Literally in the Idiom...!

 

                                                                                 

Literally in the Idiom

 

For

Carolina

 

Literally in the idiom, being on Time !

Your left leg flung out to one side of you,

At quarter to, while the right thrown out in extensa

At three! There you are then - 3 O’Clock!

 

Tick tock…! Your torso swings then like a pendulum,

Oscillating back and forth to the rhythm.

At maximum extension, an Aristotelian notion;

To be living to the maximum of your potential.

 

Le grand écarté…the great extension… !

To be out, literally, on a limb.

Both legs reaching 180 degrees on the plane.

 

Vitruvian Man without Saint Andrew…!

The cross skewered, compressed to the horizon,

And your verticality keeping you forever in suspension.  

A Short Extract from Casse-pipe By Céline

 

                                                                                     

 

 

 

 

 

A Short Extract from Casse-pipe

By Céline[1]

 

Ferdinand?... fils d’Auguste… né Auguste…

mon canard ! Maréchal des logis Rancotte…

fils de Rancotte, adjudant-trompette, 12^e dra-

gons. Ça te la coupe, hein, fayot ? Enfant de

troupe…Oui parfaitement. Enfant de la troupe.

C’est clair…C’est clair…C’est net ! ça ! merde !

Auguste…assurances…employé…Voyez -vous

ça ? l’Assurance ?...Qui c’est l’Assurance ?

Connais pas l’Assurance moi ! Ah ! Hein !

Qu’est-ce que ça branle l’Assurance ? Vous

êtes prétentieux ! mon ami ! Prétentieux ! Aud-

cieux ! Oui ! Hein ! Moi Rancotte ! Vous avez

compris ? Fixe ! Repos ! Garde à vous ! Talons

joints ! Talons joint ! La tête dégagée des

épaules ! Là ! Fixe !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ferdinand ?... son of Auguste !...born

Auguste…de’ fuck ! Maréchal of

the House of Rancotte…son of Rancotte,

Adjutant trumpet, 12^th dragoons. That

just about cuts it, eh, brown noser!

Child of the troops. It’s clear…It’s clear…

Absolutely clear ! I think!... Shit!... Auguste!...

Insurance?... What the fuck! Never been

insured… me! Ah! Well! What the fuck has

insurance got to do with anything? You’re

pretentious, my friend! Very pretentious. Audacious

even! Yes!... At ease!....Stand to attention! Rancotte my foot!

You understand! Heels together!... Heels together!

The head disengaged from the

shoulders!... There now! Keep it fixed…!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The above extract is based on the writer’s own experience when he joined the 17^th Cuirassiers, the famous breast-plated cavalry who fought with such distinction during the Napoleonic wars. However, the year now is 1912, so just a couple of years before the massacre of 1914 when armed cavalry were made a thing of the past.

Céline himself, when speaking about this period of his life, admits that he must have been a bit “con” to have volunteered for military service, but this was after the hindsight that he had after having been quite seriously wounded; he suffered in both his arm and hearing all his life having been subjected to a bombardment, a shell landed next to him wounding him on impact.

What I find fascinating about this short text, it is around 100 pages in total, is the very musical quality of the language. The beautiful turns of phrase, a lot of them quite popular and which are full of slang. This is the army slang of the pre-war period, but some of it is still used a lot, and mainly thanks to Céline.

He is like Shakespeare, Dante and Rabelais, in this respect; a guardian of language, to quote Heaney on Hughes! I don’t know how much more I’m going to translate, perhaps I will put up some more efforts on this blog, but I do so for the pure pleasure of doing as it is reward enough in itself.   

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[1] Céline, Louis Ferdinand: Casse-pipe suivi du Carnets du cuirassier Destouches, Gallimard, Collection Folio, Paris, 1970, p.20.

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[1] Céline, Louis Ferdinand: Casse-pipe suivi du Carnets du cuirassier Destouches, Gallimard, Collection Folio, Paris, 1970, p.20.

"Bouge pas Andre!" - Normance by Louis Ferdinand Céline

 

 

 

 

…Bouge pas Andre!

