Félix Fénéon & Jean Paulhan, 1917-1944
Félix FénéonJean Paulhan“You had to, for my chandelier, make ghosts out of a hundred characters”
It was in 1941 that the friendship between Félix Fénéon (1861-1944) and Jean Paulhan (1884-1968) – who had known each other since 1917 – grew deeper. Fénéon was silent since the mid-1920s (and very ill), Paulhan was reduced silenced by the Occupation authorities who had removed his leadership of The New French Review. In that same year, 1941, the first had proceeded at the sale of his famous collection of paintings, the second had published his great work, The Flowers of Tarbes.
From February 1942, Jean Paulhan claimed to interest his old friend “while ruin”, who only wanted to let himself discreetly die, to more than one “project for the future”: he first wanted to write a new essay on the criticism, of which Fénéon would be the center. F. F. or the Critic will be published in November 1943 in Confluences, then in 1945 at Gallimard. He then wanted bring together the writings of Fénéon – an arduous task when we know that he had striving to erase his traces... Still, the black humor and the acuity of his “News in three lines”, unsigned and published on the front page of Le Matin in 1906, remained in people's minds. In 1948, Gallimard published a fort collection of critical and literary texts by Fénéon, brought together by Paulhan and introduced by these words: “We have perhaps only had in a hundred years critic, and it’s Félix Fénéon. / It creates a strange glory, outside the surveys and anthologies, outside academies and newspapers, outside life, as they say, literary. This creates a mysterious glory that should be held more closely, which should be understood.”
To try to elucidate this enigma, “the interrogating doctor” posed a number of questions to Fénéon and often visited him in the health center of the Vallée-aux-Loups, where he lived with his wife Fanny. Fénéon ends up take from the game and give – albeit in an offbeat, modest, cryptic way – always more details.
After Fénéon's death, on February 29, 1944, Jean Paulhan wrote to his widow: “He is no longer there to try to dissuade those who want to admire him, love him. There is his work, which will become better known every day. There is his collection which so clearly imposes what was perhaps most subtle, most difficult in his taste. […] Then there was all this great confidence which was beginning to arise around him. There are the hearts of his friends.”
Edition established by Patrick Fréchet and Claire Paulhan
Preface by Claire Paulhan
Coll. “Correspondences of Jean Paulhan”
Publication: October 21, 2019
246 pages
13 x 21.5 cm
39 illustrations no. & bl.
First edition of 400 copies, on Olin Regular matte cream 90 mg and under cover
Fedrigoni Nettuno Rosso Fuoco 280 gr.
ISBN: 978-2-912222-67-1
PVP: €26.
Publisher : Claire Paulhan