Ferdinand Bardamu, el protagonista de esta historia, es un héroe de nuestro tiempo, y sabido es que nuestro tiempo apenas sí da héroes: herido en la primera guerra mundial, enamorado de una prostituta sin futuro, sobreviviendo en las colonias francesas en África, persiguiendo su particular sueño americano, de regreso en Francia trabajando como médico rural... Una historia capaz de llegar a lo más hondo del corazón humano; una gran novela que contiene muchas claves para comprender la literatura actual.
Death on the Installment Plan is the story of young Ferdinand's first 18 years. His life is one of hatred, of the grinding struggle of small shopkeepers to survive, of childhood sensations and fantasies - lusty, scatological, violent, but also poetic. There is a running battle with his ineffectual insurance clerk of a father, with his mother, who lives and whines around the junkshop she runs for the boys benefit; there is also the superbly funny Meanwell College in England, where the boy went briefly, a Dickensian, nightmare institution. Always there is humiliation, failure, and boredom, at least until he teams up with the "scientist" des Pereires. This inventor, con-man, incorrigible optimist - whose last project is to grow enormous potatoes by electricity - rescues him, if only temporarily; for the reader he is one of the most lovable charlatans in French literature.
The original manuscript of Cannon-Fodder (Casse-pipe) was in part destroyed or stolen when Céline's Montmartre flat was ransacked at the time of Liberation in 1944. Céline, a presumed collaborator and in fear of his life had already fled. This surviving fragment, translated into English here for the first time, is the opening chapter of that work and tells us of the experiences of a raw recruit on the first evening of his enrolment.
"The tale of a man imprisoned and reviled by his own countrymen, the Fable follows its character's decline from virulent hatred to near madness as a result of his violent frustration with the hypocrisy and banality of his fellow human beings. In part because of the story's clear link to his own case - and because of the legal and political difficulties this presented - Celine was compelled to push his famously elliptical, brilliantly vitriolic language to new and extraordinary extremes in Fable for Another Time. The resulting linguistic and stylistic innovation make this work stand out as one of the most original and revealing literary undertakings of its time."--BOOK JACKET.
In Guignol's Band, first published in France in 1943, Céline explores the horror of a disordered world. The hero, the semi-autobiographical Ferdinand, moves through the nightmare of London's underworld during the years of World War I. In this distressing setting, he meets pimps and prostitutes, pawnbrokers and magicians, policemen and arsonists. He sees social and physiological decomposition as these processes unfold along parallel lines of development. The illusions of existence are nakedly exposed. The narrative erupts in Céline's characteristic elliptical style. His splintered sentences and scatology reflect his fury at the fragmentation of experience and at his own impotence in the face of it. Out of his rage, he forces the meaninglessness back on itself, and the exuberance of his struggle triumphs in the comic exaggeration of satire. Ultimately, his subject is not death but life, and he responds to it by a strengthened commitment to the sensual and concrete. His hallucinatory world is so vividly realized that it does, indeed, challenge the reality of the reader's more conventional world.
Translated now for the first time into English, War is a powerfully vivid,
unflinching, darkly comical exploration of the physical and mental trauma of
the Western Front, which provides a fascinating missing link in the writing
career of one of the greatest - and most controversial - authors of the
twentieth century.
Written in Celine's trademark style - a headlong rush of slang, brusque
observation and quirky lyricism, delivered in machine-gun bursts of prose and
ellipses - London Bridge recreates the dark days during the Great War with
sordid verisimilitude and desperate hilarity.
Druhý svazek Célinovy Féerie pro jindy je považován za bezdějový, jak tvrdí kritici. Popisuje spojenecké bombardování Paříže v noci z 21. na 22. dubna 1944, které Céline sleduje ze svého domu v Girardonově ulici. V této roli kronikáře, nebo spíše zapisovatele, zachycuje události v časovém sledu. Jeho pozorování výbuchů Paříže připomíná Plinia Staršího během erupce Vesuvu. Céline zmiňuje metodu fantaskopie, která umocňuje jeho popis. Vnímá zkázu jako převrácený svět, přičemž perspektiva pilotů nad městem přidává další rozměr. Opakující se výjevy jsou vždy mírně posunuty, což vytváří fantaskopický děj. Každý obyvatel domu má svůj příběh, včetně detailů jako jsou almara, kredenc a Célinovy rukopisy. Zapisovatel orchestruje jazyk na pozadí orchestrální skladby, jejímž dirigentem je Julek. Po zničení se nad rozbřeskem objevuje tvář herce Norberta z éry němého filmu. Tento svazek, zdánlivě bez děje, má jedinou hlavní postavu: hudbu Célinova stylu. Slova fungují jako stehy v goblénu, kde opakování a obměna vyžadují proměnu odstínu. Rytmus a gradace jsou podřízeny úkolu zapisovatele, který se soustředí na přesnost a vážnost v líčení toho, co vidí.
