Journey to the End of the Night is like a travelogue of a journey into the darkest parts of the human soul. It is a dark, pessimistic, almost nihilistic work. Not written like a story, there is no plot to follow, and there are several sharp turns and hidden corners where, as a reader, you might find yourself digging deep to catch up. For all that, this is a great book. I picked this book up originally because I'd heard it had influenced Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five and Heller in Catch-22. Liking both of those I decided to go back to their purported beginnings. It is easy to find Catch-22 in Journey, but that is only a small portion of the story, which begins in World War I France, moves to colonial Africa, with a strong flavor of Heart of Darkness (published long before Journey), then moves to the United States before heading back to France. This physical traveling, the moving around from continent to continent, aside from being part of the work's semi-autobiographical nature, mirrors the mental journey of Bardamu as he travels deeper and deeper into a dark human psyche. Céline examines the darkness of war, of capitalism, and of a shrinking world, touching on religion, science, gender relations, and madness as he does.
There is a lot more that can be said about this book, a lot more about symbolism and nuances, but those things are best explored by reading it. Céline was on the front of the 20th century literary movement, and his writing style is a mixture of descriptive prose and vernacular, is rife with satire, and has a rhythm all its own. My only disappointment is that I cannot read French because I think a lot can be lost from a book like this in the process of translation. I have also read that the newer translation is too contemporary and that to get a better feel for Céline's talent one must read the original translation by John H. P. Marks. That is now something on my list of things to do.
14 down on my way to 52 in 2011
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