Journey to the End of the Night is the
first novel of Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
This semi-autobiographical work
describes antihero Ferdinand Bardamu.
Bardamu is involved with World War I,
colonial Africa, and post–World War I
United States, returning in the second
half of the work to France, where he
becomes a medical doctor and establishes
a practice in a poor Paris suburb, the
fictional La Garenne-Rancy. The novel
also satirizes the medical profession
and the vocation of scientific research.
The disparate elements of the work are
linked together by recurrent encounters
with Léon Robinson, a hapless character
whose experiences parallel, to some
extent, those of Bardamu.
Voyage au bout de la nuit is a
nihilistic novel of savage, exultant
misanthropy, combined, however, with
cynical humour. Céline expresses an
almost unrelieved pessimism with regard
to human nature, human institutions,
society, and life in general. Towards
the end of the book, the narrator
Bardamu, who is working at an insane
asylum, remarks:
…I cannot refrain from doubting that
there exist any genuine realizations of
our deepest character except war and
illness, those two infinities of
nightmare,
(…je ne peux m'empêcher de mettre en
doute qu'il existe d'autres véritables
réalisations de nos profonds
tempéraments que la guerre et la
maladie, ces deux infinis du cauchemar,)
A clue to understanding Céline's Voyage
is the trauma he suffered during his
experience of the Great War 1914–1918.
This is revealed by a study of
biographical and literary research on
Céline, histories of the war, diaries of
his cavalry regiment, and literature on
the trauma of war. Céline's experience
of the war leads to "…the obsession, the
recurrent anguish, the refusal, the
delirium, the violence, the pacifism,
the anti-Semitic aberration of the 30’s,
[and] his philosophy of life …."
Literary style
Céline's first novel is most remarkable
perhaps for its style. Céline makes
extensive use of ellipsis and hyperbole.
He writes with the flow of natural
speech patterns and writes vernacular,
while also employing more erudite
elements. This influenced French
literature considerably. The novel
enjoyed popular success and a fair
amount of critical acclaim when it was
published during October 1932. Albert
Thibaudet, perhaps the greatest of the
entre-deux-guerres critics, said that
during January 1933 it was still a
common topic of conversation at dinner
parties in Paris.
Influence and legacy
Paolo Sorrentino's 2013 film The Great
Beauty opens with a quote from Journey
to the End of the Night. The film
concludes visualizing the last paragraph
of the book passing under bridges,
arches, locks along the city's river.
Will Self has written that Journey to
the End of the Night "is the novel,
perhaps more than any other, that
inspired me to write fiction".
The song "End of the Night" by The Doors
references this book, as it had a great
influence on the work of Jim Morrison.
Charles Bukowski makes reference to
Journey in a number of his novels and
short stories, and employs prose
techniques borrowed from Céline.
Bukowski wrote in Notes of a Dirty Old
Man that "Céline was the greatest writer
of 2000 years".
Céline's literary style greatly
influenced Joseph Heller's creation of
Catch-22
In Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 dystopian
science fiction film Alphaville,
protagonist Lemmy Caution dismisses a
taxi driver's offer of route options to
his destination by stating that he is on
"a journey to the end of the night". The
film depicts the use of poetry as a
weapon against a sentient computer
system.
The novel inspired the Israeli singer
and songwriter Aya Korem to write a song
called "Tania". It is a sad yet
satirical song, and Journey is credited
in the liner notes of the album.
Norwegian progressive metal band Green
Carnation's debut album, Journey to the
End of the Night, is a reference to
Céline's novel.
The title of noise/punk band Heroine
Sheiks' 2008 release Journey to the Edge
of the Knife is a reference to the
novel.
Publication history
Jacques Tardi illustrated a 1988 edition
with 130 drawings.
Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. Journey to the
End of the Night. Manheim, Ralph. New
York: New Directions. ISBN
978-0-8112-0847-5. 
Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. Journey to the
End of the Night. Manheim, Ralph.
London: Calder. ISBN 978-0-7145-4139-6. 
Sturrock, John. Louis-Ferdinand Céline,
Journey to the End of the Night.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0-521-37854-0. 
Céline, Louis-Ferdinand; Vollman,
William T.; Manheim, Ralph. Journey to
the End of the Night. New York: New
Directions. ISBN 978-0-8112-1654-8.  
See also
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
References
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles
Bukowski
