On a prison letter from Louis-Ferdinand Céline to Lucette Destouches and Maître Mikkelsen

(Letter n° 121 - Gallimard editions -1998)

Duration : approx. 20'

Awaiting creation

​

During his captivity in Denmark, it is estimated that Louis-Ferdinand Céline wrote around 1,500 letters, including a number to his wife Lucette Destouches and his lawyer Maître Mikkelsen.

Much has been said about Céline, a man of contradictions and an outstanding provocateur. Arousing as much abjection for his anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, anti-Freemason positions, etc., his narcissism, his ability to pass himself off as a victim, his continual excess, etc., as admiration for having renewed the French language thanks to the rhythms of its sentences, to the Rabelaisian earthiness of its vocabulary, to the use full of ambiguity of the three points of suspension, to name only the most salient aspects of this deeply poetic, humorous and dazzling writing. a fiery and devastating energy.

For this writer, even a letter written to his lawyer and his wife is an act of literature, where the scheduling, the dramatic progression, the return to certain ideas, the quotations, etc. are so many writing techniques in the service of what he wants to say… without ever really saying it directly.

This letter corresponds to the time when Céline definitively refined her stature as an absolute victim ; the next stage will be his appearance as an eternal tramp at odds with society, a drooling, rationalizing old man, constantly returning to the misfortunes that overwhelm him, making this attitude the very heart of his literary project, to the delight of the journalists who approached him.

I chose this letter for multiple reasons :

• The choice is linked to what I call my " spiritual testament ", that is to say a recollection of texts by various authors (non-believers or believers) reporting ways of being in the world and to others, which are so many questions without really tangible answers to the eternal existential questions.

• The position of victim he gives himself is universal. Despite everything, she seems here imbued with real sincerity and suffering : Céline seems to let go and no longer really believe in the future, relying on his wife, whom he tries despite everything to appease and his lawyer to get him out of trouble, but no longer really believing in it. He arouses compassion in her (and her readers), even if this one is not completely devoid of future calculations : this man is a manipulator, particularly of the feelings of others.

• At the literary level, his unstructured, fragmentary writing, within which everything is nevertheless constantly connected, dynamic, requires a reading that can be described as active, more than entertaining at first glance. Céline knew and loved music ; the shape of its letter, as well as the choice of its words, are in themselves musical. Its structure therefore gave the musical form and allowed me to compare the different parts of the text even though it seems to unfold in linear time. This circular time, allowed me to perform " spirales de sens " because this letter with a complex shape is both linear with regard to the exhibition of ideas, but circular in the sense that he constantly returns to the same ideas, almost obsessively, but in a different form each time.

So I developed a text/music relationship specific to Céline's writing : the treatment of details reflects the very texture of Céline's writing and the ideas evoked. Thus, his past, happy or unhappy, is alluded to by very short musical quotations (for the dance, the Ball Scene from Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique , for the animals, Dans les steppes de l'Asie center of Alexander Borodin, whose first sentence he taught his parrot " for when the Russians will invade us !_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-186bad5", Africa by a bird song, superimposed on itself, the Agrobate with a mustache and finally, its position as a collaborator during the war, by the too famous Panzerlied superimposed on Shema Israel that Schoenberg himself employed in Un surviving in Warsaw . In addition, a rhythmic leitmotiv runs through the entire work ; like a " course to the abyss_cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-136_bad5cf58d", we perceive, in a very slow tempo, the characteristic rhythm of march of the 2nd movement of Schumann's piano quintet. In addition, I was also interested in the way Celine pronounced her own texts with very characteristic, always rising sentence endings which will give rise to rising sentences and, in counterpoint, a pattern of descending glissandi, concretizing her continual complaints. Like a kind of call, Céline's name is transcribed in notes that we hear played on the bells and more mutedly on the steel drums.

​

It is significant that Céline gives herself here the Christ dimension of the suffering man, misunderstood, victim of the wickedness of men, but despite everything, planning to live in the memory of those who persecute him, like "_cc781905-5cde- 3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_remède » to all his sufferings and future consolation of his wife if things go wrong.

The first sentence of the letter gave me the title of the work Everything is said I think. For anyone who translates it into German (Alles ist gesagt ich denke), this short sentence alone is the beginning of a true Passion . It is therefore not absurd to make the German language heard at some point to mark the reference, but also to recall the sympathy that Céline had for German thought and culture. This country where he took refuge after the war to escape the purges, Céline knew it : he practiced the language and thought that a rapprochement with Germany was better than a new war fomented by a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy, as he believed. Moreover, I underlined this Christic position - which he himself gives himself at the culmination of his letter (at 2/3 exactly), quoting Renan: " the true life, the true existence is perhaps after all only that which continues for us in the heart of those who loved us " - with a very short musical quotation in Latin, taken from the last madrigal n° XXI of Tears of St Peter of Orlando de Lassus : "(…) I cry out to you (…) ", reproaches that Jesus crucified addresses to the man whose ingratitude towards him is a greater suffering than that of the cross.

