Altered images by Duffy.
rigadoon. n. ancient lively skipping dance.
Rigadoon, was completed the day before he died, in 1961. .. see the french excerpt below.
These are from earlier works.
Guignol's Band (1944)
Boom! Zoom! . . . It's the big smashup! . . . The whole street caving in at the waterfront! . . . It's Orleans crumbling and thunder in the Grand Cafe! . . . A table sails by and splits the air! . . . Marble bird! . . . spins round, shatters a window to splinters! . . . A houseful of furniture rocks, spins from the casements, scatters in a rain of fire! . . . The proud bridge, twelve arches, staggers, topples smack into the mud. The slime of the river splatters! . . . mashes, splashes the mob yelling choking overflowing at the parapet! . . . It's pretty bad . . .
Conversations with Professor Y (1955). In that book--an imagined series of interviews with Celine conducted by a skeptical "Professor Y":
"Instead of those three dots, you might just as well put in a few words, that's what I feel.""B'loney, Colonel! So much b'loney! . . . not in an emotive tale! . . . you don't reproach Van Gogh for his misshapen churches? Vlaminck, his screwed-up thatched roofs? . . . Bosch, his creatures neither head nortail! . . . Debussy, his unconcern for measures? or Honegger's! do I not have the same rights myself? no? I have the right only to follow the Rules? . . . the Rhythms of the Academy? . . . that's revolting!"
Castle to Castle (1957):
I'm still waiting to see the ideal wiseguy, the hep kid straight out of Carco, grabbing himself a thick slice at the expense of the Law . . . I'm waiting . . . in Criminal Court, for instance! calling the Judge a creep . . . sneering . . . and the Prosecutor a tongue-tied nitwit! and watch them all quaking! thumbing through the dictionary of argot . . . turning pages . . . begging his pardon . . . the Judge hiding under his Code . . . huddled up, white as a sheet!
Celine wrote his books in long hand
& afterwards,
they were typed by someone else.
He claimed not to read them
when they were completed in long hand.
His left and right hand,
differed in appearance.
The writing hand looked like a claw.
Likewise, his face appeared two sided,
a split visage__
to those who
met him.
1894-1961
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
"Je vois bien que Poulet me boude... Poulet Robert condamné à mort... il parle plus de moi dans ses rubriques... autrefois j'étais le grand ceci... l'incomparable cela... maintenant à peine un petit mot accidentel assez méprisant. Je sais d'où ça vient, qu'on s'est engueulé... à la fin il m'emmerdait à tourner autour du pot !... vous êtes sûr que vos convictions ne vous ramènent pas à Dieu !" Rigodon fr.
Rigodon est la suite de Nord et de D’un château l’autre. L’exil en Allemagne, la fuite au Danemark, l’acteur Le Vigan et le chat Bébert. La veuve de Céline, Lucette Almanzor, raconte comment fut écrit Rigodon et comment, sept ans après, il est édité.
Qu’est-ce que Rigodon ?
"Rigodon, c’est la suite de Nord, puisque en somme cela s’est terminé avec la guerre. C’est vingt et un jours de sauvette à travers l’Allemagne en flamme. Nous nous sauvions comme des rats…" from an interview his wife , Lucette, polio surivor
and dancer.
Celine compared himself to Goya,
Breugal,and Bosch
in that order.
Ralph Manheim is the principal translator
of Celine's works in English.
