Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #749167 in Books
• Published on: 1997-08
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

From the Back Cover
When Celine's first novel, Journey to the End of the Night was first published in 1932 it created an instant scandal, being extravagantly praised by its supporters and savagely attacked by its horrified opponents. Four years later came the sequel Death on Credit now available for the first time in Britain in the Ralph Manheim translation. Both were a new kind of novel, frank about the author's thoughts and actions in a way that readers had never encountered, ultra-realistic, and full of incidents that could not possibly be true to life. Journey chronicled the author's experiences in 1914 at the outbreak of war, in the French colonies, in New York and Detroit, and as a Doctor in a working class district of Paris; its descriptions of army brutality, urban poverty, everyday stupidity and greed, and the power of obsession and hatred, were unrivalled and won him the 'Prix Goncourt'. In Death on Credit Ferdinand Bardamu, Celine's alter ego, is still a doctor in Paris, treating the poor who seldom pay him but who take every advantage of his availability. The action is not continuous but goes back in time to earlier memories and often moves into fantasy, especially in Bardamu's sexual escapades; the style becomes deliberately rougher and sentences disintegrate to catch the flavour of the teeming world of everyday Parisian tragedies, struggles to make a living, illness, venereal disease, the sordid stories of families whose destiny is governed by their own stupidity, malice, lust and greed. This fascinating book by one of the greatest 20th Century novelists is an unforgettable experience for the reader.

Celine was born in Paris in 1894 of a lower middle class family and his life was close to the events he describes in his novels. He practised under his real name Doctor L F Destouches, but his right-wing and pro-German attitudes brought him disgrace, and he died in 1961, a broken, bitter man.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant writer
I have reviewed his classic "Journey to the End of the Night" and have no wish to repeat myself but the man is a genius story teller..always a ranting autobiographical descent into a pessimistic,cynical view of life....thoroughly warranted judging by his own life experience....the man must be the best novelist of the 20th century..many people would agree with this who know far better than I do all the various styles and writers that have filled the literary columns...but just read one page to get the flavour..you will be drawn into the spell of his emotional "transposition" as he puts it...just brilliant brilliant stuff.....it is , as I say perhaps his best novel..although "Journey" comes close...he gets "better" with every novel but death on credit is the one to choose out of the whole let to get the real Celinian flavour.....