I am happy to learn that my veritable history[2] pleases you. One has always verified that poets are the only good critics. And, for my part, I will abstain from considering any others after you.
It is precisely because all the results are further than ever from what we have wanted that the hour seemed to have come to go a little further into cynical confession and insult, but adapted to the new conditions. One knows what would vex contemporary authorities the most strongly: not only the truth, but also the manner in which one knows how to say it. Thus, this time the form was especially chosen to obtain such a demoralization.
I do not know if you are aware of the series of impostures that has led to an extravagant recuperation by the State, the image of which I send you[3] -- passed unperceived perhaps? Nevertheless the unfortunate pretension, in this case, marvelously summarizes the spirit of the times, that is to say, the simulated assurance that doubts nothing and the imbecilic ignorance that is duped by everything. Their great satisfactions will be troubled -- so I believe and hope -- by "those invited by the Count of Lautreamont."[4]
Cordially,[1] Translator's note: a surrealist and poet, Annie Le Brun was born in Rennes in 1942.
[2] Translator's note: Panegyric, Volume I.
[3] "A Piece of Lautreamont," sold by the National Lottery in April 1986.
[4] Allusion to the sacking of the bar called Maldoror, around the time of its opening in February 1930, by the surrealists.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 7: Janvier 1988-Novembre 1994 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2008. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! December 2008. Footnotes by the publisher, except where noted.)