Journey to the End of the Night

Catastrophic!! Intoxicating, harsh, full of despair. The most rejuvenating reading for demanding book lovers. An extremely genuine book about human nature and its dark side, the one that doesn't hesitate to wallow in filth after forgiveness. Many will characterize it as a miserable and depressing book. But in the end, is the truth depressing or simply do we not dare to look at it head-on? After all, haven't we all thought about all these things that Selin tells us and simply haven't said them out loud because we're afraid of how we'll look to others? I won't deal with the author's Nazi past. The Journey into the Night is a book that everyone should read. Cynical but shockingly true.

The worst of all is that you wonder how you'll find the strength the next day to continue doing the things you've been doing for so long, how you'll find the strength for those pointless steps, the countless plans that lead nowhere, the attempts to escape the oppressive need, attempts that always fail, and all of them to convince yourself once again that fate is inescapable, that you have to crash into the roots of the wall every night in the agony of that tomorrow, more and more uncertain, more and more miserable.

One fine day, you decide to talk less and less about your favorite things. You talk with effort whenever you're forced to. You're tired of hearing yourself talk... You abbreviate... You refrain. Thirty years go by that you've been talking. It no longer matters to you to be right. You lose the will to hold onto even the toy you've secured among the pleasures... You silence yourself. Now it's enough to eat a little, to ensure a little warmth, and to sleep as much as possible, on the path of nothing. It would be necessary to rekindle your interest, to invent new tricks for others. But you no longer have the strength to change the repertoire. You're dragging. You're still looking for blame and justifications to stay there with the dear ones, but death is also there, beside you, heavy, all the time now, less mysterious and like a card game. The only precious thing left to you is the small sorrows, the fact that you didn't find the time to visit your old uncle while he was alive... What you've preserved from life. This little terrifying print, all the other things you knew a little too much on the way, with a lot of effort and pain. You're no longer anything but an old lantern of memories in the corner of some street where hardly anyone passes anymore.

The young are always in such a hurry to make love. They rush so much to spill that powder they sell for entertainment, which doesn't bother them much with emotions. They're a bit like the travelers who eat what they're served in the dining car, between two whistles of the train. It's enough to serve them a couple of lines from those that adorn the registry office for marriage, and to congratulate them. The young find it with something, let alone they pour out the truth as they please. The kids end up in the wonderful pool, on the beach where the women finally seem free, where they're so beautiful that they don't even need the lie of our dreams. So once winter comes, it's difficult for us to return, to say that it's over, to admit it. We would like to stay, despite everything, in the cold in the sheets, still hoping. Understandable. We're useless. No one is to blame for that. To spill and to be happy, above all. And then when we start to hide from others, it's a sign that we're afraid to go crazy with them. This is an illness in itself. It would be good to know why we insist on not being cured of loneliness.

This book is an astonishing journey into human brutality, into solitude, into the desperate search for meaning, for beauty, for love. All in vain, wasted effort. Pestilential darkness.

There is something disarming in Celine that lays bare our hypocrisies, the masks we like to wear; his sincerity is shameless, brazen, impertinent. For what it's worth, I believe one must love life in the most intense way to be so deeply disgusted by everything.

I'm glad someone had the courage to write a book like this. A masterpiece!

I put a small light in the darkness…

https://youtu.be/oFYkEUqLcek

This book takes the reader on a harrowing exploration of the human condition. It delves into the depths of our darkest emotions and shows us the true face of humanity. Celine's writing is both powerful and disturbing, yet it has a strange allure that keeps you hooked until the very end. The themes of this book are universal and will resonate with anyone who has ever felt lost or alone in the world. It makes you question everything you thought you knew about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Overall, this is a must-read for anyone who wants to experience a truly unique and unforgettable literary journey.

This is undoubtedly one of the great novels. It is misanthropic in the extreme; the author really doesn’t like anyone, including himself. Often written in the vernacular, brutal, comic and ranging over three continents and a World War. There is a strong element of the autobiographical in it. It has also influenced more great writers than you can shake a sock at. The list is a remarkable one; Beckett, Sartre (briefly), Genet, Barthes, Miller, Bukowski, Heller, Vonnegut, Ken Kesey, Kerouac, Gunter Grass, Burroughs to name a few. Burroughs and Ginsberg both visited him towards the end of his life. Journey was published in 1932 and was his first novel; it is undoubtedly a remarkable achievement.

