the sweet gentleness of Europe

"I was a little shaken . . . in fact, I'd had rotten shock! . . . that's right, a shock . . . the whole of Europe on my ass . . . yes, the whole of Europe . . . plus my friends . . . my family . . . all competing to see who could grab more away from me . . . not leaving me time to say boo . . . my eyes! . . . my nose! . . . my fountain pen . . . the ferocity of Europe! . . . the Nazis were no lovebirds, but don't tell me about the sweet gentleness of Europe . . . I'm not exaggerating . . . that little warrant . . . and all those public prosecutors . . ."

~~ from Castle to Castle by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

the Journey

"What's all the fuss about . . . It's the Journey that got me into all this . . . My most relentless persecutors date from the Journey . . . Nobody's forgiven me for the Journey . . .  It was the Journey that cooked my goose . . ."

~~ from Castle to Castle by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Nobel Prize?

"I've got an idea! . . . suppose they gave me the Nobel Prize? . . . It would help me fine with the gas bill, my taxes, my carrots . . . but those cocksuckers up there won't give it to me! or their King! . . . they give it to every conceivable nance . . . to the worst vaseline-asses on the planet . . . naturally!"

~~ from Castle to Castle by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I'm ending in total bankruptcy

 "I'm ending in total bankruptcy . . . it shames me . . ."

~~ from Castle to Castle by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

that's business for you

"He didn't go for lawyers and headaches . . . With this little spot of cash he was going to buy some simple straightforward business . . . something in the mechanical line . . . a going concern . . . repairing small cars . . . second-hand jalopies . . . That's always a profitable deal . . . In addition he'd take back his customers' lamps and horns . . . that was down his alley . . . He'd modernize them . . . There's always demand for little nickel and copper accessories . . . All you've got to do is keep up with the styles . . . You fix them up . . . and then you find a customer good for a three hundred percent profit . . . that's business for you! . . . He wasn't worrying . . . He knew all the tricks . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

kept busy at any price

"My parents were perfectly satisfied. I didn't need money, they kept telling my uncle . . . I'd only put it to bad use . . . It was much more important that I shouldn't live with them anymore . . . That was the unanimous opinion of the whole family, of the neighbors too, and of all our acquaintances . . . that I be given something to do, no matter what! that I be kept busy at any price! no matter where, no matter how! As long as I wasn't left idle! and kept away! From one day to the next, to judge by the way I had started out, I might set the Passage on fire! That was the general sentiment . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

their appreciation for fine work

"Rich people had lost all their refinement . . . all their delicacy . . . their appreciation for fine work, for hand-made articles . . . all they had left was a depraved infatuation with machine-made junk, embroideries that unravel, that melt and peel when you wash them . . . Why insist on making beautiful things? . . . That's what the ladies wanted. Flashy stuff . . . gingerbread . . . horrors . . . rubbish from the bargain counter . . . Fine lace was a thing of the past . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

a little more to eat

"To get a little more to eat, I did a little sleight-of-hand in the shops . . . They thought I was so simple they never suspected my tricks . . . I put on the innocent mischief act, I disappeared . . . I played peekaboo with Jongkind behind the posts and counters. I snitched a little sausage, an egg here and there, a few crackers, a banana or two . . . just a few odds and ends . . . Nobody ever bothered me . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

enough to eat

"A school that gave you enough to eat would go bankrupt . . . They've got to watch their step . . . I made up for it on the porridge, there I was ruthless . . . I took advantage of my strength, and I was even worse with the marmalade . . . There was a little saucerful for four of us, I gobbled it up all by myself, straight out of the dish . . . I did away with it before anybody could see what was happening . . . The others could gripe all they pleased, I never answered . . . why should I have? . . . You could have all the tea you wanted, it warms you, it bloats you, it's perfumed water, not bad, but it makes you even hungrier. When the tempest went on for a long time, when the whole hilltop roared for days on end, I dug into the sugar bowl . . . with a tablespoon or even my bare hands. It was yellow and sticky, it gave me strength . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

our terror of going hungry

“We had only one thing in common in our family in the Passage, and that was our terror of going hungry. We all had plenty of that. It was with me from my first breath. . . They passed it on to me. . . We were all obsessed with it. . . As far as we were concerned, the soul was fear. In every room the walls sweated fear of going without. . . It made us swallow the wrong way, it made us bolt our meals and run around town like mad. . . we zigzagged like fleas all over Paris, from the Place Maubert to the Etoile, for fear of being auctioned off, for fear of the rent, of the gas man, the tax collector. . . We were always in such a hurry I never had time to wipe myself properly.”

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Junk is fragile. . .

“Junk is fragile. I ruined tons of stuff, never on purpose. The thought of antiques still makes me sick, but that was our bread and butter. The scrapings of time are sad. . . lousy, sickening. We sold the stuff over the customer's dead body. We'd wear him down. We'd drown his wits in floods of hokum. . . incredible bargains. . . we were merciless. . . He couldn't win. . . If he had any wits to begin with, we demolished them. . . He'd walk out stunned with the Louis XIII cup in his pocket, the openwork fan with cat and shepherdess wrapped in tissue paper. You can't imagine how they revolted me, grown-ups taking such crap home with them.”

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Death on the Installment Plan

"The fairy tales people tell each other. . . they make a certain amount of sense, but they're a pack of filthy, stinking lies. . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Winter, 1965 by Frederic Tuten

I enjoyed "Winter, 1965" by Frederic Tuten, which I chanced upon collected in the O'Henry Prize Stories 2016 and read in the library on a rainy morning this past week. Although it's a cliche for writers to write about the sad doubting lives of literary writers, it's also a cliche to criticize these same stories about writers. In any event, in the right mood, I'm a sucker for such tales, particularly if they have mention of critics past such as Philip Rahv while unpublished, alienated writers read Celine, fret, and ponder their future. 

It made sense that "Winter, 1965" would find me because in the few days before landing on it, I'd been mulling over the opening paragraph of Celine's Death on the Installment Plan: 

Here we are, alone again. It's all so slow, so heavy, so sad. . . I'll be old soon. Then at last it will be over. So many people have come into my room. They've talked. They haven't said much. They've gone away. They've grown old, wretched, sluggish, each in some corner of the world.

But for now, not yet old, I move along to other literary things.

I Love Dollars

Aside from syllabus readings, I've had only a little bit of time to read on or off line. But one selection was the title story of Wen Zhu's I Love Dollars, which takes us inside contemporary money-mad, sex-crazed China where at least some young people are now interested in becoming writers and musicians.

I also stumbled upon, and then read, Michael Kazin's considerations of his father Alfred Kazin's life and writing, and I continue to support Cooke's fairly recent biography of Kazin, particularly for anyone with some time on their hands.

Last, I came across an article on Louis-Ferdinand Celine's antisemitism. I'd been under the impression that Celine was of that most curious caste of antisemites, that is, one born Jewish, but in fact, it seems I'm mistaken. I'm not sure of why I'd been under that impression or if I ever had a source. Now I find myself reading and skimming his interview from The Paris Review. Here's an excerpt:

My mother always used to tell me, “Poor kid, if you didn't have the rich people (because I already had a few little ideas, as it happened), if there weren't any rich people we wouldn't have anything to eat. Rich people have responsibilities.” My mother worshiped rich people, you see.

Here's one more, Celine on the novel as fighting a losing battle against TV, film, and alcohol:

But novels are a little like lace . . . an art that disappeared with the convents. Novels can't fight cars, movies, television, booze. A guy who's eaten well, who's escaped the big war, in the evenings gives a peck to the old lady and his day's finished. Done with.