to the USA where he worked as a staff doctor at the newly build Ford plant in Detroit before returning to France and establishing a medical practice among the Parisian poor. Their experiences are featured prominently in his fiction.

Although he is often cited as one of the most influential and greatest writers of the twentieth century, he is certainly viewed as a controversial figure. After embracing fascism, he published three antisemitic pamphlets, and vacillated between support and denunciation of Hitler. He fled to Germany and Denmark in 1945 where he was imprisoned for a year and declared a national disgrace. He then received amnesty and returned to Paris in 1951.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Henry Miller, William Burroughs, and Charles Bukowski have all cited him as an important influence.

Translated Profiles:
Луи-Фердинанд Селин

Reviews

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un rageux. Mon rageux préféré.

[françoise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novice en Ceilne , j'ai pris beaucoup de plaisir a lire ses courriers croustillants a son éditeur et ses différents interlocuteurs!

[Benoît · Rating 4 out of 5]

A choice of Céline's correspondance with his (prestigious) editor, Gaston Gallimard. Céline's irreverence and Gallimard draping himself in his dignity are as entertaining as you get. Céline is hilariously impolite, cunning, and megalomaniac as he extends his lifelong complaints, from 1931 as he prepares to publish his debut novel Voyage in 1932 (already demanding the Goncourt, which he of course deserved but it was narrowly snatched from him) up to his last letter in 1961 (he died the following morning at 67), as he accompanies his demands of money with threats to demolish the publishing house. If you know the story of Céline, you will know his fears of being conspired against were not totally baseless. His letters show how irascible his character was, how no less formidable, and how there was something ultimately touching and true about his manners, his determination and dedication. In the end, his relation with Gallimard (or Nimier) were not just professional, they have something of friendship. Two formidable figures who both crossed half the 20th century. Céline was an incredible voice, and his enduring posterity show that he was somehow right to fight not to be ignored.

[Lolo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un recueil de lettres échangées entre Céline et la NRF (édition Gallimard). On y voit un Céline sans cesse en train de se plaindre, sans cesse insatisfait, devant différents interlocuteurs d'une maison d'édition qui semble pourtant faire preuve d'une grande souplesse avec lui (d'autant plus, si l'on prend en compte le contexte et le passé sulfureux de l'auteur). Cette lecture ne m'a pas apporté grand-chose, en tout cas très peu en comparaison avec la biographie de F. Vitoux que j'ai lue il y a quelque temps. J'ajouterai que la question m'a traversé l'esprit plusieurs fois de savoir : quelle était l'intention amenant la constitution de ce recueil ? Un hommage ou un complément d'information sur Céline ? Ou bien une publicité, un hommage narcissique de la maison Gallimard qui l'édite ?