Those of you who know me may be sensing a but! Well, mostly the foibles of writers are forgivable; we all have them. Celine had his fair share. In 1937 Celine wrote a tract called Trifles for a Massacre; the first of three tracts. They were rabidly anti-Semitic and racist. Celine threw his lot in with the Nazis and argued for an alliance between France and Germany. “Who is the true friend of the people? Fascism is.” “We do not think enough about the protection of the white Aryan race. Now is the time to act, because tomorrow will be too late.” Once France had fallen Celine supported the Nazis. The head of propaganda for the Nazis in France, Payr, was of the opinion that Celine was too extreme to be helpful.

After the war Celine had to leave France as he was wanted as a collaborator. His opinions did not really change; he became what we would now term a Holocaust denier and in 1957 said that white Aryan Christian civilization ended with the battle of Stalingrad. John Banville called this the best novel ever written by a far-right sympathizer and I think he may be right. It is also pertinent to bear in mind that many of Celine’s fellow writers fell for the Soviet system rather than fascism. Coincidentally I am reading The Gulag Archipelago at the moment and Stalin also murdered many millions of his fellow countrymen in the name of peace and an ideal society. The difference with those who followed the Soviet path is that most of them abandoned it when it became clear what Marxist-Leninist practice actually involved. Celine stuck to his beliefs.

Interesting to note that the other books I am reading; Orlando, The Gulag Archipelago and The Recognitions, all have a lower average rating than Journey. That, for me, is a bit of a conundrum; whilst it is good and a seminal influence on the Beat generation (that, of course might prejudice some of you against it!), it isn’t in the top rank. Celine is in the tradition of Balzac, Zola and many of the great French writers. There is also a touch of the Don Quixote about it with the character of Robinson (who crops up fairly regularly) acting as a sort of Sancho Panza. There is a sort of picaresque nihilism about the narrator, Ferdinand Bardamu. The malarial hallucinatory passages in French colonial Africa are pure Heart of Darkness and the industrial passages in America have a touch of Upton Sinclair.

It is ultimately a pessimistic reflection on life. Some may look at ordinary life and people and see nobility, beauty and struggle; Celine sees ugliness, bestiality and pointlessness. I was reminded of the end of a poem by Larkin to sum the whole thing up. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself. 3.5 stars

Celine’s Journey to the End of Night is an outstanding literary work. It presents a unique perspective through a narrator who is unable to delude himself and has a direct connection between his thoughts and the audience. What’s more, it is incredibly humorous.

The novel reads like the author’s travel diary through war-torn Europe, remote Africa, industrialized America, and post-war France. We don't know exactly how much of it is true and how much is fictional, but it doesn't really matter. At times, Celine seems like a depraved Jonathan Swift, while at other times, he functions as a spiritual predecessor of Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He writes about everything from the dull factories in Detroit to the exaggerated descriptions of African tribal life. He goes beyond the allure of exotic places by focusing on human relationships in all their corrupt and fleeting forms.

Celine doesn't believe that people are generally good. He's not blindly misanthropic; if he could find evidence of pure-heartedness, he would report it. However, he won't lie to make you feel better. He abandons the traditional narrative convention of "happy endings" and instead explores various landscapes, especially the subcultures of the poor and the strange. He's not their advocate, nor will he paint a romantic picture of simple poverty or depict the neighborhood residents as mindless animals. If he had to choose, he would probably lean towards the latter.

Celine is a master at depicting the insanity of war. Instead of singing gentle anti-war songs, he confronts the crazy expectations of his military leaders. His wide-eyed views on the depths of humanity are both insightful and profound. If Celine is trying to teach us something, it's that most people are just trying to get by, keep their bodies and bones intact, pursue basic pleasures, and are often a bit messed up. This isn't their fault: Journey isn't a self-help book. But don't think this book is just 344 pages of depressing observations. Celine also finds humor and objectivity to step outside the charade and perhaps transcend artifice, even if only for a short time.

It took me almost four weeks to finish this book. I read it slowly and carefully, and sometimes I felt both excited and exhausted. Don't give up if you think the first twenty pages are mainly about Celine's time in the French military. He quickly moves on from that. I also know that the author was a real jerk in real life. But I can't comment on that. His novel is one of the best and most original I've ever read. Journey to the End of Night is a dark classic of the highest quality, a whirlwind of psychological exploration, frenzied comedy, and fascinating discussions about human nature.

