09-14-2010 | #1 | |||||||||||
Mannikin
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 19
Quotes: 0
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Celine
Wow, not one comment on Celine.
"Journey To The End of Night" is an exceptional book. "As its title suggests, Voyage au bout de la nuit is a novel of savage, exultant , combined, however, with cynical humour. Céline expresses an almost unrelieved with regard to human nature, human institutions, society, and life in general." Here is a quote I lifted from the book that appeared under the tray of one of my CD's “The world only knows how to do one thing, to roll over and kill you., as a sleeper kills his fleas. That would be a stupid way to die, I said to myself, to let myself be crushed like everyone else. To put your trust in men is to get yourself killed a little.” – Louis-Ferdinand Céline I have a couple other Celine books I have yet to read, but he knows how weave pessimism with a fine hand. | |||||||||||
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8 Thanks From: | Doctor Dugald Eldritch (03-26-2015), G. S. Carnivals (09-14-2010), Hideous Name (03-26-2015), Liam Barden (01-09-2016), miguel1984 (03-26-2015), njhorror (09-19-2014), Spotbowserfido2 (09-14-2010), With Strength I Burn (03-26-2015) |
09-19-2014 | #2 | |||||||||||
Mannikin
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 6
Quotes: 0
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Re: Celine
This work is genius picaresque of dark comedy through the first third of the 20th century. If you enjoy Vonnegut or Bukowski or even Ligotti, you should read this novel. Hilarious and venomous stuff. Every aspect of human existence raises Celine's snarking ire. It's funny. Despite finding faults in every aspect of this world, he stumbles blindly, stubbing his toe on every fallen brick he doesn't see. His misadventures usually occur by bad luck, and the happenstance of running into Robinson. For a man who was supposedly such an anti-semite, he comes across a lot like a grizzlier version of Larry David in this book. If you want something more painful, where you aren't as welcome to laugh at the plight of the protagonist, his 2nd book Death On The Installment Plan is good, but not as good. It's all about his childhood, his abusive father, him being taken advantage of by scheming employers... Generally it paints a far more negative portrait and it loses the first book's humor. It's worth reading but it is a 600 page complaint. It should be noted that these two works were the inspiration for the main character in Camus' The Fall, in my opinion and a couple others at least. Apparently he was not fond of his compatriot Frenchman's lack of ethics and morals... Camus even outright stole from Death on the Installment Plan. One of Camus' most famous scenes. In The Fall, when a woman falls into the Seine river, and the non-hero just watches her drown--That's straight up hijacked from Celine. | |||||||||||
5 Thanks From: | Coa (01-13-2015), Liam Barden (01-27-2016), miguel1984 (03-26-2015), ToALonelyPeace (02-27-2016), With Strength I Burn (03-26-2015) |
03-26-2015 | #3 | |||||||||||
Mannikin
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 2
Quotes: 0
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Re: Celine
I find his style immensely appealing - an elevated conversational style spiked by considerable descriptive powers. It has been a while since I've read Celine, many years as a matter of fact, so he is long overdue for a revisit.
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03-26-2015 | #4 | |||||||||||
Mystic
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 214
Quotes: 0
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Re: Celine
Rigodon is a wonderful book.
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3 Thanks From: |
02-26-2016 | #5 | |||||||||||
Acolyte
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 67
Quotes: 0
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Re: Celine
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The special quality of hell is to see everything clearly down to the last detail. And to see all that in the pitch darkness!
- Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion |
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6 Thanks From: | Hideous Name (02-26-2016), miguel1984 (02-27-2016), MTC (02-27-2016), Raul Urraca (05-29-2017), ToALonelyPeace (02-27-2016), xylokopos (02-27-2016) |
04-19-2017 | #6 | |||||||||||
Chymist
Join Date: Feb 2017
Posts: 312
Quotes: 0
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Re: Celine
I've never read Celine. I've been curious about his work, as the linguist Julia Kristeva (someone who fascinates me) is a rabid fan. Where do I start? "Journey to the End of Night"?
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4 Thanks From: |
04-19-2017 | #7 | |||||||||||
Grimscribe
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 1,188
Quotes: 0
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Re: Celine
Yes, read "Journey..." before you read anything else by him or about him.
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"Tell me how you want to die, and I'll tell you who you are. In other words, how do you fill out an empty life? With women, books, or worldly ambitions? No matter what you do, the starting point is boredom, and the end self-destruction. The emblem of our fate: the sky teeming with worms. Baudelaire taught me that life is the ecstasy of worms in the sun, and happiness the dance of worms."
---Tears and Saints, E. M. Cioran
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5 Thanks From: | GirlyGirlMask (04-19-2017), Kevin (04-19-2017), Liam Barden (04-19-2017), miguel1984 (04-20-2017), Raul Urraca (05-29-2017) |
05-29-2017 | #8 | |||||||||||
Mannikin
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 12
Quotes: 0
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Re: Celine
I'm currently reading Journey to the End of the Night. It's an amazing book and I can see it's influence over plenty of other stuff I've read - Bulgakov, Vonnegut and Grass come initially to mind. It's grotesque, funny and genuinely one of the most pessimistic books I've read. What a combination! :-)
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On Earth to Make the Numbers Up
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4 Thanks From: | Liam Barden (05-29-2017), miguel1984 (05-29-2017), Raul Urraca (05-29-2017), ToALonelyPeace (05-29-2017) |
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