journey to the end of the night by louis ferdinand céline

After he suffers a nervous breakdown, Ferdinand spends some time in a psychiatric institute. There he meets an American nurse, the first of many women who will cross his life. Together they escape.Ĭourtesy of Agence de presse Meurisse, via Wikimedia Creative CommonsĪfter he receives a médaille militaire, Ferdinand spends his convalescent leave in Paris. They both feel disappointed, finding out war has no sense and follows no ideal. On the battlefield, he meets Léon Robinson, an army reservist who will become a steady presence in his life. He studies medicine in Paris, but during an excess of zeal, he enrolls as a volunteer for World War One. The protagonist is Ferdinand Bardamu, whose name is not by chance the same as Céline’s. Journey to the End of the Night‘s main character has a lot in common with his author. Wandering and searching for meaning in life In 2003 The Guardian ranked it 51 st in The 100 greatest novels of all time. Nowadays Journey to the End of the Night is considered a masterpiece in European literature.

After the war, he declared his pamphlets were just black humour and that he just wanted to preserve French and Aryan. He never declared himself as a fascist and didn’t appreciate Philippe Pétain, Vichy France’s President, but his political views remained ambivalent. Céline wrote some pamphlets in which a vein of distinct antisemitism came out. Winner of the Prix Renaudot and Prix Goncourt in 1932, the novel had been disregarded for years due to its author’s affinity with Vichy France and Nazism. A gloomy, nihilist exploration of human nature and everyday sufferance.

Thus, Journey to the End of the Night turns out to be the story and the thoughts of a man wandering in an unsettled life. All his works tangle hate with love, given from his compassion for those who suffer. Afflicted by existential angst, he will always have a vision of life full of pessimism, cynicism, and misanthropy. The writer enrolled as a volunteer for the French army in 1912 war scarred him for life, influencing his creations. These opening lines of Journey to the End of the Night give an introduction to this autobiographical fiction, and t hey also summarize what the story is about and Louis-Ferdinand Céline‘s conception of life.

All the rest is disappointment and fatigue. Travel is useful, it exercises the imagination.

Journey to the end of the night by louis ferdinand céline