Journey to the End of the Night failed to meet my expectations. Judging from the cover art and the description provided, I had braced myself for a dark and melancholy journey into the abyss of human corruption. Perhaps the book has not withstood the test of time well, but I found it to be rather mild - far from the "literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism" as promised in the blurb. And when it attempts to push the boundaries, it does so in a rather shallow manner - more for the sake of cheap adolescent shock than for any profound purpose. In some respects, the structure and approach reminded me of Augie March, if Augie March had been penned by a lustful Frenchman with a particular fixation on legs and buttocks. The style didn't do it any favors either - to be honest, I found it tiresome and offensive, and not the least bit interesting.

However, the book manages to avoid a lower rating due to the occasional instances when the author appears to recall that he is writing a novel. These are the moments when he tones down the obnoxious style and produces something truly excellent. These moments are not uncommon, and they make the book worth persevering with. It's a pity about the rest of it.

I hadn't journeyed far into this book when I began to pay attention to the word choices. The adjective immonde (foul, filthy) popped up every few pages. Asticot (maggot) was also frequent, as was miteux (seedy). And the words noir (black) and nuit (night) recurred so often that when the main character, French army scout Ferdinand Bardamu, found himself alone in a Flanders town called Noirceur-sur-la-Lys one dark night during WWI, I smiled at the name of the town. It seemed deliberately invented to enhance the mood the author had been creating with many of his earlier word choices.

I envisioned Louis-Ferdinand Céline chuckling to himself as he thought up that name. Noirceur means darkness, obscurity, and even holds a connotation of evil. The name made me anticipate a host of ghostly figures emerging out of the gloom. And sure enough, a man does appear out of the blackness. He turns out to be an army deserter called Léon Robinson. And because Bardamu thinks Robinson resembles a dead soldier they find soon afterwards, I became convinced that Robinson was nothing but an apparition, especially as he disappears from the story almost as abruptly as he enters it.

The WWI part of the book ends very soon after that in any case. Bardamu is invalided out of the war and the reader might think that all the darkness, all the foulness, all the evil are over and done with, and that the remaining three quarters of the book will be brighter, cleaner, more hopeful.

Such a reader would be very disappointed. Céline doesn't seem to know how to write about the bright, the clean, the hopeful, and we soon find that it doesn't matter anyway because he just writes so well about seediness and about hopelessness, about illness and about death. If we stay with Bardamu all the way to the end of the night book, we too will sink deeper and deeper into the mire as we shadow him south to the Congo River, west to New York and Chicago, back east again to one of the poorest suburbs of Paris, then south to a crypt full of dead bodies near Toulouse, and finally to an asylum on the edge of Paris. As we follow in Bardamu's footsteps, we are fully entertained with regular doses of comedy and with paragraphs of startling insight.

But Bardamu has another shadow too: Léon Robinson turns up in the Congo, appearing and disappearing in the darkness of one single tropical night just as he did in Noirceur during the war. Later he emerges out of the polluted gloom of industrial Chicago, and later still, he turns up in Toulouse and on the seedy streets of suburban Paris. It's as if Robinson is Bardamu's alter ego, an alternative personality, friendly sometimes, an enemy at other moments. But whatever he is, he is a very interesting plot device on Céline's part: a recurring figure who influences every stage of the story even to the final outcome. And it's nicely ironic that the words Céline puts in his mouth on his first appearance in the town of Noirceur are about not wanting to kill anyone, not having yet learned to kill anyone. That becomes more and more significant as the narrative plays out.

As to Bardamu, he has never learned to kill anyone either, but he becomes good at leaving people to die.

Yes, they are two halves of a whole, Bardamu and Robinson, but they finally get split apart forever in the most unexpected way. The ending felt to me as if Céline had set off all the fireworks he'd buried in the dark places of the story. I knew they were there all along and I worried about them exploding. It was just a matter of time.

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Though I didn't mention them, there are quite a few women characters in this book, but while each dominates her own section, none of them reappear or meet with any of the others—except in one case near the end.

The fact that each woman is confined to her own segment must have been on my mind because I dreamt about it one night during the time I was reading this book. In the dream, one of the characters was explaining why she and the other women didn't ever share a scene. The explanation was long and complicated as is the mode of dream scenarios. The only scrap of meaning I retained on waking was that they were practicing social distancing!

This book will go on my Covid Times shelf.

