Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Encyclopedia
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name
of French writer and physician
Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961). Céline was chosen after his grandmother's first name. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and world literature. He remains, however, a controversial figure because of his anti-Semitic pamphlets.
, just outside Paris in the Seine
département (now Hauts-de-Seine
). His father was a minor functionary in an insurance firm and his mother was a lacemaker. In 1905 he was awarded his Certificat d'études, after which he worked as an apprentice and messenger boy in various trades. Between 1908 and 1910 his parents sent him to Germany and England for a year in each country in order to acquire foreign languages for future employment. From the time he left school, until the age of eighteen, Céline worked various jobs, leaving or losing them after only short periods of time. He often found himself working for jewellers, first, at eleven, as an errand boy, and later as a salesperson for a local goldsmith. Although he was no longer being formally educated, he bought schoolbooks with the money he earned, and studied by himself. It was around this time that Céline started to want to become a doctor.
World War I
In 1912, in what Céline described as an act of rebellion against his parents, he joined the French army, two years before the start of the first World War and its mandatory French conscription. This was a time in France when, following the Moroccan crisis of 1911
, nationalism reached "fever pitch" – a period one historian described as "The Hegemony of Patriotism" (1911–1914), particularly affecting opinion in the lycées and grandes écoles of Paris.
In 1912 Céline began a three-year enlistment in the 12th Cavalry Regiment
stationed in Rambouillet
. At first, he was unhappy with the military, and even considered deserting. However, he adapted, and eventually attained the rank of Sergeant. The beginning of the First World War brought action to Céline's unit. On 25 October 1914, Céline volunteered to deliver a message, when others were reluctant to do so because of heavy German fire. Near Ypres
, during his attempt to deliver the message, he was wounded in his right arm. (He was not wounded in the head, contrary to a popular rumor that he perpetuated.) For his bravery, Céline was awarded the médaille militaire
in November, and appeared on the cover of the weekly l'Illustré National in December.
In March 1915 he was sent to London to work in the French passport office. While in London, he was married to Suzanne Nebout and divorced one year later. In September, his arm wounds were such that he was officially declared physically unfit for military duty and was discharged. He returned to France, where he began working at a variety of jobs.
In 1916 Céline set out for Africa as a representative of the Sangha-Oubanghui company. He was sent to the Cameroons
and returned to France in 1917. Little is known of this trip except that it was unsuccessful. After returning to France he worked for the Rockefeller Foundation
. As part of a team, it was his job to travel to Brittany
teaching people how to fight tuberculosis
and how to improve hygiene.
. On 11 August 1919 Céline married Follet's daughter Édith Follet, with whom he had been acquainted for some time. With Monsieur Follet's influence, Céline was accepted into the university. On 15 June 1920 his wife gave birth to a daughter, Colette Destouches. During this time, he studied intensely, obtaining certificates in physics, chemistry, and natural sciences. By 1923, three years after he had started the medical program at Rennes, Céline had completed almost everything he needed to complete his medical degree. His doctoral thesis, The Life and Work of Ignaz Semmelweis, is considered his first literary work, completed in 1924. Ignaz Semmelweis
's contribution "was immense and it stood, according to Céline, in direct proportion to the misery of his life." In 1924 Céline began work as an intern at a Paris maternity hospital.
he traveled to Switzerland, England, the Cameroons, Canada, the United States, and Cuba. During this period, he began to write the play L'Eglise. In 1926 he visited America. He was sent to Detroit, to the Ford factory, to study the conditions of the workers. What he found disgusted him. After the short visit, he returned to France, now having all the subject matter he needed for Journey to the End of the Night
.
Back in France, Céline published articles praising Henry Ford's methods. During 1928 he established a private practice in Montmartre
, in the north end of Paris, specializing in obstetrics
. During 1931 he ended his private practice to work in a public dispensary. In 1932 he completed Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night
) and was considered for the Goncourt Prize.
. It violated many of the literary conventions of the time, using the rhythms and, to a certain extent, the vocabulary of slang and vulgar speech in a more consistent and occasionally more difficult way than earlier writers who had made similar attempts (notably Émile Zola
), in the tradition of François Villon
. The book became a success, but Céline was not awarded the Prix Goncourt
, despite strong support; the voting was controversial enough to become the subject of a book (Goncourt 32 by Eugène Saccomano, 1999).
