Celine is one of my all-time favorite writers. He was ahead of his time, and woefully under appreciated in America. Although he was a physician in France in the early 19th century, he wrote in argot, the voice of thieves, vagabonds, urchins, and common folk. His gallows humor is unmatched, and his semi-autobiographical story has a darkness all of its own. I love Celine. ( )

As titles go--probably this is my favorite. It almost rolls off the tongue. As the sequel to Journey to the End of the Night (another great title) it's almost but not quite as good. That's an opinion and to be taken for what it's worth. In any case like Journey there are things auto-biographical about it. The Ferdinand Bardamu of the first book is here just Ferdinand. The Bardamu of Journey begins his story on the front lines of World War I. The Ferdinand as 'Death' begins is a child in a small alley of shopfronts in a Parisian working class slum whose parents are eking out a living--the father going from job to job as a lowly paid clerical worker and the mother selling knickknacks and mending lace. They live off noodles and other bland foods because noodles are odorless and because lace is susceptible to picking up odors. They are petit-bourgeois--conservative by nature as are their mostly mean-spirited neighbors and Ferdinand's parents aspire to Ferdinand's being just like themselves--a small time shopkeeper. To this end they send him to England to learn English at a boarding school (Meanwell College) which they think will be helpful to him later on his life. Ferdinand even as a child though carries along with him his resentments. He arrives at the boarding school run by an older man Mr. Merrywin and his much younger wife Nora and the more they try to get Ferdinand to learn and to interact the more Ferdinand obstinately refuses despite which he begins to pick up a language he refuses to speak and despite his unexpressed attraction to Nora. There are other problems at the school--and little to eat because the school is going under and so economizing on everything. It all ends disastrously with the school closing and Nora's suicide. From there back to France--only things are not going so well there either. His father is increasingly prone to anger and the violent expression of it which eventually leads to a physical confrontation and Ferdinand is now out on the street. His Uncle Edouard takes him in but he soon finds work with a Courtial des Pereires one of the most if not the most unique characters in all of Celine's work. Courtial is an inventor, a con man and a charlatan. He is a man of big ideas and though these ideas tend to flop altogether or get him into trouble with the neighbors or the law Courtial is always irrepressible. He never gives up--he simply finds another idea and/or another home. Courtial's wife on the other hand is a real battleaxe, plug-ugly and exasperated by a life full of Courtial's shenanigans. Eventually though that life catches up with des Perieres and like Nora he kills himself. Without a doubt it's the most graphic and at the same time most hilarious suicide that I've ever come across in print. On a lonely and wintry country backroad in front of a neighbors' farm Courtial has stuck the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth and blown half of his head off--the remainder of which is left frozen to the road. Ferdinand and Mrs. des Pereires are left to clean up the mess tugging and pulling at the head and body frozen to the road the body bent like a pretzel. The farmers very reluctantly after a lot of negotiation eventually lend then a wheel barrow and a shovel and they're able to take the body back to their home upon which they are soon being interrogated by the police. Ferdinand once again returns to his uncle but he has made up his mind to break free of his parents and his past life. He will join the army.

Celine as a writer is known for his black humor, his pre-existentialist kind of philosophizing which is all here in full force. His sense of exaggeration was unique for his time--somewhat borrowed from Rabelais and a precursor in some ways to the Magical Realism of some of the writers of the Latin Boom. At times he can be surprisingly lyrical. He moves effortlessly between mood and event oftentimes running through a whole gamut of emotion and at the same time his was a brilliantly comedic voice. A disturbed individual in some ways but a truly great writer. ( )