There's a point of poverty at which the spirit isn't with the body all the time. It finds the body really too unbearable. So it's almost as if you were talking to the soul itself. And a soul's not properly responsible.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that extreme poverty can damage the spirit, leading to a disconnection between the soul and the body.
In this quote, Louis-Ferdinand Celine explores the profound effects of poverty on a person's psyche. He suggests that when individuals are subjected to extreme poverty, their spirit may detach from their physical existence due to the unbearable nature of their circumstances. As a result, communication in such a state may transcend the tangible, reflecting a deeper, spiritual dialogue rather than a mere interaction with the physical self, emphasizing the struggle between bodily existence and the essence of the soul.
In practice
In a discussion about the psychological effects of poverty, this quote highlights the disconnection individuals may feel.
Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself.
To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.
In the kitchens of love, after all, vice is like the pepper in a good sauce; it brings out the flavor, it’s indispensable.
Truth is a pain which will not stop. And the truth of this world is to die. You must choose: either dying or lying. Personally, I have never been able to kill myself
Reason died in 1914, November 1914 ... after that everybody began to rave.
Poor people never, or hardly ever, ask for an explanation of all they have to put up with. They hate one another, and content themselves with that.
I've given my life to the principle and the ideal of memory, and remembrance.
To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.
Hell is having to execute a pointless act from which nothing ever comes except the need to do it again.
What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.
when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.
If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?
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