Reading material during Hell-Storm ’08
Did you ever wonder, my poor young friend, what the human brian looks like? . . . The mechanism that makes you think? Did you? No. Of course not. That doesn’t interest you one bit . . . You’d rather look at girls. So of course you don’t know. Because the first honest glance would convince you that disorder, yes, my boy, disorder, is the quintessence of your very life! of your whole physical and metaphysical being! Why, it’s your very soul, Ferdinand! millions, trillions of intricate folds . . . plunging deep down into the grey matter, complex, subjacent, evasive . . . limitless! That’s Harmony, Ferdinand. All nature! A flight into the imponderable! And nothing else! Put your wretched thoughts in order, Ferdinand! That’s where to begin. Not with grotesque, material, negative, obscene substitutions, but with the essential, that’s what I’m getting at. Are you going to assault the brain, correct it, scrape it, mutilate it, force it to comply with an assortment of stupid rules? carve it up geometrically? recompose it according to the rules of your excruciating idiocy? . . . Arrange it in slices? like an Epiphany cake? . . . With a prize in the middle. Tell me that. I’m asking you. Frankly? Would that be any good? Would it make any sense? Heaven help us! There’s no doubt about it, Ferdinand, your soul is overwhelmed by errors. It make you, like so many others, a unanimous nonentity. Great instinctive disorder is the father of fertile thought! It’s the beginning of everything . . . Once the propitious moment has passed, there’s no hope . . . You, I’m afraid, will spend your whole life in the garbage pail of reason . . . So much the worse for you! You’re a numbskull, Ferdinand, a nearsighted, blind, preposterous, deaf, one-armed dolt! . . . befouling my magnificent disorder with your vicious reflections . . . In Harmony, Ferdinand, resides the world’s only joy! The only deliverance! The only truth! . . . Harmony! Find Harmony! That’s the ticket! . . . This shop is in Harmon-y . . . Do you hear me, Ferdinand? Like a brain, mother nature nor less! Order! Rid me of that word, that thing! Accustom yourself to Harmony and Harmony will reward you. You’ll find everything you’ve been looking for so long on the highways of the world . . . And far more! Many other things, Ferdinand! A brain, Ferdinand, that’s what the whole lot of you will find! Yes! This Genitron is a brain. Have I made myself clear? That’s not what you’re after? You and your kind? An inane ambush of pigeonholes! A barricade of brochures! A house of the dead! A Chartist necropolis! No, never! Here everything is in movement! Swarming with life! You’re not satisfied? It stirs, it quivers! Just touch it! Put out your little finger. Everything comes to life. Everything trembles instantly. Asking only to surge up! to blossom! to shine! I don’t live by destroying. I take life as it comes! Do you take me for a cannibal, Ferdinand? Never! . . . Bent on reducing it to my chickenshit concepts? Pah! Everything shakes? Everything topples? Splendid! I have no desire to count stars 1! 2! 3! 4! and 5! I’m not the kind that thinks he’s entitled to do anything he pleases. The right to shrink! rectify! corrupt! prune! transplant! . . . No! where would I get it? . . . From the Infinite? . . . From life itself? It’s not natural, my boy! It’s not natural! It’s infamous meddling! . . . I prefer to keep on good terms with the Universe! I take it as I find it! . . . I’ll never rectify it! No! The Universe is master of its own house! I understand it! It understands me! It gives me a hand when I ask it! When I’m through with it, I drop it! That’s the long and the short of it . . . It’s a cosmogonic question! I have no orders to give! You have no orders! He has no orders! . . . Blah! Blah! Blah! . . .”
He got sore as hell, like somebody who’s definitely in the wrong . . .
Louis – Ferdinand Celine, Death of the Installment Plan