In 1936 he published Mort à crédit (Death on the Installment Plan
), giving innovative, chaotic, and antiheroic visions of human suffering. Here, he extensively used ellipses scattered throughout the text to enhance the rhythm and to emphasise the style of speech. In both books he showed himself to be a great stylistic innovator and a masterful storyteller. French author Jean-Paul Sartre
publicly praised Céline during this period.
. He was forced to live in exile for a number of years.
The massacre that Céline had in mind when he titled his first overtly antisemitic book Bagatelles pour un massacre was that of the "goïms," or Gentiles, whom he thought would be led in slaughter once again in another great war. Céline had been in the First World War where he received a serious arm injury in the course of a mission for which he had volunteered. During later years he claimed that army surgeons had performed trepanation
on him in 1915 (the fictional character Robinson claims to have undergone this procedure in Journey to the End of the Night). This claim was false, invented for reasons involving Céline's desire to picture himself as an unjustly persecuted loner. Records from the Paul Brousse Hospital in Villejuif
on the outskirts of Paris state that only his arm was operated on.
Although Céline's political ideals appeared to have had much in common with the Nazis, he was publicly critical of Adolf Hitler
whom he called a "Jew" and of "Aryan
baloney". His fascist
views are evident in L'Ecole des cadavres where he calls for a Franco–German alliance in order to counter the alliance between British intelligence and "the international Jewish conspiracy"
Céline was a friend of the German–French sculptor Arno Breker
. He visited Breker for the last time in Germany during 1943 at Breker's Castle Jaeckelsbruch near Berlin. After the Vichy regime fell in 1944, Céline escaped judgment by fleeing to Sigmaringen
, Germany, accompanying the Vichy Chief of State Marshal Philippe Pétain
, and President Pierre Laval
. For a brief time Céline acted as Laval's personal physician. A fictional account of this period can be found in Céline’s 1957 novel "D'un château l'autre" (Castle to Castle
).
After Germany's defeat, Céline fled to Denmark
(1945). Named a collaborator, he was convicted in absentia
(1950) in France, sentenced to one year of imprisonment and declared a national disgrace
. He was subsequently granted amnesty
and returned to France in 1951.
), Nord and Rigodon. He settled in Meudon
, where he was visited by several friends and artists, among them the famous actress Arletty
. He became famous among the Beat Movement. Both William S. Burroughs
and Allen Ginsberg
visited him in his Parisian apartment during the 1950s. Céline died on 1 July 1961 of a ruptured aneurysm and was buried in a small cemetery at Bas Meudon (part of Meudon in the Hauts-de-Seine
département). His house burned down during the night of 23 May 1968, destroying manuscripts, furniture and mementoes, but leaving his parrot Toto alive in the adjacent aviary.
is among the most acclaimed novels of the 20th century. Céline's legacy survives in the writings of Samuel Beckett
, Jean-Paul Sartre
, Queneau and Jean Genet
among others, and in the admiration expressed for him by people like Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
, Robbe-Grillet, and Barthes. In the United States, writers like Charles Bukowski
, Henry Miller
, Jack Kerouac
, Joseph Heller
, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., William S. Burroughs
, and Ken Kesey
owe an obvious debt to the author of Voyage au bout de la nuit, though the relatively late date of the first English-language translation means that any direct influence can be difficult to demonstrate, except in Henry Miller's case (Miller read the book in French shortly after it was published while he was living in Paris). Few first novels have had the impact of Journey to the End of the Night. Written in an explosive and highly colloquial style, the book shocked most critics but found immediate success with the French reading public, which responded enthusiastically to the violent misadventures of its petit-bourgeois antihero, Bardamu, and his characteristic nihilism. The author's military experiences in World War I, his travels to colonial French West Africa, New York, and his return to postwar France all provide episodes within the sprawling narrative.
