Blaise Cendrars: Discovery and Re-creation 9781487571832

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JAY BOCHNER is a member of the Department of English at the Universite de Montreal In Blaire Cendrars: Dircovery and Re-creation, Jay Bochner presents a revealing account of Cendrars' life and establishes the importance of his work in the mainstream of modern literature. Prolific and versatile, Cendrars wrote poetry, radio plays, novels, essays, autobiography, and books on the cinema. An early contributor to the Dada movement, he was at the forefront of the Paris avant-garde before and after the first world war, and his powerful poetic style influenced such writers as Apollinaire, Henry Miller, and John Dos Passos. Although he was well known to the French reading public, lavishly praised by his peers, and well received by the important critics of his day, Cendrars' critical reputation has not endured. The first part of the book is biographical, and in this section Professor Bochner suggests that the reasons for Cendrars' obscurity have more to do with his life than his works. Cendrars himself cared little about his reputation. Although he knew most of the important writers and artists working in Paris, he spent relatively little time actively engaged in the literary life there, frequently disappearing to work on films in southern France and Italy, to travel with gypsies, or to live in isolation. In fact the attention he attracted as an adventurer has perhaps overwhelmed and obscured his stature as a writer. The critical analysis of Cendrars' writing is divided into seven chapters, each corresponding co a period in which a particular genre dominated his publications. Professor Bochner's premise is chat the serious reading of Cendrars shows chat for him bourlinguer. knocking about the world, was discovery, not only of the world at large but of the self. He believed writing to be a re-creation of the self as well as the creation of a mythical world for an alternately disbelieving and enchanted reader. The title of his collected poetry, Du monde entier au awr du monde. expresses the essential fusion of this writer's life and art. Professor Bochner's study is both a major contribution to the critical history of modern literature and an absorbing account of a fascinating personality.

Blaise Cendrar s: Discovery and Re-crea tion

JAY BOCHNE R

University of Toronto Press TORONTO / BUFFALO / LONDON

© University of Toronto Press 1978 Toronto / Buffalo / London Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bochner,Jay, 1940Blaise Cendrars: discovery and re-creation . Bibliography: p . Includes index. 1. Cendrars, Blaise, 1887-1961 , 2. Authors, Swiss - 20th century - Biography. PQ2605 . E55z563 841'.9'12 [B] 77-2580 ISBN 0-8020-5352-1 ISBN 978-1-4875-7216-7 (paper)

This volume has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities Research Council of Canada, using funds provided by the Canada Council, and with the help of grants from the University of Toronto and the Publications Fund of the University of Toronto Press. The author would particularly like to thank Howard Riddle of the HRCC for his interest in a study of Blaise Cendrars. Cover: Cendrars by Modigliani, from a special printing of the original edition of D1:Y-neuf poemes ila.rtiques ( 1919) ADAGP Photo Bibliotheque Jacques Doucet

Au dernier dada, Jacques-Henry Levesque, 1899-1971

© University of Toronto Press 1978, Toronto/ Buffalo/ London Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to use material in copyright: Mme Miriam Gilou-Cendrars: Blaise Cendrars, lnedit1 1ecret1, published by Le Club fran~ais du livre ( © 1969) Mme Raymone Cendrars: unpublished letters of Blaise Cendrars t0 John Dos Passos Editions Denoel: Blaise Cendrars, Oeuvm Complete1 (© 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964)

Mrs Elizabeth Dos Passos for permission to quote from an unpublished letter from John Dos Passos Bernard Grasset: Blaise Cendrars Aujourd'hui (© 1931 ), Hollywood(© 1936), La Vie dangerewe (© 1938), Rhum(© 1930), and Moravagine (© 1926) La Guilde du Livre and M. Albert Mermoud: Blaise Cendrars, Vol a voile (© 1960) and Une Nuit dam la/orit (© 1929) Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd: C.G. Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul(© 1968)

New Directions Publishing Corporation: Henry Miller, The Book1 in My Life (copyright © 1960 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved); and Henry Miller, The Henry Miller Reader(© by Henry Miller, reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation) Oxford University Press: Frank Budgen, My1elve1 When Young(© Oxford University Press 1970. By permission of the Oxford University Press) Georges Simenon: Georges Simenon, Quand j'itai1 vieux, published by Les Presses de la Cite(© 1970 by Georges Simenon)

Contents

Introduction / 3 PART ONE/ IN PLACE OF BIOGRAPHY

2 3 4 5

Beginnings, 1887- 191 2 I 1 3 Paris and the avant-garde before the war, 191 2- 14 / 39 War, and the return of the poet-legionnaire, 1914-24 / 56 The Americas, 1924-39 I 68 Aix-en-Provence, 1939-48, and Paris, 1948-61 / 79 PART TWO/ IN PLACE OF FICTIONS

6 7 8

9 10 11 12

Homer of the Transsiberian / 91 The elastic Kodak / 1 24 Profond aujourd'hui / 138 'Construire .. .' / 148 From history to story I 185 The practice of relativity / 195 •Rein venter la vie· / 2 24 Conclusion: Making discovery/ 232 Notes I 239 Bibliography / 27 3 Index/ 295

Cendrars in Abel Gance'sj'accuse ( 1919) (front centre), the bandage unravelling from his stump as he leans for support on the shoulder of the film's star, Severin Mars Cinematique fran