Celine is one of those writers I've always been fascinated by, and have danced around, but I've never leaped in -- where does one start? I'm sure I can just pull up The Most Popular One via some online list, but I like to know your thoughts.
Insightful and disturbing post. Along those lines, a novel by the German writer Gert Ledig, The Stalin Front, gives the reader a front row seat to the horror, brutality and futility of the German push into Russia in 1942, all the while retaining a deep sense of humanity.
I first read Celine in a 20th century French lit class. We started with Swann's Way and then went straight to Journey to the End of the Night. That really sums up the 20th century!
Tosh, I absolutely love this post and will read it several times. I still have yet to read Normance, but have read all his others, and will definitely add this one to my stack. Thank you for, as ever, your sharp needful words.
BTW, Celine's two vicious anti-semitic tracts are banned, in France, but Julie Kristeva quotes enough from them so even a blind man with a cane will get the idea.
Anyways, point was once made to me by a Celinephile I'll share here, if I may. I'd read Long Day's Journey Into Night, and he offered to give me a jar or white-out if I were going to read the trilogy, and erase every 2nd and 3rd dot. His point: that Celine pioneered writing-prose-as-if-speaking ~ which was a direct influence on Henry Miller, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gunter Grass, Jack Kerouac, & a list that goes on and on. [To which I'd add a newer genre ... guru talks, transcribed & issued as books ... Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind ( sold 1 million copies for a publishing company that's a branch of a tea ceremony school ), Being Peace, Tibetan Living & Dying ... but I digress. ]
The Celinephile made another point, as well. This was at the height of Punk ... kids wearing all black ... thrashing around with just three chords ... louder shorter faster ... the record album in the movie reel can ... circle jerks ... London punks eating out of trashcans ... gloomdoom ... ( see ... there I go too ... ) ... namely, that the trilogy at its core ( particularly in North ) expresses the deepest blackness of nihilism ever captured in literature ... mobs in train stations ... in the sky bombs ... Celine ( aka Europe ... aka Western Civilization ) trapped inside the black of a train tunnel ... trying to make it to neutral Denmark ... ... ...
Celine is one of those writers I've always been fascinated by, and have danced around, but I've never leaped in -- where does one start? I'm sure I can just pull up The Most Popular One via some online list, but I like to know your thoughts.
Maybe Journey is a good gateway to start off with. I think you will like him a lot!
I would definitely start with Journey to the End of the Night as Tosh suggested. There is no blacker humor than Celine!
Insightful and disturbing post. Along those lines, a novel by the German writer Gert Ledig, The Stalin Front, gives the reader a front row seat to the horror, brutality and futility of the German push into Russia in 1942, all the while retaining a deep sense of humanity.
I do not know of Gert Ledig. I'll check and locate this writer. Thanks for mentioning him here.
I first read Celine in a 20th century French lit class. We started with Swann's Way and then went straight to Journey to the End of the Night. That really sums up the 20th century!
Proust to Céline! That is an adventure of some sort. Wow!
Tosh, I absolutely love this post and will read it several times. I still have yet to read Normance, but have read all his others, and will definitely add this one to my stack. Thank you for, as ever, your sharp needful words.
BTW, Celine's two vicious anti-semitic tracts are banned, in France, but Julie Kristeva quotes enough from them so even a blind man with a cane will get the idea.
Anyways, point was once made to me by a Celinephile I'll share here, if I may. I'd read Long Day's Journey Into Night, and he offered to give me a jar or white-out if I were going to read the trilogy, and erase every 2nd and 3rd dot. His point: that Celine pioneered writing-prose-as-if-speaking ~ which was a direct influence on Henry Miller, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gunter Grass, Jack Kerouac, & a list that goes on and on. [To which I'd add a newer genre ... guru talks, transcribed & issued as books ... Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind ( sold 1 million copies for a publishing company that's a branch of a tea ceremony school ), Being Peace, Tibetan Living & Dying ... but I digress. ]
The Celinephile made another point, as well. This was at the height of Punk ... kids wearing all black ... thrashing around with just three chords ... louder shorter faster ... the record album in the movie reel can ... circle jerks ... London punks eating out of trashcans ... gloomdoom ... ( see ... there I go too ... ) ... namely, that the trilogy at its core ( particularly in North ) expresses the deepest blackness of nihilism ever captured in literature ... mobs in train stations ... in the sky bombs ... Celine ( aka Europe ... aka Western Civilization ) trapped inside the black of a train tunnel ... trying to make it to neutral Denmark ... ... ...
Fascinating observation Gary. i have read this about Céline's prose style. And yes, that makes sense.
you mean "journey to the end of the night"
Yes!
Indeed, Celine is an astonishingly creative writer....foul human being but an amazing stylist.