Told in the first person, the novel is based on the author's own experiences during the First World War, in French colonial Africa, in the USA - where he worked for a while at the Ford factory in Detroit - and later as a young doctor in a working-class suburb in Paris. Celine's disgust with human folly, malice, greed and the chaotic state in which man has left society lies behind the bitterness that distinguishes his idiosyncratic, colloquial and visionary writing and gives it its force.
Journey to the End of the Night (Alma Classics)
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'My favourite French classic has to be Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. It's an epic that takes you all around the world, but the centre of the world is Paris, or Celine's delirious, slightly hallucinatory, incredibly poetic vision of it.' Andrew Hussey, The Guardian
About the Author
Louis-Ferdinand Celine (1894 - 1961) was one of the most controversial novelists of the twentieth century, a writer who mixed realism with imaginative fantasy and an iconoclast who shocked many of his readers.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By anomie
Format:Paperback
I loved this book through to the end. Wonderfully written translation. The story follows Celine's alter ego though ww1 to post war America and France. The author's descriptions seem to leave a genuine feel for that space in time. Powerful and original work.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"From up high where I was, youcould shout anything you liked at them. I tried. They made me sick,the whole lot of them. I hadn't the nerve to tell them so in thedaytime, to their face, but up there it was safe. "Help!Help!" I shouted, just to see if it would have any effect onthem. None whatsoever. Those people were pushing life and night andday in front of them. Life hides everything from people. Their ownnoise prevents them from hearing anything else. They couldn't careless. The bigger and taller the city, the less they care. Take it fromme. I've tried. It's a waste of time." --from Journey to the Endof the Night
Journey is very much what it sounds like -- a looselyautobiographical wandering that starts with the author enlistingalmost by accident to fight in WWI. He doesn't waste time describingthe war as being a giant, immoral waste of everyone's time and life,really, with thesoldier's main mission of the day being little morethan looking for a place to eat without getting his head shot off. Andto treat it as anything more than that, Celine suggests, is somethingof a waste of time: What's more important to any discussion of warthan its inherent stupidity? The same, it seems, goes for the rest ofthe story -- the basic undercurrent of the story is the world's coreidiocity and how you deal with it (if you choose to). Bardamu,Celine's alter ego, heads for the USA and back, into the slums ofParis and the Congo, and never manages to escape the stupidity andbrutality of the men around him. It's not a story of escape,butunderstanding, you do what you can with what you have. Soon the onlyway to keep the rest of the world at bay is to use the terror tacticsof those around you in reverse... and of course, it's only a matter oftime before that backfires as well...
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By S Kemp
Format:Paperback
Louis-Ferdinand Celine's Journey to the End of the Night is an outrageously misanthropic novel. A repugnance for humanity bleeds through its pages, an utter disbelief at the stupidity of the world and its people. Originally published in 1932, the novel predates Celine's anti-Semitic pamphlets of the Second World War, so the book should not be read with these horrific wartime errors in mind. It should be viewed, rather, as an extension of the great European Nihilists, for this is a novel that hates everything and everyone equally. It may be shocking, but there are some exquisite sentiments amidst the verbiage and bluster.
The novel follows the tribulations of Ferdinand Bardamu, Celine's slightly-fictionalised alter ego, a figure who glumly describes existence as 'a bit of light that ends in darkness'. Bardamu's unlikely odyssey is a protracted narrative of escape. He escapes the trenches of World War One, the convalescence home, the horrors of colonial Africa (but only as a slave himself), the squalor of American industrialism, the dead-end doctoring for the Parisian poor. The pages are filled with ennui and vitriol, delirium and destitution, the contents flowing like an unstoppable torrent of revulsion.
It is, however, a very funny book, as Bardamu's voice is ferociously unique. The colloquial and sprightly prose matches the insane drift of his mind, its multiple digressions and salacious impulses. There is a strange and beautiful poetry to his imagery, and the snippets saved from the profane scrapheap redeem the book: the African sunset, 'As tragic every time as a monumental murder of the sun', or the Parisian sky, that 'vast lake of suburban smoke'. The humour is dry, and nothing is sacred. A soldier, destroyed by a shell, is described as disappearing 'like a fart'.... Read more ›
The novel follows the tribulations of Ferdinand Bardamu, Celine's slightly-fictionalised alter ego, a figure who glumly describes existence as 'a bit of light that ends in darkness'. Bardamu's unlikely odyssey is a protracted narrative of escape. He escapes the trenches of World War One, the convalescence home, the horrors of colonial Africa (but only as a slave himself), the squalor of American industrialism, the dead-end doctoring for the Parisian poor. The pages are filled with ennui and vitriol, delirium and destitution, the contents flowing like an unstoppable torrent of revulsion.
