ARTAUD (Antonin).

Lot 28
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Estimation :
6000 - 8000 EUR
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Result : 6 630EUR
ARTAUD (Antonin).
Autograph letter signed to Adrienne Monnier. Dated Asile de Ville-Evrard, March 4, 1939, 2 pages in-4. Envelope preserved. Important and splendid letter often reproduced, it is one of the only known texts of Artaud for the period 1938-1942. "The Book of Monelle". My dear Adrienne, I have not yet had time to answer your last letter. And when I say time, I mean that I haven't found myself in the mood to do so so far, because in the meantime a most unpleasant avatar happened to me and I was transferred from Sainte-Anne to Ville-Evrard with something more than abruptness. But since then I have pulled myself together and I am answering you. Yes, this story of look-alikes is as old as the centuries, and all the great characters throughout history have found real doubles, who resembled them physically or not, and who played their role in their place, for the common people, and only the Initiates knew the real character. All this for the uninitiated, who do not know that life is entirely rigged, is like a novel and a fable. (...) This is how all the Initiates know that Von Ribbentrop, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, was assassinated in Paris on the night of December 7-8, 1938, and that M. Edouard Daladier is the only one who does not know it. And it was a look-alike of his who took his name and who was hurriedly sent back from Warsaw to Berlin by Mr. Beck, during his trip to Poland. You didn't need to confirm this to me. I have known about this story for a long time, which everyone knows about, but which no one is allowed to tell, it seems, on pain of being executed by the police of the Initiates. (...) And in the field of literary, artistic or philosophical creation, it is even worse. J.S. Bach is not the author of the works attributed to him. He stole them from someone else and signed them with his name. (...) In the same way, the Shakespeare mystery is a story of initiates. And you know how and why. (...) What has been done with my book "Journey to the Land of the Tarahumaras"? The Tarahumaras are in the North and the Maya in the South, that's understood, but this is Mexico, and I wrote a book about Mexico, it was published and I didn't even see the edition. That's the fourth time I've been ignored. If you think it can go on, you're wrong. IT CAN'T. Things have gone too far and we're going to have to turn things around, and that Monelle is what you saw. - You're right, all the goddesses of antiquity were liars, for example Bogailla, but they lie badly and their lies will not get them far, because they ended up cuckolding themselves, and they are all currently in the midst of losing their way. And it is the very core, in each one of them, that is inexorably gangrenous. All this is a pass for nothing. A creation to start again. The Gazette des Amis des Livres of April 1939, where this letter appeared for the first time, followed by a few lines from Adrienne Monnier, is enclosed. (Artaud had once been a subscriber - registration no. 742 of 30 September 1921 - to the lending library of the Maison des Amis des Livres). Sale Maurice Saillet, 15 March 1988, n°15.
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