Book//mark – Normance | Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 1954

Louis-Ferdinand Céline                                      Normance, 1954

April 1944

“…time’s nothing… memory’s what matters…”

“You can’t call it ugly . . . no! . . . even me, I’m no painter, but the colors are knocking me out! . . . I think to myself: this is an extravagance . . . this doesn’t happen every day! . . . I think: what violence! and what a lot of money they’ve all put into this!

“I’ve seen tropical storms! I’ve seen bombings in the other wars that churned up the ground, that tore up the landscape, but unleashing this kind of volcanic, magical fury requires real devotion! . . . a real will to abandon everything Good! to summon Evil!

“The world’s just a ball of mirages, wobbling on a base of hypocrisy like an egg in a carnival shooting gallery . . .”

“I’m blurting all this out . . . just as it was . . . if you wanted someone to imitate all the sounds, it would take a human volcano! . . . I won’t erupt on this poor scrap of paper! I’m not Vesuvius!”
 
“It’s all in my mind! hallucinations and bullshit! what a crook! but I repeat and reassert! shrapnel and fiery lace stretched from one end of the horizon to the other! with lots of glow-worms mixed in . . . and dancing purple fireflies . . . ah!”
 
“Am I babbling, maybe getting on your nerves? eh? well, say so! you’re just watching the show from your armchair! you got it easy! a philosopher, to boot! I’d like to see you philosophize from the top of an erupting volcano! standing on jelly-wobbling floors! I’d congratulate you! crown your head! your severed head!”

“Little shit! play Joan of Arc! go broil! take a leap!”

“The absinthe in the cellar! there’s some really good stuff down there, and you know it! from before 1914! you hoarding, monopolizing bitch! ring your bell, dingaling! and keep quiet! stinking ammoniac piss-sodden tippling snitching thieving spying abominable agitator! . . . ring your bell! and I don’t want to hear another sound out of you!”

“When it comes to human beings, I’m only interested in the sick . . . the ones who can stand up are nothing but mounds of vice and spite . . . I don’t get mixed up in their schemes . . . I mean, just look at this circus they’re putting on, absolutely unlivable, intolerable whether you’re in the air, on the ground, or in the hallway! then, to top it all off, they talk about love, in verse, prose, or songs, they can’t help themselves! the nerve! and always procreating! unloading fresh Hell-spawn on the world! and then speechifying! and their endless promises! . . .

“Constantly swollen with pride! drooling and strutting around! only when they’re prostrate, dying, or sick do they lose a little of their human vileness and become poor beasts again, and then you can stand to go near them . . .”

“Doesn’t take much to make someone hate your guts . . . absolute irrelevancies . . . trifles . . . same with love . . . those sneaky little details . . .”

“I have to point out everything to you! I’m keeping track! later on they’ll buy my books, much later, when I’m dead, to study the first seismic tremblings, the first hints of the coming end, to learn about basic human rottenness, to learn about the explosions that come from the depths of the soul . . . they didn’t know . . . they will! . . . if a catastrophe goes unobserved then your whole era’s been wasted! All for nothing! . . . all of humanity’s suffering, and for what? for the maggots! . . . that’s the blasphemy, the intolerable thing! Hail to Pliny!”

“There’s something supernatural about Jules, the way he balances, straightens up, floats, and rolls round and round! woaah horsey! pivots! pirouettes! . . . what they admired him for in his studio: abracadabra and voila — masterpieces . . . I mean, if you ask me . . . all that was nothing compared to this, now!”

“Lovely sight, the Apocalypse! But absurdity, without limits? No Sir! there have to be certain limits…”

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Normance, 1954
tr. Marlon Jones

The story is a fictionalised version of the author’s experiences during the last parts of World War II, where he supported the Nazis. It is the sequel to Céline’s 1952 novel Fable for Another Time, and has the subtitle Fable for Another Time II

Also:
Days [ ) Insomnia | Louis-Ferdinand Celine, 1936
Days [ ) Τhe restraint | Louis-Ferdinand Celine, 1936