Entretiens avec le professeur Y

The fictionalised "Céline" believes he receives too little publicity and that his publisher has failed to promote him properly. So he decides to participate in the modern literary ritual of the interview. He meets Professor Y at the Square des Arts-et-Métiers.

The problem is that Professor Y does not behave like an interviewer. He offers abstract intellectual questions Céline dislikes, hesitates, loses control of the exchange and eventually becomes little more than a prop in Céline's performance.

Céline therefore conducts both sides of the interview himself.

He explains that his major literary invention is not slang itself but what he calls style rendu émotif — an attempt to carry the emotion and rhythm of spoken language into written prose. From there come discussions of punctuation, ellipses, rhythm, argot, cinema, modern fiction and the famous metaphor of writing as a carefully engineered Métro system, whose rails guide the reader along a predetermined path.

Céline opens by portraying himself as commercially neglected and insufficiently appreciated. Literary publicity has become unavoidable, so he resolves to "play the game" and submit to an interview.

Because a suitable interviewer is apparently unavailable, he ends up with Professor Y. They meet at the Square des Arts-et-Métiers. Céline waits for the professor to question him. Almost nothing useful happens.

Professor Y eventually offers the sort of abstract intellectual topic Céline dislikes. Céline rejects the premise and turns the interview toward what he actually wants to discuss: style. He argues that novels built primarily around ideas or conventional storytelling have lost their force. His own objective, he says, is to recover emotion through the memory of spoken language.

This does not mean simply transcribing ordinary speech. Céline emphasises the labour required to manufacture an apparently spontaneous voice. Argot is only one ingredient. Syntax must be altered; punctuation must organise breath and rhythm; the famous three dots help propel and suspend the voice.

The Métro becomes his principal metaphor. A successful writer lays down invisible rails beneath the reader, just as tracks determine the route of a train. The passenger experiences movement without constantly noticing the engineering beneath it.

As Céline grows more animated, the ostensible interviewer becomes increasingly incapable of controlling the interview. Professor Y's physical and psychological condition deteriorates. His alternate designation — Colonel Réséda — emerges, and the interview slides into delirium and farce.

The static literary conversation now turns into movement through Paris. Céline and the professor leave the Square des Arts-et-Métiers and make their way toward the literary world the book has been mocking all along: the headquarters associated with Gallimard and the NRF at 5 rue Sébastien-Bottin.