CÉLINE (Louis-Ferdinand). - Lot 127

CÉLINE (Louis-Ferdinand). Bagatelles pour un massacre. Paris : Denoël, [1937].8 pages, paperback. First edition of this anti-Semitic pamphlet, Céline's second after "Mea Culpa", a violently anti-Communist text published earlier that year. "Bagatelles pour un massacre" was written in the summer of 1937, following several disappointments for the author. It's a "composite text, mixing arguments about ballets (the pretext of the collection - these were allegedly refused by Jewish decision-makers, triggering the author's fury), a trip to Russia (under the domination of Communist Jews), a literary manifesto (in favor of Aryan spontaneity and rejecting "the convoluted" as well as "Critique") and topical accounts (on the political and social reality of France under the Blum government) ; for the most part, it's a long, vehemently racist anti-Semitic indictment, purporting to be pacifist and constituting a veritable call to pogrom, justified in several places in the text : it responds in this way to the alleged warmongering of the Jewish community in France, hence the trailer's caustic argument: "For a good laugh in the trenches." " (André Deval, "L'Accueil critique de "Bagatelles pour un massacre"", Écriture, 2010). One of 400 numbered copies on esparto, very well preserved despite traces of folding on a corner of the second cover.