With the devastating humor that characterizes him, Céline does not care at all about the world and does not respect anything deep down, even if he gives himself alibis to be unassailable (doctor of the poor, among others). Responding to Céline's provocation by referring to him, and his own behavior, and the context of his writing, is the least of things since he is the craftsman - how intelligent and devious, he who plays on all the tables and registers at the same time - from his own misfortune ; misfortune on which he nourished himself in order to exist on the margins of a society which he vomited up and whose failings he constantly criticized, not without a certain lucidity that we must concede to him.

In five parts linked without interruptions, the musical form of the work is therefore the form of the letter with some additional correspondences due to repetitions (for example "My little darling", a sort of murmur which recurs throughout, like a kind leitmotif).

Due to its sobriety, the vocal and instrumental formation responds to a desire for severity that the subject imposes. Variety is therefore given by the multiplicity of vocal processing and by a fragmented form made up of several diversified moments in their processing . These vocal techniques become at times true purely musical motifs creating the form itself. The structure of the text and the language, like the choice of words, provide vocal and instrumental material: fragments, returns, digressions, stuttering, ratiocination...

The letter plays on many registers of expression: despair, tenderness, trickery, lies, touching sincerity, mise en abyme of one's own pain, suffering/victimization... Also, the music underlines these multiple affective states by the constant return of same motifs under always different words/meanings, thus constituting the frame of the work.

I am one of the people who admire the man of letters, not the social man. The fact remains that his relationship to creation, to the arrangement of ideas, to the way of saying them is confusing with energy, inventiveness and light humor which, given the musicality and the poetry of the language he will have created, makes this author contribute to the richness, the beauty and the renewal of our French language.

​

My dear Master(1),

Everything is said I think. I returned to my anguish, my usual state. We just have to wait for the high decisions ! Through you high. Of course, after all your admirable efforts, coming up against a " non possumus(2)" so relentless, so formal, that makes you doubt everything. Fatality seems the strongest. Very affectionately. Buttons. My little darling. Here we are back at the bottom of the same abyss. Nothing to do it seems. Don't be sorry. On the contrary, take care of yourself. Do not fall back into the despair where you were. This adds to my anxiety. Our friend has done his best, more than a miracle, by keeping me so far away from the wolves, so diabolically relentless… tearing me away from them seems a task beyond human strength. All the sadisms are unleashed, decked out with excellent alibis, patriotic [etc...] What do you want ? We will have done everything possible. So like the overly hunted beast… the coup de grace makes him happy. And that's all. For years already it is no longer a life. There is not a week day that does not bring us additional horror or sorrow. It's an endless ordeal, from decline to decline. So too bad !... I'm not in pain, but I'm too sensitive, too sickly now to endure these cascades of miserable catastrophes, and too old too. Our poor Karen tries the miracle in our favor ! What disarray I brought into his existence ! How ashamed I feel of having upset all these homes, all these good wills, all these sincere affections, by my outbursts. I was stupid and cowardly ! I should have disappeared sooner. Pay me alone for all my foolishness. I dragged you into all this too poor darling innocent treasure. What a brute ! Finally now the chips are down ! We just have to wait for someone to mess us up here or there. [Be careful, little darling, not to get swollen with your newspapers that are too old ! Your last ones are from May and June ! Only take them from the current month. Too old they don't mean anything anymore.] I'm not bored. I think of you, of our poor past [- St Malo – mother Alessandri – Dédé – Jersey – the Mondain -]…) all that odds and ends. I rummage through the hot ashes. True life, [says Renan,] true existence is perhaps after all only that which continues for us in the heart of those who loved us. So, you see, if the worst comes to the worst, which is very likely, as things turn out well it will not have to affect you. I will always even be gone, always alive in you, and then that's all. What can the infinite wickedness of men  do against this? Nothing there nothing. Finally they are disarmed ! Finally we saw the end of our miseries. This is the main. I haven't always been as nice to you as you deserve, but you see I've been living in anguish for a long time. I no longer live in truth I am as if haggard from the brutalities of the world. I threw myself into the abyss – and the abyss swallowed me – that's normal – it's vertigo. The face of the guards makes me dizzy, all the bestialities are there. Still bestiality is a lot of Honor ! I don't suffer. I think only of you. There will still be a few distractions. Don't let go of your in especially ! for the 1/1000th chance we have left ! Very affectionately a thousand and a thousand kisses.

Buttons

​

(1) Letter from prison from Louis-Ferdinand Céline to Lucette Destouches and Maître Mikkelsen

(Letter n° 121 - Gallimard editions -1998)

(2) Expression which literally means: "we cannot". It is composed of the verb possum = I can, in the first person plural of the present indicative (we can), preceded by the negation no. This is what Peter and John replied to the Jewish religious authorities who wanted to forbid them to preach the Gospel. This expression often used by members of the Church has even become a noun. We commonly speak of a non possumus .