René DAUMAL. Lot n° 240

Correspondence addressed to Jacques Henry Lévesque. Assy then Allauch, February 11 - May 8, 1942. 7 letters and a postcard autographed and signed of 14 pages in-8 in all, envelopes kept and a non-illustrated postcard, with address. Touching correspondence written from the Plateau d'Assy, in Haute-Savoie. Daumal asks his friend to collect his allowances and tobacco rations for him, while he works on Zen Buddhism, evoking their common friends Lanza del Vasto and Luc Dietrich. He sends him a power of attorney, to be completed, and entrusts him with his tobacco card, "like a treasure". "I am working, at last! You can't imagine how happy it is to have a few consecutive hours to work every day. It's restful and comforting. I am translating a multi-volume work on Zen Buddhism, written in English by a Japanese man. Lanza del Vasto having joined him in Assy, he asked his friend to do him the same service, take their tobacco rations. On March 4, he is still working on the translation of D. T. Suzuki's Essays on Zen Buddhism, written in "a very heavy and pretentious English that I am taking the liberty of lightening a little; and it is too repetitive. [...] But since it is the only important and competent work on the subject, let's be happy to have it. He gives good news about Lanza who is working on his Gilles de Raiz. He asks his opinion on Luc Dietrich's book, L'Apprentissage de la ville, published by Denoël. At the first reading, he himself felt "that something was a little wrong (oh! very little). [...] Besides, it's not much in the whole work, which is beautiful and tonic". To thank him for all the work he does for him in Allauch, he writes him short Zen stories, and speaks at length, in his letter of April 23, about the Zen teaching, considered heretical by official and orthodox Hindu Buddhism, about its practice and its disconcerting methods for unprepared people. The card dated May 8 announces their return to Allauch, before a later departure to Gonfaron, while Lévesque went to Nice. Poet and essayist, Jacques-Henri Lévesque (1899-1971) was Blaise Cendrars' secretary and wrote a biography of him. From 1928 to 1936, he had directed the review Orbes, gathering Duchamp, Tzara, Reverdy and Soupault. Attached is an autograph letter signed by Daumal to Armand Petitjean, secretary at La Jeunesse, in Vichy, announcing the upcoming arrival of his friend and neighbor, J.H. Lévesque. April 23 [1942], one page in-8, and 6 printed receipts of mailings, money orders or parcels, February-March 1942.