 

Normance, Céline and the Correspondences with Pliny the Elder

 

 

The key signifiers that I will be examining here are firstly the French pronouns on (we),  je (I) and finally vous (formal you) all of which are crucial features, I will be positing, in very carefully constructing the highly systematic orality that Céline manages to achieve in his novel Normance ( 1954) and which also goes by the subsidiary title Féerie pour une autre fois, II and which the author composed while he was in exile in Denmark. Then, I will be treating the importance of the first dedication of the novel by the author to the ancient Roman naturalist and philosopher Pliny the Elder ( AD 23/24-79) as it is another crucial sign in the plethora of signs that the author inserts, and which will help to localise the very specific philosophical stand point of the author grounding us in both his sense of humour and his very specific political outlook and which have deep significance for our current very troubled times. Finally, I will be treating the characters of Jules and Normance, whose name forms the title of the novel and which is also highly significant as it returns us to the microcosm of the one, and to the pronouns je and vous ( 1^st and 2^nd) and which are representative of the microcosmic world of the individual, which is the point of view, predominantly, of both Pliny, as a natural philosopher, observing phenomenon on the ground and which he will later treat in his encyclopedia, as it is just this point of view that Céline himself will be advocating in his novel Normance, I will be positing, a three hundred and seventy five page novel which takes place over the course of a few hours in the summer of 1944 when the Allies bombarded the suburbs of Paris.

The first thing that strikes one with Normance is the orality and it is this stylistic factor which I should like to treat here and there are a number of factors which contribute to the overall effect, one of which is the use of the verb Raconter and which is the very first word of the text. ‘Raconter tout ça après…’[1]the novel begins. ‘c’est vite dit !... c’est vite dit !...’ So, in the first lines of the text the whole nature of the enterprise is stated, and the difficulty of the enterprise; which is to tell of a human experience that has happened to one and which one must then tell to another. The idea of a witness is straight away addressed, and this is indicated by the use of the pronoun ‘On’/ ‘We’ which is all inclusive – we indicating humanity. ‘On a tout de même l’écho encore…brroumn!...la tronche vous oscille…même sept ans passé…’[2] and so we are given the whole context of the human enterprise within the first couple of lines. We are witnessing war, which the narrator has experienced several years previous to the task at hand - the narration. In the current context, with wars engulfing both Ukraine and Russia and the simultaneous escalation of conflict in the Middle East and with talk about a possible future global conflict brought about in the South China Seas, this is very compelling stuff.

Raconter tout ça après…c’est vite dit !...c’est vite dit !...

On a tout de même l’écho encore…brroumn !...la tronche

vous oscille…même sept ans passés…le trognon !...le temps

n’est rien, mais les souvenirs !...[3]

 

Céline, the author, the ‘chroniqueur’/chronicler ‘ …je suis chroniqueur…’[4] is setting out here in the first few lines of the text the whole enterprise of the 374 pages which are to follow and which is nothing less than a copious description of the events in question - the bombardment of Montmartre by the Allied forces during 1943, and to which Céline himself, Doctor Destouches, was an actual witness and so for this reason places himself in the narrative which will tell of the events on the day in question when bombs fell on the apartment he was inhabiting.  All of this we get on the first page, but there is more… there are references to both Cervantes and Émile Zola, little clues as to the scope of the enterprise, which is nothing short of being epic.

 

les personnes qu’on a perdues…les chagrins…

les potes disséminés…gentils…méchants…oublieux…les

ailes de moulins…et l’écho encore qui vous secoue…Je

serai projeté dans le tombe avec !...Nom de brise ! j’en

ai plein la tête !...plein le buffet…Brrroum !...je ressens…

j’accuse…

 

The reference above to windmills and the celebrated phrase evoking the Dreyfus Affair are unmistakable; the latter in the context of Céline, the notorious antisemite of the pamphlets, all the more incendiary. History here is always personal - ‘His-story!’ Not even the reader can escape, which is why the author implicates him in the use of pronouns. So, within the space of a few lines we go from ‘On’/We, to ‘je’ I to ‘Je vous’ perdre pas!...’ / I don’t lose you!

 

mais je vous

 

perds pas!...je vous rattraperai de ci, de lá …tout est lá ! le

caractère…[5]

 

This shift of pronouns is extremely important, particularly when we see that the nature of the person’s character is in question; be it the author’s, people in general, or the readers! Nobody escapes culpability, particularly so when we are dealing with such events as war, when people, civilians, are being targeted and blown, quite literally, out of their homes. And this very phenomenon is not new, as the author makes quite clear, all on the same first page.