It is, however, a very funny book, as Bardamu's voice is ferociously unique. The colloquial and sprightly prose matches the insane drift of his mind, its multiple digressions and salacious impulses. There is a strange and beautiful poetry to his imagery, and the snippets saved from the profane scrapheap redeem the book: the African sunset, 'As tragic every time as a monumental murder of the sun', or the Parisian sky, that 'vast lake of suburban smoke'. The humour is dry, and nothing is sacred. A soldier, destroyed by a shell, is described as disappearing 'like a fart'.... Read more ›
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
A French globe trotting Dr becomes embroilled in the Paris subculture, the more he struggles to suceed the deeper he sinks, until the only way to find peace is to embrace 'the night', and give himself over to it. Rejection, dejection, slavery and depravity become everyday events for the young doctor in his journey to the end of the night. A dark story full of wit and the blackest humour, it will make you itch, scratch, laugh and weep. A sobering tale with a bottle of Pernod waiting in the wings.
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
By David Burke
Format:Paperback
I live in Ireland in 2005, it's funny how our own corrupt, drunken, unsympathetic and acquisitive little country bears no fundamental difference from the world as described by Celine. Far from being depressed by this knowledge I find it liberating, I am confirmed in my view that human nature remains constant, change is slow and the semblance of civilisation is but a illusion manufactured and promulgated by a weak and spineless media.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Celine's novel, first published in 1932 marked a turning point in French literature, and in World literature as well. Inspiring many others Celine's tale is a fictional autobiography of Ferdinand Bardamu, which is partly based on and inspired by the real author's experiences. Starting in France at the beginning of the First World War we follow Bardamu through his experiences, and then on to colonial Africa, onwards to America, and then back to Paris.
Celine shows his nihilistic viewpoint with the deepest darkest humour and Rabelasian fantasy. This isn't an easy read, it pulls you in and holds you viscerally not letting you go. Don't try to analyse it, just lose yourself in the written word and see where this novel takes you. To a certain extent this will get under your skin, whatever your personal feelings towards the author, as he writes about the things he sees around him with such anger and annoyance. Showing up the stupidity of Man even if you don't finish this book it is well worth reading about the war and colonialism.
Written with such power Celine really shows his contempt for his fellow Men, but in a way that is darkly humourous. A book of hate and despair this is a book arguably for all time showing us some of the stupid and destructive things that still are carried on. This is an uncomfortable read, mainly as Celine writes with such power.
Celine shows his nihilistic viewpoint with the deepest darkest humour and Rabelasian fantasy. This isn't an easy read, it pulls you in and holds you viscerally not letting you go. Don't try to analyse it, just lose yourself in the written word and see where this novel takes you. To a certain extent this will get under your skin, whatever your personal feelings towards the author, as he writes about the things he sees around him with such anger and annoyance. Showing up the stupidity of Man even if you don't finish this book it is well worth reading about the war and colonialism.
Written with such power Celine really shows his contempt for his fellow Men, but in a way that is darkly humourous. A book of hate and despair this is a book arguably for all time showing us some of the stupid and destructive things that still are carried on. This is an uncomfortable read, mainly as Celine writes with such power.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic
I was recommended this book by a fellow scholar at Hull University in 1991. Full of brio, colour and life it is a high tale of a young man in World War One. Read more
Published 10 days ago by D. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars
Often overlooked
In the world of literature, Louis-Ferdinand Celine is an author that is often, and unfairly, overlooked. Read more
Published 18 days ago by Carol A.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic book
This is one of the greatest novels ever written and loved by some of the great writers (e.g. Henry Miller and Bukowski). Read more
Published 2 months ago by Adam
4.0 out of 5 stars
The dark side of the face
This is the famous French fictional autobiographical novel of Louis-Ferdinand Celine written between the World Wars in 1933. Read more
Published 13 months ago by H. Tee
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not for the faint hearted
Bile, black bile, dredged from gouging out his liver, holding it aloft and then wringing it dry over shreds of paper and then coughing, spluttering, every scrap of his stomach over... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Dr. Delvis Memphistopheles
5.0 out of 5 stars
iodiosyncratic black humor
Intense, dark, viscious, the choppy sentences, written in the vernacular are gripping as they are direct. Read more
Published 17 months ago by TMODN
5.0 out of 5 stars
Overlooked classic
It seems amazing to me how little credit this work now gets, and how few people have heard of it. I understand why in the light of Céline's infamous pamphlets, but as a... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Samandyjohn
5.0 out of 5 stars
A powerful portrait of poverty, war, colonial horrors and the cruelty...
This disturbing novel almost won the Prix Goncourt Prize for fiction, the most notable award at the time for French fiction. Read more
Published 24 months ago by bobbygw
3.0 out of 5 stars
Get a different edition
Amazing book but get a different edition as this one is very badly bound. Clumps of pages falling out and blowing away as you try to read ruin the experience.
EDIT ... Read more
EDIT ... Read more
Published on 11 Aug 2010 by Julian Manning
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting in places, terribly hard work
This is the account of Bardamu, a man so damaged by his experiences in World War I that he can no longer see anything good in anybody. Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2010 by Mr. Nigel JB McFarlane
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