ARTAUD, ŒUVRES

Review par Alain Virmaux

Monumental tome (nearly 1,800 pages), whose release risked being perceived as the latest avatar of an interminable legal-editorial serial. Since 1994, the publication of Artaud's Complete Works had been stopped. After the launch (long deferred) of volume XXVI, several other volumes were still planned, but their publication remained inconceivable as long as the judicial confrontation between Artaud's "rightful claimant" (his nephew) and the publisher persisted. To escape this situation of chronic blockage, a compromise was envisaged. For lack of a "Pléiade" in a few volumes which would have been the logical outcome of a less heavily conflictual context, the choice was made of a "Quarto" in a single volume: turning its back on an inaccessible exhaustiveness, the essential Works would be gathered, inserting in them — even if it meant performing technical prodigies of layout — numerous unpublished texts absent from the so-called "complete" "works."

Audacious but playable bet. After all, the first editor, Paule Thévenin, had herself authoritatively excluded certain texts from her enterprise. For example, the supposed co-translation by Artaud of Lewisohn's Crime passionnel (Denoël 1932), of which the present "Quarto" breathes not a word [1]. Similarly, P. Thévenin had given up publishing Artaud's letters sent from Ville-Évrard, and the reasons she had given (X 267) could seem insufficient. In this regard, we note that several of these letters are now brought to light in the Works. But the ambition of the new project far exceeded the revelation of unpublished pieces.

Double ambition. First of all, clear will to react against the avalanche of volumes that was the mark of the Complete Works: a good thirty volumes, not even speaking of the repeated reissues of the first volumes, this was of a nature to create a feeling — not always hidden — of slight saturation even among Artaud's most fervent admirers [2]. On this renunciation of publishing everything was grafted another aim: to discreetly call into question the work accomplished during about forty years by the first editor. Without polemical spirit, but from a strictly methodological point of view. Questioning of which we identify several clear signs: "often conjectural rewriting work" (note on p. 1327), or else "hasty montages or reconstructions" (note on p. 1049). As for the content of volume XXVI (the Vieux-Colombier session), its coherence is seriously, but without virulence, called into doubt (p. 1172-1173). In short, there is here methodical contestation of the previous editorial work.

Despite the moderation of tone, this bias necessarily shocked, even indignated P. Thévenin's partisans. In particular Jacques Derrida: shortly before disappearing, he expressed very lively disapproval of the new volume; he saw in it an attempt to discredit all of P. Thévenin's work, and considered that this approach seemed to him to have been imposed by Artaud's rightful claimant, because of his very old personal hostility against P. Thévenin (La Quinzaine littéraire no. 885, Oct. 1-15, 2004). The new editor obviously protested her good faith, insisting on the fact that she systematically gave references to the Complete Works, to which each reader could refer at leisure (La Quinzaine littéraire no. 886, Oct. 16-31, 2004. See finally, in the following number of La Quinzaine, Nov. 1-15, 2004, Antoine Gallimard's letter to Maurice Nadeau, October 20, 2004, in the form of a clarification). This recalled for memory, we will refrain from taking sides. Évelyne Grossman was entirely entitled not to blindly approve the entirety of her predecessor's work and, while respecting it, to calmly develop her own choices. Nothing should be sacralized; nothing is definitively untouchable. And therefore not the new volume either.

A trait soon strikes the attentive reader, somewhat familiar with Artaud's work. Far from denying the gigantic previous editorial work, the new version often reproduces — consciously or not — its errors or approximations. Thus one can read, p. 118, about the short piece Le Jet de sang (in L'Ombilic des limbes), that it would be a "parody" of an act by Armand Salacrou, and the word is directly borrowed from Paule Thévenin (I* 281). Now, it suffices to have read Salacrou's play to be convinced that Le Jet de sang is in no degree a "parody" of it, as we have demonstrated elsewhere. Whether they come (or not) from previous editions, an important number of approximations or factual errors appear in this "Quarto." Quite inevitable waste, because of the enormity of the mass of texts handled, but which nevertheless makes a stain and makes it impossible to close one's eyes to them. A long inventory of these failings would be tedious; we will therefore limit ourselves to a few significant examples, taken especially (but not uniquely) from the last part of the collection ("Life and work").

In 1926, Artaud would have been "excluded" from the surrealist group, we are told pp. 222 and 1723. We know however quite clearly — through Marguerite Bonnet, who quotes the minutes of the session of November 23, 1926 (Breton, ed. La Pléiade, vol. I, p. 1717, n.2) — that Artaud actually "withdrew voluntarily" from the group. It is Soupault who was officially excluded shortly after (Nov. 27) and commentators have judged it simpler to group the two cases and conclude with a simultaneous exclusion of the two men. Following year, 1927: we read p. 1724, that Artaud would have followed "very closely" the filming, by Germaine Dulac of his scenario La Coquille et le Clergyman. In reality, he was totally prevented from following it, closely or from afar, and this is one of the main causes of his disagreement with the director. Is it he who "provokes," with some surrealists, the Ursulines scandal in February 1928, as one can read p. 1726, according to a version of facts often rehashed? On the contrary, a precise testimony has revealed that he had held himself, that day, apart from the scandal.

April 1933: he delivers in the Sorbonne his famous conference on "The Theater and the Plague," but the public's reactions are "mixed," we are told (p. 1740). "Mixed"? The word is all the less adequate as we have been given to read above — p. 397 — an eloquent excerpt from Anaïs Nin's Journal; she reports that the conference was received with laughter, whistles, boos, noisy departures and so multiplied that the hall was almost totally emptied. If we approach the asylum period, it is permitted to regret that the old received idea is taken up again which consists in situating Rodez, under the Occupation, in the "free zone" (pp. 1755-56). This is to forget that, since November 1942, the Germans occupied the totality of the country and that the "demarcation line" had very largely ceased to exist: when Artaud arrives in February 1943 at the psychiatric hospital of Rodez, German troops are camping in a nearby barracks, and he could see them parade.