 

J’étais tombé sur l’ascenseur par la porte ouverte…

non !... plus bas encore… plus bas tombé !...à la cave…

Brroum !...en appelant Lili !...en appelant Bébert…appelant

tout !...Ils m’avaient ramassé dehors…les quatre chevaliers

et les dames, remonté chez moi…c’est pas d’hier que je

fais les braoum !...depuis 14 à vrai dire…novembre 14…

broum ! …je fus envolé par un obus, evolé ! soulevé !...un

gros déjà ! un « 107 » ! en selle sur « Démolition »…[6]

 

Céline is of course referencing his own experience as a young man some years earlier in the Great War when he was injured only a few months in ( 14^th November, 1914), and which he already wrote about in Voyage au bout de la nuit ( 1932) and more recently in Guerre ( 2022).

Céline gives four dates, ’14 !...de 18 !... 35 !...44 !... ah, je compte !...recompte…je retrouve tout !...comme le linge le jour du carnet…’[7]  The first two refer of course to the Great War which, as we have already acknowledged,  Céline actively participated in before being injured, he was later decorated for his services and this was to save him many years later when he was brought to court for his supposed collaboration during WW2. 1935 is less clear. Could the reference possibly be the enactment of the Nurenberg Laws in Nazi Germany against Jews? For a virulent antisemite like Céline it is highly possibly, which brings an altogether different aspect to the text and one which, despite one’s admiration for the author’s style, is of course deeply troubling. 1944 is significant of course in many ways, D Day of course, the beginning of the end, and the bombardment of Montmartre by the Allies which is the events that Céline describes in the novel. But at this stage, I should like to refer to the first dedication of the novel.

 

 

A PLINE L’ANCIEN[8]

 

Pline is French for Pliny the Elder ( Gaius Plinius Secundus AD 23/24- 79), the author of Naturalis Historia the first encyclopedia in 37 volumes describing the natural world as based on his natural observation of natural phenomenon. ‘je suis le simple témoin visual…’[9] Céline writes further on as he describes the visual phenomenon of the bombing of Paris by the Allied planes.

C’est là qu’on voit l’homme, sa nature, ce qu’il

est capable, ses façones innées de s’amuser… les réverbérations

d’usine, les lueurs qui s’élèvent de Saint-Quen…[10]

 

But why Pliny the Elder? I think the only answer there is the temporal backdrop of the overall piece; remember, Céline is undertaking a monumental tableaux reminiscent of Rembrandt, in its historic perspective, and the allusion to Pliny and ancient Rome acts like a dept charge colouring the three hours of description which will take up the next 350 or so pages.

 

et ces mirages d’atmosphère que le jardin de Barbe-Bleue, sous nous,

monte au Ciel !... c’est que de l’effet, je suis pas dupe !...

des réfractions par les nuages !... phénomènes ! oui ! phénomé-

ne !...je note !..je dois vous noter tout !...le jardin de Barbe-

Bleue monte au Ciel…Broum !...

 

The reference to Barbe-Bleue, .... ( To be continued...!

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[1] Céline, Louis Ferdinand: Normance, Gallimard, Collection Blanche, Paris, 2022, p.11.

[2] Céline, Louis Ferdinand: Normance, Gallimard, Collection Blanche, Paris, 2022, p.11.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, p.55.

[5] Ibid, p.55.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid. p.12.

[8] Céline, Louis Ferdinand: Normance, Gallimard, Collection Blanche, Paris, 2022, p.7.

[9] Ibid, p.24.

[10] Ibid.

CV. Le vin des chiffonniers / CV. Wine of the Rag and Bone Men by Charles Baudelaire

CV. Le vin des chiffonniers

 

Souvent, à la clarté d’un réverbère

Dont le vent bat la flamme et tourment le verre,

Au cœur d’un vieux faubourg, labyrinthe fangeux

Où l’humanité grouille en ferments orageux,

 

On voit un chiffonnier qui vient, hochent la tête,

Butant, et se cognant aux murs comme un poète,

Et, sans prendre souci des mouchards ses sujets,

Épanche tout son cœur en glorieux projets.

 

Il prête des serments, dicte des lois sublimes,

Terrasse les méchants, relève les victimes,

Et sous le firmament comme un dais suspendu

S’enivre des splendeurs de sa propre vertu.

 

Oui, ces gens harcelés de chagrins de ménage,

Moulus par le travail et tourmentes par l’âge,

Éreintés et pliant sous un tas de débris,

Vomissement confus de l’énorme Paris,

 

Reviennent, parfumé d’une odeur de futailles,

Suivis de compagnons, blanchis dans les batailles,

Dont la moustache pend comme les vieux drapeaux.