Pessimism pervades Céline's fiction as his characters sense failure, anxiety, nihilism, and inertia. Will Self
has described Celine's work as an "invective, which – despite the reputation he would later earn as a rabid anti-Semite – is aimed against all classes and races of people with indiscriminate abandon". The narrative of betrayal and exploitation, both real and imagined, corresponds with his personal life. His two true loves, his wife, Lucette Almanzor, and his cat, Bébert, are always mentioned with kindness and warmth. A progressive disintegration of personality appears in the stylistic incoherence of his books based on his life during the war: Guignol's Band, D'un château l'autre and Nord. However, some critics claim that the books are less incoherent than intentionally fragmented, and that they represent the final development of the style introduced with Journey to the End of the Night, suggesting that Céline maintained his faculties in clear working order to the end of his days. Guignol's Band and its companion novel London Bridge center on the London underworld during World War I. (In London Bridge a sailboat appears, bearing the name King Hamsun, obviously a tribute to another collaborationist writer
.) Celine's autobiographical narrator recounts his disastrous partnership with a mystical Frenchman (intent on financing a trip to Tibet by winning a gas-mask competition); his uneasy relationship with London's pimps and prostitutes and their common nemesis, Inspector Matthew of Scotland Yard. These novels are classic examples of his black comedy which few writers have equaled. He continued writing until his death in 1961, finishing his last novel, Rigodon, on the day before he died. In Conversations with Professor Y (1955) Céline defends his style, indicating that his heavy use of the ellipsis and his disjointed sentences are an attempt to embody human emotion in written language.
His writings are examples of black comedy, where unfortunate and often terrible things are described humorously. Céline's writing is often hyper-real and its polemic
qualities can often be startling; however, his main strength lies in his ability to discredit almost everything and yet not lose a sense of enraged humanity. Céline was also an influence on Irvine Welsh
, Günter Grass
, Joseph Heller
and Charles Bukowski
. Bukowski wrote "'first of all read Céline; the greatest writer of 2,000 years"
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
of French writer and physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961). Céline was chosen after his grandmother's first name. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and world literature. He remains, however, a controversial figure because of his anti-Semitic pamphlets.
Early life
The only child of Ferdinand-Auguste Destouches and Marguerite-Louise-Céline Guilloux, he was born Louis-Ferdinand-Auguste Destouches in 1894 at CourbevoieCourbevoie
Courbevoie is a commune located very close to the centre of Paris, France. The centre of Courbevoie is situated 2 kilometres from the outer limits of Paris and 8.2 km...
, just outside Paris in the Seine
Seine (département)
Seine was a département of France encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs. Its préfecture was Paris and its official number was 75. The Seine département was abolished in 1968 and its territory divided among four new départements....
département (now Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine is designated number 92 of the 101 départements in France. It is part of the Île-de-France region, and covers the western inner suburbs of Paris...
). His father was a minor functionary in an insurance firm and his mother was a lacemaker. In 1905 he was awarded his Certificat d'études, after which he worked as an apprentice and messenger boy in various trades. Between 1908 and 1910 his parents sent him to Germany and England for a year in each country in order to acquire foreign languages for future employment. From the time he left school, until the age of eighteen, Céline worked various jobs, leaving or losing them after only short periods of time. He often found himself working for jewellers, first, at eleven, as an errand boy, and later as a salesperson for a local goldsmith. Although he was no longer being formally educated, he bought schoolbooks with the money he earned, and studied by himself. It was around this time that Céline started to want to become a doctor.
World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and Africa
In 1912, in what Céline described as an act of rebellion against his parents, he joined the French army, two years before the start of the first World War and its mandatory French conscription. This was a time in France when, following the Moroccan crisis of 1911Agadir Crisis
The Agadir Crisis, also called the Second Moroccan Crisis, or the Panthersprung, was the international tension sparked by the deployment of the German gunboat Panther, to the Moroccan port of Agadir on July 1, 1911.-Background:...
, nationalism reached "fever pitch" – a period one historian described as "The Hegemony of Patriotism" (1911–1914), particularly affecting opinion in the lycées and grandes écoles of Paris.
In 1912 Céline began a three-year enlistment in the 12th Cavalry Regiment
12th Cuirassier Regiment (France)
The 12th Cuirassier Regiment was a French cavalry regiment, first formed in 1688 under the Ancien Regime. It distinguished itself in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, notably at the battles of Austerlitz , Jena and Borodino...
stationed in Rambouillet
Rambouillet
Rambouillet is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France.It is located in the suburbs of Paris southwest from the center...
. At first, he was unhappy with the military, and even considered deserting. However, he adapted, and eventually attained the rank of Sergeant. The beginning of the First World War brought action to Céline's unit. On 25 October 1914, Céline volunteered to deliver a message, when others were reluctant to do so because of heavy German fire. Near Ypres
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote...
, during his attempt to deliver the message, he was wounded in his right arm. (He was not wounded in the head, contrary to a popular rumor that he perpetuated.) For his bravery, Céline was awarded the médaille militaire
Médaille militaire
The Médaille militaire is a decoration of the French Republic which was first instituted in 1852.-History:The creator of the médaille was the emperor Napoléon III, who may have taken his inspiration in a medal issued by his father, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland...
in November, and appeared on the cover of the weekly l'Illustré National in December.
