1,686 words
“The James Dean of French Fascism.”– Alice Kaplan, author of The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach (2001)
Such a description of the puny, bespectacled, and boyish-looking poet — especially coming from the daughter of a Nuremberg prosecutor — seems to be either thinly barbed facetiousness or malignant irony. Read more …
In Search of Céline
1,704 words
Claude Sarraute: “And what, in your opinion, is the tragic element of our epoch?”
Céline: “Stalingrad. There’s the catharsis for you. The fall of Stalingrad was the end of Europe. There’s a cataclysm. The epicenter was Stalingrad. After that you can say white civilization was finished, really washed up.” Read more …