Les bannières, les fleurs et les arcs triomphaux

 

Se dressent devant eux, solennelle magie !

Et dans l’étourdissante et lumineuse orgie

Des clairons du soleil, des cris du tambour,

Ils apportent la gloire au peuple ivre d’amour !

 

C’est ainsi qu’à travers l’Humanité frivole

Le vin roule de l’or ; éblouissant Pactole ;

Par le gosier de l’homme il chante ses exploits

Et règne par ses dons ainsi que les vrai rois.

 

Pour noyer la rancœur et bercer l’indolence

De tous ces vieux maudits qui meurent en silence,

Dieu, touché de remords, avait fait le sommeil ;

L’Homme ajouta le Vin, fils sacré du Soleil !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CV.  Wine of the Rag and Bone Men

 

 

Often, through the clarity of a reverberating Red

Where the wind blows through the flames tormenting the glass,

There in the heart of some old district, labyrinthian mire,

There where humanity swarms fermenting storms,

 

We see a rag and bone man coming, lifting his head,

Banging it, and knocking it up against the wall like all poets,

And, without paying any heed to the whistleblowers, his subjects,

He then unloads all of his glorious projects from his heart.

 

He gives sermons, dictates some sublime laws,

Floors the bad, aids victims,

And, beneath the firmament like an upended saint

Gets drunk on the splendours of his own virtue.

 

Yes, all these people harassed by the quotidian,

Worn down with work, and tormented by age,

Fucked up and crippled by the weight of their own Shit,

Vomiting confusedly on enormous Paris.

 

Returning then, perfumed by the odour of the barrels,

Followed by companions, whitened from their battles,

Their moustaches drooping like old flags.

The banners, the flowers, and the triumphant arches

 

Stand up before them, the solemn magic!

And with the din of a luminous orgy

The clarion of the sun, the cries and a drum,

Bring about the glory of a people drunk on Love!

 

It has always been this way for frivolous humans

Wine rolls in gold, its dazzling jackpot;

Through the gorge of man it sings of its exploits

And reigns in this way like the old Kings.

 

To drown out the rancour and cradle the indolence

Of all of those old poor devils who die in the silence,

And God, touched by remorse, has made his bed,

Man adds wine, the sacred child of the Sun!   

 

 

 

 

 

Shades Through a Shade - Review of Gare Saint Lazare Ireland's latest theatrical production

 

 

 

 

Shades Through a Shade

Directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett

Gare Saint Lazare Ireland

 

Shades Through a Shade ( 23- 28 September), currently running in the Samuel Beckett Theatre as part of the Dublin Theatre Festival ( 26.09 – 13.10, 2024) is, as one should come to expect from any Gare Saint Lazare Ireland production, a dream within a dream within a dream conjured up with some bleak nightmare. Featuring texts by Gorgio Agamben, St Augustine, Dante, Beckett, Hildegard Von Bingen, Melville, and the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy as well as texts from Julian of Norwich, Shades is theatre as you would imagine it played out in the sixties in Paris or California; in other words… hallucinogenic! The visual displays, Morgan Doyle, and music, by the composer Benedict Schlepper-Connolly, all help to create an incredible theatrical vibe and mood, which this reviewer was badly in need of to cure, somewhat, my post-modernistic dystopian blues.

A terrific cast of performers ( Natasha Everitt, Lux Lovett, Simon Jermyn ( Guitar), Conor Lovett, Trey Lyford, Seán Mac Erlaine ( Various instruments) and Julia Spanu ( Vocals) all help to individually add to a theatrical extravaganza that Judy Hegarty Lovett directs with a very strong hand. Textually, extracts from Dante’s Commedia and assorted pieces by Beckett, taken from the Trilogy as well as other works, are some of the more familiar works. There is a very strong association between both authors, Beckett read him in Italian when he was a young man at Trinity and still had his old copy of the Commedia by his death bed in the hospice in Paris, so Hegarty Lovett uses extracts from the two authors as a kind of vertebrae upon which she adds all of the other voices in an almost seamless intertwining and which creates a very strong sense of journeying.