*I searched a map of Northern France and found a town near Ypres called Aire-sur-la-Lys. It has a 15th century church that sounds similar to the one Bardamu mentions seeing in Noirceur-sur-la-Lys.

**"An Analysis of 'Journey to the End of the Night' by Céline"**

What has been shaken as much as possible:

A comprehensive review of the books, articles, and opinions about Céline and his landmark book, "Journey to the End of the Night," reveals that almost everywhere, the talk is about Céline's prominence. The author, who transformed the language of literary narrative, decided not to lie, not to make slogans, not to be indifferent, and to reveal the face of reality. Céline filled a void in the literary salon. The criticisms and flaws that have come to Céline are mostly political. He was a fascist or had fascist tendencies. This means aggression against at least one nation. How can someone who is the subject of harsh judgment claim to present reality?

Some claim that such tendencies are not evident in his works, or if they are, they are not significant. I don't care how the judgments are on his personality. I can only emphasize that "Journey to the End of the Night" is not a politically motivated work. Although of course every important work is political, but being politically motivated and propaganda completely destroys the work.

Iranians seem to have a strange connection with this work. Everyone seems to have a Céline inside them and wanted to be like him. To hide, to be themselves, to stay away from the bitter reality. Although Céline actually has a past full of falls and humiliations, in his book, he describes all the events as dull and without excitement, and the events are full of heartlessness and boredom. A book that starts with a dangerous act of taste, continues in a dulling way, and ends with a bitter event. The end of the novel is not the end of the life of the main character. In fact, the classic ending has no judgment. But there is also no positive or negative outlook. It neither gives hope for a better life nor a worse one. Only the pain and dullness that lasts until death. The reader feels it. It is very similar to life. Those who say that we read books to relax for a few mornings from the chaos of today's world should not read such a work because they will again face the chaos of life. This time it is much more intense. So far, Céline has been successful. His book is an important work.

Today, however, the Céline who came to desecrate the idols of literary sanctimony has himself become a saint. What has been shaken as much as possible. Most readers start reading this work like this: This is a book that everyone says is a masterpiece, one of the most influential books in history, and it was banned for years but still always had readers, so I should also like it. Most of the reviews and even the oral opinions of the people I have talked to have the same takeaways.

Many say that it is the bitterest book they have read. In my opinion, a book like "The Sacrifice of Malaparte" is bitterer and more serious. Some say that it is the best portrayal of war in which there is no more talk of heroic feats. In my opinion, the book "The Naked and the Dead" by Norman Mailer presents a more accurate picture. Everyone loves Céline's catchy and clear sentences, but there are better and deeper choices. My intention is not to undermine "Journey to the End of the Night" in the mind of the reader. My intention is the same as what Céline was after: to see reality. Although the overall book is effective and valuable, there is no reason to consider every part of it as a supreme and superior example.

In my opinion, some of the criticisms that are made of this novel are not in line with Céline's intention. Such as not having a strong framework or a low-excitement plot. I believe that Céline deliberately wrote the book in this way. If he didn't write it like this, "Journey to the End of the Night" would not have been what it is. In conclusion, the book is excellent, but most of the judgments that are made on it are matters of taste, with an excessive amount of love or sometimes hatred injected in advance.

Last July 1401

The disastrous consequences of war are vividly depicted in this work.

The story lacks a climax and progresses in a rather monotonous way. The writing is engaging in some places but not so in others.

The characters are interestingly created, yet they all have obvious flaws. Why is everyone painted in such a negative light?

It presents many anti-war and just ideas, which is quite good. However, it's not an easy read for anyone who has experienced war.

The story has no appeal, and with its volume, it might even be a bit irritating for professional readers.

The translation is excellent, and only a professor could convert these common and dark terms so well.

An excerpt from the book:

Man must be very humble to regret the special years of his life. We can grow old with a happy heart.

Wasn't there a heartburn yesterday? Or maybe last year? Do you have a different belief?

What do we regret? Youth?

We were never young!

P.S: Just because the author is Selin H, do I have to praise it? No, I don't agree. This book is just an average novel, and I don't know about these words. The book is thick and requires a lot of time and energy. It's better to be honest and say that you don't get anything in return for the time you spend! Do all these explanations really matter? At least that's how it was for me... I know it's more suitable for those friends who read a series of books by the same author. I still have criticisms of it, but I think it's enough.

02/02/19