Trifles for a Massacre

<p><em>"There’s a book you won’t hear a word about on the radio. There’s a book the right-thinking newspapers will not speak about except to refer to it prim and reproachful terms. There’s a book about which the tabloids of the left will say nothing except the most inept of them which only have words of scorn. There’s a book the sale and distribution of which is quite possibly forbidden. There’s a book against which there will be more a conspiracy of silence than of attack. Isn’t it a crying shame that before any reservations we cannot praise boldness courage ardor?</em></p><p><em>There is a rather striking phrase in Céline’s book this book that we will be prevented from discussing. He announces his invectives as a kind of “revolt of the natives.” And I think of those Arab towns–always situated next to a Jewish one–which from time to time in a fit of popular anger throw themselves in fury on the Jewish quarter and plunder it.</em></p><p><em>We do not want any violence. But when one has a Jewish Prime Minister when one sees clearly and simply France dominated by the Jews it also should be understood how this violence is prepared and what explains it. I do not even say what legitimates it I say what explains it. Have any opinion you want. On the Jews and on Céline. We do not agree with him on all points. But I am telling you: this enormous book this splendid book is the first sign of the “revolt of the natives.” Perhaps this revolt is excessive more instinctive than reasonable: after all the natives are us...”</em> Robert Brasillach.</p><p> </p><p> </p>