Belacqua and Bartleby are the twin protagonists who take us through the, at once, surreal medieval landscape starting on Mount Purgatory where we find Dante’s protagonist, the ever slothful Belacqua, whom Beckett was to adopt as a doppelganger as a young student in Trinity where he appears first as far back as Dream of Fair to Middling Women and More Pricks than Kicks. Melville’s scrivener is a nice shoe in for Belacqua, Gare Saint Lazare Ireland equally mounted a lavish production of Moby Dick some years ago so what you find in Shades to a certain degree is a very sophisticated and experienced theatre troupe, I almost wrote Mountebanks, juggling texts from former influences from former works and inserting other elements, such as Agamben and Jean Luc Nancy alongside the triad of Christian thinkers already referenced.

Indeed, medieval hierarchy is an explicit theme in the central section of Shades of a Shade, the text is by Agamben and refers to the fact how hierarchical structures have been around in western thinking since Aristotle, continuing through Dante ( a divine comedy in which the protagonist, Dante himself, is guided by Virgil from the very lower ranks of Hell, right through the torturous climbs of Mount Purgatory till he meets his divine love Beatrice, who also makes a cameo in Shades) right up to the so called Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. The medieval hierarchy of Dante, incorporating extracts from Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso give a solid structure, and when the Florentine Master’s Dublin reincarnation is not paraphrasing, the sacred texts of Von Bingen and Julian of Norwich offer an uncanny and somewhat apocalyptic tenor that is all too timely, considering the very bleak political scene internationally. Humour abundantly abounds in the piece, as a very tenuous line is maintained by all the actors throughout the performance, whether they are jumping about like circus folk in a kind of dystopian commedia del art, or painfully crawling across the stage like so many figurines from a Flemish medieval master!

Another interesting development is the interjection of other texts by Hegarty Lovett, correspondences from, say, her to technicians or other possible members of the theatrical production, surely a nod to Foucault and his all too revolutionary upending of the traditional hierarchy by aligning all documents, like people, in the very all too modern horizontal clime of stratification; the modern hell! Something about the almost collegian sense of humour in these supposed random insertions makes one baulk in one’s chair, far more interesting to get back to the fire and brimstone of the Christian believers where Hell was a proper fiery place and where all the miscreants of creation are sent. I couldn't help but think of the great French historian and antropologist Emannuel Todd and his all too timely latest meditation on the link between a sytem of belief, religious that is, and the birth rates of a civilisation; according to Todd, due to our secular beliefs birth rates in the west are dramattically decreasing, while in other parts of the world, where belief systems are still in place, they are on the rise...! All of which seems to be evoked in Shades Through a Shade. 

So, if you are a poor and tired commuter looking for a little soulful engagement on the meaning of Life, yes, with a capital L, and everything in between, you could do a lot worse than run, (Yes RUN!) into Trinity and make your way to the rather austere structure made of wood and to be then taken hand in radioactive hand, and  in glove, by the pranking divine jokers of le la Gare Saint Beatific Players of dear olde Ireland…you won’t know yer arse from yer elbow, but sure whenever would you, says you!             

CXXVIII LE LÉTHÉ / LETHE, BAUDELAIRE

                                                                            CXXVIII

LE LÉTHÉ

 

 

Viens sur mon cœur, âme cruelle et sourde,

Tigre adoré, monstre aux airs indolents ;

Je veux longtemps plonger mes doigts tremblants

Dans l’épaisseur de ta crinières lourde ;

 

Dans tes jupons, remplis de ton parfum,

Ensevelir ma tête endolorie,

Et respirer, comme une fleur flétrie,

Le doux relent de mon amour défunt.

 

Je veux dormir ! dormir plutôt que vive !

Dans un sommeil aussi doux que la mort,

J’étalerai mes baisers sans remord

Sur ton beau corps poli comme le cuivre.

 

Pour engloutir mes sanglots apaisés

Rien ne me vaut l’abîme de ta couche ;

L’oubli puissant habite sur ta bouche,

Et le Léthé coules dans tes baisers.  

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CXXVIII

LETHE

 

 

Come to my heart, deaf and cruel soul,

Adored tigress, monster with the indolent airs ;

For a long time I have wanted to plunge my trembling fingers

Into the depths of your heavy mane ;

 

In your skirts, filled with your perfume,

Bury my obliterated head,

And inhale, like a faded flower,

The gentle relent of my defunct love.

 

I want to sleep! Sleep more than live!

In a sleep that is as gentle as death,

I will spread my kisses without any regret

Over your beautiful body polished like copper.

 

To engulf my deep tears

Nothing is not worth the abyss of your layers ;

A powerful forgetfulness lingers upon your lips,

And the Lethe that  spills out in your kiss.