Journey to the End of the Night

Name: Journey to the End of the Night
Author: Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Louis-Ferdinand Céline · 1932

A first-person picaresque through WWI, Africa, Detroit, and Paris that destroyed genteel French prose. Celine invented a raw, slangy, furious voice in 1932 that influenced Beckett, Miller, and Kerouac. Le Monde ranked it sixth. Morally appalling author; extraordinary novel.

The case against

on the length
“it felt much longer than its already long 600 odd pages”
three stars · a book blog
on the tone
“The unrelenting darkness wore on me, and at times it felt repetitive and overlong.”
a book blog
on the author’s politics
“became a Nazi sympathiser within a few years after the 1932 publication of this book.”
a book blog
on the bleakness
“It really is one of the most depressing works you could read.”
a book blog