Hagridden

December 22, 2014

Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, ou Céline

Dead of Winter, Dead of Night

How is it, if we invent the gods, we cannot tame them?

Here is Céline on Fortune, when, as it seems, fortune brings nothing but ill. Bardamu has been ill himself, and now with passport and medical certificate in his pocket, he is simply walking away from Rancy to another place he’s sure will be equally as unfortunate. “It’s no good expecting to drop one’s misfortune anywhere en route. It’s as if one’s misfortune were some ghastly-looking female, and somehow one had married her. Maybe it’s better to end up by loving her a little than to wear oneself out by beating her all one’s life. Since you’re not going to be able to suppress her anyway.” She’s always going to be there, full of energy for whatever she wants to expend her energy for.

          Céline is a misogynist – I know that; I’d add he is also a misandrist, a complete misanthrope. It’s difficult to put that aside, but try. What is interesting (to me) here is how he personalizes Fortune. And we see again how the gods are made: by the people we meet and the shit they make us wade through, then the stories we tell about them and it, and how we reflect on all of it, especially the parts we can’t figure out or help, so they're not going away; i.e., all of it.

          This is how we invent the gods, in short: we put them in a story; otherwise they are too far away. But even near, in our story, they do what they want – not what we want them – to do.

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