Journey To The End Of The Night (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
Our Journey..."To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength."Celine's first novel begins with the words, "Here's how it started" and finishes "...and that would be the end of us."In between is a journey that takes in childhood, family life, service in the great war, recuperation in a hospital, an adventure in the heart of darkness of colonial Africa, a liberating voyage across the Atlantic, the glamorous promise of New York, factory work in Detroit, a return to Paris, life as a doctor in semi-rural France, a job in an insane asylum, and eventually death. It's an entire kaleidoscope of life experience....To the End of the NightWhat's implied by the end of the night? That we've endured the darkness of the night, and now another day has started? Or is life just one day that ends with the night? Is life a metaphorical journey consisting of only one day and night?It's possible that life is a period that consists of both light and darkness, that it's a blend of both happiness and sadness, and that the end of the night is the death that comes at the end of our lives:"A time comes when you're all alone, when you've come to the end of everything that can happen to you. It's the end of the world...The truth is death."Ultimately, however much we connect with family or society, we must confront death individually.Madelon and the PicaroThe clearest insight into the narrator, Ferdinand, comes from Madelon: "First you cuckold your friends, then you beat their women!"They are polar opposites, almost rivals for the love or affection of Leon Robinson.Whatever ostensible pride Ferdinand might have, Madelon is "clean and beautiful", somebody who makes a point of "fidelity and respectability." She attacks his deluded self-esteem, his arrogance, his narcissism. He responds by slapping her face, twice, "hard enough to stun a mule".Both of them encounter light and darkness. Both experience loss and grief.Ferdinand is a picaro. The novel is as picaresque as anything by Cervantes, Rabelais, Sterne and Swift, except it's set squarely at the cusp of both modernism and modernity. At times, it seems like a precursor to Saul Bellow's more upbeat and upwardly mobile "The Adventures of Augie March". Yet Ferdinand is more old world plebeian than new world noble Augie. In his eyes, the promise of an American-style dream is a cinematic illusion. It turns humans into machines in the name of both production and consumption.A Lecherous ExistenceIf there's one word associated with this novel, it's misanthropy. However, Ferdinand doesn't so much hate the rest of mankind as float along in life, trying to make "practical headway in the course of my harassed existence".The concern of this man is his own existence. The other players are bit parts.As Robinson says to Madelon, "Ferdinand isn't a bad sort, but delicacy isn't his strong point...nor fidelity either!"He derives the greatest love and pleasure from the American, Molly, and "her long, blond, magnificently strong, lithe legs, noble legs. Say what you like, the mark of true aristocracy in humankind is the legs."In other words, he's a pretty typical, lecherous, single guy, an "anxious, frustrated man", occasionally appreciative of "a blonde with unforgettable tits and shoulders", driven by the desire that resides in his testicles, and a quest for amusement and happiness, provided it doesn't come at too great a cost:"Like it or not, a day should be one long almost unbearable pleasure, one long coitus...Happiness on earth would be to die with and while having pleasure."Could life, after all, be one long coitus, and then you die?Beyond MisanthropyI started reading the novel, expecting to be repulsed by its misanthropy. Initially, I was surprised by its fluency, the way the narrative progressed almost organically like life itself, then I succumbed to the exuberance of its story telling, its unexpected sense of humour, its black comedy, even if "all the rest is shit and misery." Eventually, it seemed that, but for the violence against Madelon, it wasn't as misanthropic as its reputation would have it. Thus, for me, it was a far more enjoyable reading experience than I had anticipated. Don't be deterred by anything you've read or heard (including this review). This is a genuine classic! Pessimistic, cynical, perhaps, but still marvellously entertaining.
Bukowski was right: "first of all read Céline; the greatest writer of 2,000 years". Its clear now, Bukowski wanted to be Celine, he failed miserably with his novels though...Anyways, "Joureny to the end of the night" is not a war novel, but still I consider it the ultimate war novel; thus far. What was said in the first hundred pages makes Catch-22 pale in comparison. Well written, funny, dark, pessimistic. Everything one person needs! I fuckin hate Catch-22 (see catch-22 review for full hatred review). But "Journey to the end of the night" is clear and concise. It also uses common language and is unpretentious. Here's some good quotes that no one cares about!Also, great read for doctors and anyone else in a professional career for that matter. Pretty much about life (god that sounds cliche and dumb).... He writes in a format that is almost poetic in each line. I dont know how he made every paragraph packed with so much. The guy is brilliant. Its been a month since I finished it, but I still think about this book often. It resonates for awhile. One of my favorites if not my favorite.Quotes:"I was a kid in those days and the prison used to frighten me. I didn't yet know what men were like. I shall never again believe what they say or what they think. It is of men, and of them only, that one should always be frightened.""The colonel's stomach was slit open and he was making an ugly face about that.""Meanwhile I made love to her more and more often, having assured her that it would make her slim.""Truly everything that is really interesting goes on in the dark. One knows nothing of the inner history of people.""I tell you, worthy little people, life's riffraff, forever beaten, fleeced, and sweating, I warn you that when the great people of this world start loving you, it means that they are going to make sausage meat of you.""He had the intellectual's vice; he was futile. The fellow knew too much and it confused him. He had to resort to a lot of tricks to kindle his own enthusiasm, to make up his mind.""The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to a war, and even more to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy. It's always so."** "As soon as work and the cold restrain us no longer, as soon as their stranglehold is loosened, you catch sight in the white race of what you see on a pretty beach when the tide goes out; reality, heavy-smelling pools of slime, the crabs, the carcasses and the scum.""Any chance of cowardice is a wonderful possibility of salvation if you know what you're up to."