In March 1915 he was sent to London to work in the French passport office. While in London, he was married to Suzanne Nebout and divorced one year later. In September, his arm wounds were such that he was officially declared physically unfit for military duty and was discharged. He returned to France, where he began working at a variety of jobs.
In 1916 Céline set out for Africa as a representative of the Sangha-Oubanghui company. He was sent to the Cameroons
Cameroons
British Cameroons was a British Mandate territory in West Africa, now divided between Nigeria and Cameroon.The area of present-day Cameroon was claimed by Germany as a protectorate during the "Scramble for Africa" at the end of the 19th century...
and returned to France in 1917. Little is known of this trip except that it was unsuccessful. After returning to France he worked for the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
. As part of a team, it was his job to travel to Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
teaching people how to fight tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
and how to improve hygiene.
Becoming a doctor
In June 1919 Céline went to Bordeaux and completed the second part of his baccalauréat. Through his work with the Institute, Céline had come into contact, and good standing, with Monsieur Follet, the director of the medical school in RennesRennes
Rennes is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France. Rennes is the capital of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department.-History:...
. On 11 August 1919 Céline married Follet's daughter Édith Follet, with whom he had been acquainted for some time. With Monsieur Follet's influence, Céline was accepted into the university. On 15 June 1920 his wife gave birth to a daughter, Colette Destouches. During this time, he studied intensely, obtaining certificates in physics, chemistry, and natural sciences. By 1923, three years after he had started the medical program at Rennes, Céline had completed almost everything he needed to complete his medical degree. His doctoral thesis, The Life and Work of Ignaz Semmelweis, is considered his first literary work, completed in 1924. Ignaz Semmelweis
Ignaz Semmelweis
Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "savior of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics...
's contribution "was immense and it stood, according to Céline, in direct proportion to the misery of his life." In 1924 Céline began work as an intern at a Paris maternity hospital.
Becoming a writer
In 1925 Céline suddenly left his family, never to return. Under the newly founded League of NationsLeague of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
he traveled to Switzerland, England, the Cameroons, Canada, the United States, and Cuba. During this period, he began to write the play L'Eglise. In 1926 he visited America. He was sent to Detroit, to the Ford factory, to study the conditions of the workers. What he found disgusted him. After the short visit, he returned to France, now having all the subject matter he needed for Journey to the End of the Night
Journey to the End of the Night
Journey to the End of Night is the first novel of Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This semi-autobiographical work describes antihero Ferdinand Bardamu....
.
Back in France, Céline published articles praising Henry Ford's methods. During 1928 he established a private practice in Montmartre
Montmartre
Montmartre is a hill which is 130 metres high, giving its name to the surrounding district, in the north of Paris in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district...
, in the north end of Paris, specializing in obstetrics
Obstetrics
Obstetrics is the medical specialty dealing with the care of all women's reproductive tracts and their children during pregnancy , childbirth and the postnatal period...
. During 1931 he ended his private practice to work in a public dispensary. In 1932 he completed Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night
Journey to the End of the Night
Journey to the End of Night is the first novel of Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This semi-autobiographical work describes antihero Ferdinand Bardamu....
) and was considered for the Goncourt Prize.
Literary life and awards
Céline's best-known work is Voyage au bout de la nuit, translated into English most recently by Ralph ManheimRalph Manheim
Ralph Frederick Manheim was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian...
. It violated many of the literary conventions of the time, using the rhythms and, to a certain extent, the vocabulary of slang and vulgar speech in a more consistent and occasionally more difficult way than earlier writers who had made similar attempts (notably Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
), in the tradition of François Villon
François Villon
François Villon was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison...
. The book became a success, but Céline was not awarded the Prix Goncourt
Prix Goncourt
The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year"...
, despite strong support; the voting was controversial enough to become the subject of a book (Goncourt 32 by Eugène Saccomano, 1999).
In 1936 he published Mort à crédit (Death on the Installment Plan
Death on the Installment Plan
Death on Credit is a novel by author Louis-Ferdinand Céline, published in 1936. The most common, and generally most respected English translation is Ralph Manheim's....
), giving innovative, chaotic, and antiheroic visions of human suffering. Here, he extensively used ellipses scattered throughout the text to enhance the rhythm and to emphasise the style of speech. In both books he showed himself to be a great stylistic innovator and a masterful storyteller. French author Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
publicly praised Céline during this period.