One hesitates to evoke simple typos — no work is immune to them — but there are at least two cases that must be signaled in passing: the title of Grémillon's film Maldone, with Génica Athanasiou, must not be spelled like a common noun, with two "n"s (very widespread error), while it designates a patronym (pp. 1714 and 1727). On the other hand, concerning Artaud's relationships with Le Grand Jeu, a photo of the small group (p. 1738) has a caption riddled with inaccuracies [3]. More seriously, let us stop a brief moment on the Lettre contre la Cabbale, text from 1947, then published as a booklet, but absent from the Complete Works. It is satisfying to find it taken up in the "Quarto" but annoying to see it qualified as "anti-Semitic" (p. 1437) by the presenter. "Violently anti-religious" (ibid.) would have sufficed. Yes, Artaud there rudely takes to task the "inept rabbis," but he had not deprived himself, elsewhere, of mocking such a "profoundly illiterate bonze exterior to a Buddhist temple" (Le Théâtre et son double, p. 531). Or else of writing: "I deny baptism" (p. 1423), "I spit on the innate christ" (p. 1555), etc. His violent rejection of all religions was so absolute, in his last years, that it would be aberrant to isolate a fragment from it to obtain an easy effect. The imputation of "anti-Semitism" is all the more unfortunate as it joins a grievance already launched in 2003 against Artaud by a mediocre and noisy pamphlet directed against surrealism.

In pointing out some blunders, we aim in no way to discredit a largely estimable enterprise, and of beautiful scope. Rather to ensure that one day, with the favor of a reissue, the imperfections be erased, and certain gaps filled. Thus one is surprised that the "bibliographical choice" (p. 1771) remains silent on the 26 volumes (28 volumes) of the Complete Works (it only required a line or two), and similarly on the multiple pocket editions, however precious, and this singular mutism raises questions. Especially since, on the same page, the presenter manages to privilege discreetly, and ingenuously, her own works. Let us add that the party — reasonable — of sticking to recent publications could have incited to report the reissue in 2002 (ed. Plein-Chant) of the special numbers of La Tour de feu under the title Artaud sans légende [4]. Place would also have been made for "the after Artaud," by taking distance from the polemics and conflicts that marked this period [5].

Another word on the gaps. The extreme severity of the sorting operated in all that had already been published has sometimes led to sacrificing texts of great interest. Notably among the writings from Mexico: "Le Théâtre d'après-guerre à Paris" (see vol. VIII of the OC, or the pocket edition of Messages révolutionnaires) and also "Le Théâtre français cherche un mythe" (ibid.: Artaud there evokes with warmth Prévert and the Groupe Octobre). On the other hand, if it was logical to give the list (p. 1772) of films where he appears, one cannot explain why a listing of his roles in theater (for Dullin, Pitoëff and even Jouvet) was banned. Often minor roles? But his screen appearances were, most of the time, hardly more substantial.

Let no animosity be seen, let us repeat, in these serial objections. A long familiarity with Artaud's writings allowed us to say with frankness what seemed to us not to be satisfactory in this colossal "Quarto." Which does not blind us however to its very real merits. Banishing the principle (often overwhelming) of scholarly edition, with a deluge of notes sent to the end of the volume, and innumerable variants, a contrary party has fortunately been taken here: very few notes, given immediately, at the bottom of the page, and saying in a few words only the essential. And it is impossible not to salute the density of iconographic work, the decisive weight of multiple facsimiles (manuscripts and drawings), the virtuosity of the layout. Come now, an ultimate regret, to finish: about the famous Vieux-Colombier conference, of which no known photo exists, we would have liked to find again the striking portrait of Artaud then drawn by Vasarely.

    1 — Crime passionnel: according to Paule Thévenin (VI 418), neither the choice of the work, nor the style of the translation would bear with evidence Artaud's "mark." It remains that the author of the translated book, Ludwig Lewisohn (1883-1955), was not just any hack. American of German origin, very marked by Freud who saluted his contribution, admired by Thomas Mann, he devoted several books to the Jewish question, to the drama of immigration and to an often repressive American society. One should perhaps wonder about the strange crossing of his trajectory with that of Artaud. Reissue of Crime passionnel (NéO 1980), in the same translation. ↩

    2 — In a recent special Artaud issue of Magazine littéraire (Sept. 2004), Georges Banu concludes without mercy: "One cannot age with Artaud. That is why, today, for me, so long after his discovery, it seems to me that the time of separation has come." ↩

    3 — Photo of the Le Grand Jeu group (p. 1738). Corrections: a) Rolland (not Roland) de Renéville was named André. b) Delons was not named René, but also André. c) Véra Milanova will only become Véra Daumal ten years later (1940). d) finally "the unknown" is not one: Zdenko Reich, Yugoslav, was Paul Bénichou's friend on rue d'Ulm and rallied to surrealism in 1933 after the breaking up of Le Grand Jeu. ↩

    4 — Review of Artaud sans légende in no. 890-891 of Europe (June-July 2003). ↩

    5 — Among the voices that, after 1948, denounced a certain mystification of Artaud, let us cite one as an example: the situationist review Potlach, under the aegis of Guy Debord, bitterly deplored that attention had "been diverted a few years ago by the overrated corpse of Antonin Artaud" (no. 22, Sept. 9, 1955). ↩