What do You think about Journey To The End Of The Night (2006)?
The book I would choose if I could keep only one book. Witnessing World War I, Celine understood what entering the modern era meant, and the writing it required. tBardamu, the main character, is simultaneously cynical and caring, kind and criminal. He contains the contradiction of cruelty and kindness present in real people. The book follows him as a soldier in World War I, a businessman in Africa, an assembly line worker in the U.S., and a doctor in the shitty suburbs of Paris, and the many meeting with his alter ego Robinson. Through all of this we get the first person commentary of Bardamu on war, work, the jungle, New York, Paris, people, and life. tJourney has a reputation for being exceedingly cynical, but I find it one of the most honest assessments of human character and motivation ever written. Maybe I’m exceedingly cynical too, but I feel better every time I read it. And I can reliably pick it up and read it anytime, anywhere, and enjoy it again. tThere’s a reason that some of the great modern writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, and Charles Bukowski, loved the writing of Celine. Like other style changing greats in other genres, he looked around and saw something lacking in literature. A raw, horrible honesty, expressed directly and lyrically.
—Robert
just finished reading it and it really feels like it might be the central book of the entire 20th century. i see catch-22 and henry miller and william burroughs and kerouac and sartre and beckett and bukowski and vonnegut and hunter s. thompson and bret easton ellis and about a million other people... celine's voice is just so clear now, standing behind all of them... it's not even that i like the book so much (though it's ferocious and fun and has a lot of great lines), it's just that it's like this giant puzzle piece that i never saw before and now suddenly everything makes a whole lot more sense. Suddenly he fell asleep in the candlelight. After a while I got up to look at his face. He slept like everybody else. He looked quite ordinary. There ought to be some mark by which to distinguish good people from bad.
—Ben Loory
Apparently, for a week or so in June 1997 I either lost my sense of humor or felt some kind of glow of optimism that made me feel the misanthropic subject of this book was boring. My principle memories of reading this for the first time were a) being bored and b) buying a bunch of The Smiths and The Cure tapes at a garage sale. For some reason when I saw this book sitting on my bookshelf last week I thought I'd give it another try. Why? I don't know exactly. I have lots of unread books, but I felt like I might have not gotten everything I could have from the book. This time I quite enjoyed the book. It's a nice antidote to any feelings that things were probably better 'back in the day', it's good to cleanse the mental palate of this particular delusion now and again. Things were bad then too, which means that if there is a constant in lots and lots o' people being worthy of disgust, then to grumble about it too much can be i) fun, but ii) a tautology and thus ii.a) not really relevant and ii.b) not at all applicable to the discourse of progress/barbarism/ whatever you want to call it. For example; does this mean that most people being shitty fucking assholes is relevant to all of those douchebags wandering around oblivious to anything but their own phone conversations? Is pointing out all of the assholes and defining them as such, really any different than saying all people have heads, and most of them have hair on their heads? And then basing most everything you say about the headedness/hairedness of people? No! Instead is it possible that in a Kantian categorical something or other people can be a priori described as assholes? All of them of course except for you and your loved ones, and me and my loved ones. We are of course the exception. Now, I'm not saying everyone is a piece of shit. And neither is Céline, in fact there is one character who isn't in the book!! One!! There is hope for us yet, sadly that one decent person is stuck sitting on a river in Africa with one other person who is an asshole. But he's out there, you know sort of Kurtz like. Now I could do a number of things here. I could give a plot synopsis, aka write a book report. I could try to come up with some kind of serious analysis of the book. I could try to write a 'mock' Céline style something or other, that probably wouldn't be too funny. I could ignore the book altogether and write about myself, and use the book as a vague jumping off point; i.e., write all about the types of people I hate and make myself Céline like. I could also post some pictures of animals, which I actually like to do because then I can come back and look at them later and I figure maybe you do too. I could do all kinds of things. I could just end the review here and then strike up a conversation with another goodreader who would actually be me in disguise, but we'd be really witty and surprisingly similarly read in titles that aren't that common; of course I would vote for me too, and if you tried to call me on it I would just ignore you and change topic with myself. I could do any of these things. There are so many choices, and it is so overwhelming in the various ways I can try to fleece votes, which can be cashed in for all the AMAZING prizes that are only available to the people who are on the best reviewer list. Please don't ask for details about these prizes, I've said too much already.
—Greg
