from Guy Debord

To Michel Bounan
11 June 1992
Dear Michel


I believe that your diagnosis is correct,[1] although I certainly haven't drunk much "liquor,"[2] and the symptoms have been attenuated in the last few weeks (the improvement is thus not due to the Zincum), and I am quite convinced because, two or three times several months ago, I felt passing but extensive tingling sensations that I simply attributed to hypertension. Thus I have immediately begun taking Vitamin B1, and I hope to have the occasion to inform you about what happens.

I do not know what the editorial line of Gallimard as a whole is worth, and I have endeavored to remain on the sidelines. It is a fact that he [Antoine Gallimard] was the only one to approach me when, notoriously, I no longer had a publisher (and he was also the only one capable of paying me). Apart from the question of "diplomatic" preliminaries, I did not ask for or negotiate anything. I immediately accepted what was offered to me. In principle, he has taken up my complete works, but explicitly not Potlatch,[3] which could certainly be regarded as a part of them.

With the greatest interest, Alice [Becker-Ho] has begun reading the book by Landmann.[4] You will see when, towards the end of the year, her second volume of the Princes[5] is published, that she has already paid attention to the role of Yiddish and, in particular, Kafka's admirable talk about it.[6]

Best wishes
Buy

[1] The beginning of alcoholic polynevritis, according to the symptoms described by Guy Debord. [Translator: In the famous text dated 30 November 1994 -- the day Debord committed suicide -- this disease was first detected in "Autumn 1990." Perhaps this was onset of what was originally diagnosed as gout. See letter to Bounan dated 23 March 1991.]

[2] "Nothing more noxious than rum or cognac; wine doesn't count."

[3] Rumor had it that Editions Ramsay wanted to publish it.

[4] Jiddisch, das Abenteuer einer Sprache.

[5] The Essence of Jargon, Editions Gallimard (May 1994).

[6] "On Yiddish."


(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! June 2009. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)




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