Exile
During the development of Nazi Germany, Céline wrote three cynical and viciously antisemitic pamphlets or books: Bagatelles pour un massacre (Trifles for a Massacre) (1937), L'École des cadavres (The School of Corpses) (1938) and Les Beaux draps (The Fine Mess) (1941), the last published during the occupation of France. Céline fled France during the Allied liberation campaign (1944) and joined the last remnants of the Vichy government in SigmaringenSigmaringen
Sigmaringen is a town in southern Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Situated on the upper Danube, it is the capital of the Sigmaringen district....
. He was forced to live in exile for a number of years.
The massacre that Céline had in mind when he titled his first overtly antisemitic book Bagatelles pour un massacre was that of the "goïms," or Gentiles, whom he thought would be led in slaughter once again in another great war. Céline had been in the First World War where he received a serious arm injury in the course of a mission for which he had volunteered. During later years he claimed that army surgeons had performed trepanation
Trepanation
Trepanning, also known as trephination, trephining or making a burr hole, is a surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases. It may also refer to any "burr" hole created...
on him in 1915 (the fictional character Robinson claims to have undergone this procedure in Journey to the End of the Night). This claim was false, invented for reasons involving Céline's desire to picture himself as an unjustly persecuted loner. Records from the Paul Brousse Hospital in Villejuif
Villejuif
Villejuif is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris.-Name:The name Villejuif was recorded for the first time in a papal bull of 1119 as Villa Judea, the meaning of which is still debated...
on the outskirts of Paris state that only his arm was operated on.
Although Céline's political ideals appeared to have had much in common with the Nazis, he was publicly critical of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
whom he called a "Jew" and of "Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
baloney". His fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
views are evident in L'Ecole des cadavres where he calls for a Franco–German alliance in order to counter the alliance between British intelligence and "the international Jewish conspiracy"
Céline was a friend of the German–French sculptor Arno Breker
Arno Breker
Arno Breker was a German sculptor, best known for his public works in Nazi Germany, which were endorsed by the authorities as the antithesis of degenerate art....
. He visited Breker for the last time in Germany during 1943 at Breker's Castle Jaeckelsbruch near Berlin. After the Vichy regime fell in 1944, Céline escaped judgment by fleeing to Sigmaringen
Sigmaringen
Sigmaringen is a town in southern Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Situated on the upper Danube, it is the capital of the Sigmaringen district....
, Germany, accompanying the Vichy Chief of State Marshal Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
, and President Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval
Pierre Laval was a French politician. He was four times President of the council of ministers of the Third Republic, twice consecutively. Following France's Armistice with Germany in 1940, he served twice in the Vichy Regime as head of government, signing orders permitting the deportation of...
. For a brief time Céline acted as Laval's personal physician. A fictional account of this period can be found in Céline’s 1957 novel "D'un château l'autre" (Castle to Castle
Castle to Castle
Castle to Castle is the English title of the 1957 novel by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, titled in French D'un château l'autre. The book was written about his experiences in exile at Sigmaringen, Germany, with the Vichy French government towards the end of World War II.-Legacy:Castle to Castle was...
).
After Germany's defeat, Céline fled to Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
(1945). Named a collaborator, he was convicted in absentia
In absentia
In absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use, it usually means a trial at which the defendant is not physically present. The phrase is not ordinarily a mere observation, but suggests recognition of violation to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.In...
(1950) in France, sentenced to one year of imprisonment and declared a national disgrace
Indignité nationale
Indignité nationale was a legally defined offense, created at the Liberation in the context of the “Épuration légale”...
. He was subsequently granted amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
and returned to France in 1951.
Later life and death
Céline regained fame in later life with a trilogy of books which described his exile: D'un château l'autre, (describing the fall of Schloss SigmaringenSchloss Sigmaringen
Sigmaringen Castle was the princely castle and seat of government for the Princes of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Situated in the Swabian Alb region of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, this castle dominates the skyline of the town of Sigmaringen...
), Nord and Rigodon. He settled in Meudon
Meudon
Meudon is a municipality in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Geography:...
, where he was visited by several friends and artists, among them the famous actress Arletty
Arletty
Arletty was a French actress, singer, and fashion model.-Life and career:Arletty was born Léonie Marie Julie Bathiat in Courbevoie , to a working-class family. Her early career was dominated by the music hall, and she later appeared in plays and cabaret. Arletty was a stage performer for ten years...
