Louis-Ferdinand Céline? Again and again…

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, "Céline" tout court, for the French, keeps on creating turmoil. Fifty years after his death, French authorities denied him any official remembrance… A pathetic and a… logical decision! Céline's antisemitism is pointed. Hard to deny: three pamphlets, extremely violent, published between 1938 and  1941, unfortunately "best sellers" during the nazi occupation of France (1940-1945), are considered as mere "calls for murder"… ("incitation au meurtre", en français).

For ever banned
French Jews were already segregated and seriously threatened at the time. Consequently, Shoah struck them at full by summer 1942. It's of course easy to look at Céline as one of those pro-nazi writers (alike Robert Brasillach and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle). Unlike Brasillach and Drieu, Céline didn't get too close from the German leaders and saved his own life by fleeing to Danemark till 1951, the year of the "Great Amnesty" in France. Nevertheless, I would have been forgiving him… Because Céline is such a genius and  because he's "abnormal", kind of "mentally sick", in a way.  In  front of fair judges, Céline would have been freed of all charges. I guess… So self-destructive as he was, he must have realized that those three thin books ("L'Ecole des Cadavres", "Bagatelle pour un Massacre", "Les Beaux Draps", by the way…) would definitely ban him from all "national recognition" for ever. He was right.

Forgettable pamphlets
Because Céline doesn't need any "pumpous circumstances" from  "official France". We, his faithful readers, can celebrate him, in our own way! Without any help! No, thank you! Jean-Paul Sartre refused the 1964 Nobel Price and Julien Gracq denied the 1951 Prix Goncourt, too… Because, for them only the reader counts. Only the reader… And let's forget the "official guys": most of the time they don't even know what they are "acting" about (it's start to show!). Let's just read Céline, quietly, in our own sweet way (as Miles would play…). Let's have our personnal display of pictures coming from his books: we don't need any movie! Let's read "Voyage", "Mort à Crédit", "D'un Château l'Autre", "Rigodon", "Nord", Féérie pour une autre fois" (alias "Normance"), "Guignol's band"… and let's forget those three "pamphlets": in fact they are not worth reading!!!
Jean-Pierre FRIGO