Presidential Reading

Now that The President has slogged his way through Camus’ Stranger, he might want to tackle another French modern classic. Like this one:

Nous voici encore seuls. Tout cela est si lent, si lourd, si triste… Bientôt je serai vieux. Et ce sera infin fini. Il est venue tant de monde dans ma chamber. Ils ont dit des choses. Ils ne m’ont pas dit grand-chose. Ils sont parties.

That is:

Here we are, alone again. It’s all so slow, so heavy, so sad . . . I’ll be old soon. Then at last it will be over. So many people have come into my room. They’ve talked. They haven’t said much. They’ve gone away.

Beckett? No, that would have been my first guess, too. But it’s Céline, the opening of Mort à crédit (Edition Gallimard 1952), translated as Death on the Installment Plan (Ralph Mannheim Trans. 1966), a favorite of budget balancers and social-security privatizers everywhere.

Re the summer reading list, link here for an account of how it all (maybe) happened.