. He became famous among the Beat Movement. Both William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
and Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
visited him in his Parisian apartment during the 1950s. Céline died on 1 July 1961 of a ruptured aneurysm and was buried in a small cemetery at Bas Meudon (part of Meudon in the Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine is designated number 92 of the 101 départements in France. It is part of the Île-de-France region, and covers the western inner suburbs of Paris...
département). His house burned down during the night of 23 May 1968, destroying manuscripts, furniture and mementoes, but leaving his parrot Toto alive in the adjacent aviary.
Work and legacy
Journey to the End of the NightJourney to the End of the Night
Journey to the End of Night is the first novel of Louis-Ferdinand Céline. This semi-autobiographical work describes antihero Ferdinand Bardamu....
is among the most acclaimed novels of the 20th century. Céline's legacy survives in the writings of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, Queneau and Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
among others, and in the admiration expressed for him by people like Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio , usually identified as J. M. G. Le Clézio, is a French author and professor. The author of over forty works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot for his novel Le Procès-Verbal....
, Robbe-Grillet, and Barthes. In the United States, writers like Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...
, Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
, Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
, Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was a US satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War II...
, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
, and Ken Kesey
Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...
owe an obvious debt to the author of Voyage au bout de la nuit, though the relatively late date of the first English-language translation means that any direct influence can be difficult to demonstrate, except in Henry Miller's case (Miller read the book in French shortly after it was published while he was living in Paris). Few first novels have had the impact of Journey to the End of the Night. Written in an explosive and highly colloquial style, the book shocked most critics but found immediate success with the French reading public, which responded enthusiastically to the violent misadventures of its petit-bourgeois antihero, Bardamu, and his characteristic nihilism. The author's military experiences in World War I, his travels to colonial French West Africa, New York, and his return to postwar France all provide episodes within the sprawling narrative.
Pessimism pervades Céline's fiction as his characters sense failure, anxiety, nihilism, and inertia. Will Self
Will Self
William Woodard "Will" Self is an English novelist and short story writer. His fictional style is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical. He is a prolific commentator on contemporary British life, with regular appearances on Newsnight and Question Time...
has described Celine's work as an "invective, which – despite the reputation he would later earn as a rabid anti-Semite – is aimed against all classes and races of people with indiscriminate abandon". The narrative of betrayal and exploitation, both real and imagined, corresponds with his personal life. His two true loves, his wife, Lucette Almanzor, and his cat, Bébert, are always mentioned with kindness and warmth. A progressive disintegration of personality appears in the stylistic incoherence of his books based on his life during the war: Guignol's Band, D'un château l'autre and Nord. However, some critics claim that the books are less incoherent than intentionally fragmented, and that they represent the final development of the style introduced with Journey to the End of the Night, suggesting that Céline maintained his faculties in clear working order to the end of his days. Guignol's Band and its companion novel London Bridge center on the London underworld during World War I. (In London Bridge a sailboat appears, bearing the name King Hamsun, obviously a tribute to another collaborationist writer
Knut Hamsun
Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. He was praised by King Haakon VII of Norway as Norway's soul....
.) Celine's autobiographical narrator recounts his disastrous partnership with a mystical Frenchman (intent on financing a trip to Tibet by winning a gas-mask competition); his uneasy relationship with London's pimps and prostitutes and their common nemesis, Inspector Matthew of Scotland Yard. These novels are classic examples of his black comedy which few writers have equaled. He continued writing until his death in 1961, finishing his last novel, Rigodon, on the day before he died. In Conversations with Professor Y (1955) Céline defends his style, indicating that his heavy use of the ellipsis and his disjointed sentences are an attempt to embody human emotion in written language.
His writings are examples of black comedy, where unfortunate and often terrible things are described humorously. Céline's writing is often hyper-real and its polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
qualities can often be startling; however, his main strength lies in his ability to discredit almost everything and yet not lose a sense of enraged humanity. Céline was also an influence on Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...
, Günter Grass
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
, Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller
Joseph Heller was a US satirical novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His best known work is Catch-22, a novel about US servicemen during World War II...
and Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...
. Bukowski wrote "'first of all read Céline; the greatest writer of 2,000 years"
External links
- Trifles for a Massacre English translation
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) – pseudonym of Louis-Ferdinand-Auguste Destouches at "books and writers"
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
- Louis Destouches/Céline, a double imposture, a conference held on 22 May 1999 about Céline and Semmelweis
- Society of Céline Studies French association that organizes international symposia on Céline