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 French
writer and physician, who became famous with his first novel VOYAGE
AU BOUT DE LA NUIT (1932, Journey to the End of the Night). Céline
was wounded severely in World War I and respected as a national
hero.
"In this world we spent our time killing or adoring, or both
together. 'I hate you! I adore you!' We keep going, we fuel and
refuel, we pass on our life to a biped of the next century, with
frenzy, or any cost, as if it were the greatest of pleasures to
perpetuate ourselves, as if, when all's said and done, it would
make us immortal. One way or another, kissing is as indispensable
as scratching."
(from Journey to the End of Night)
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was born in Courbevoie in the Seine Department.
His father was employed by an insurance company and mother dealt
in quality lace. Céline grew in Paris, where his mother set up a
shop in the Passage Choiseul. Céline's parents planned him a career
in business and sent him abroad to learn languages. He studied at
a school at Diepholz in Lower Saxony , then at an English boarding
school and worked in various commercial companies.
In 1912, at the age of 18, he enlisted in a cavalry unit, the Twelfth
Regiment of the Cuirassiers. He was seriously wounded during World
War I in Ypres, which left him with a permanently damaged arm, a
buzzing and ringing in his head and headaches that lasted all his
life. He was awarded the Médaille militaire and a seventy-five percent
disability pension.
Céline was then assigned to the French passport office in London.
In 1916 he worked for a lumber company in the Cameroons and was
sent back to France with malaria and dysentery. In 1915 he married
Suzanne Nebout, a Frencwoman working as a barmaid in London, but
this marriage was not registered with the French consulate. In 1919
he married Edith Follet, whose father was a director of a medical
school. Céline studied medicine in Rennes and received his degree
from the University of Paris in 1924. In the following year he left
his practice, his wife, and his child to work for the League of
Nations. His second marriage ended in 1926.
 Employed
by the League of Nations Céline traveled in Switzerland, the Cameroons,
the United States, Cuba, and Canada. In Detroit he studied working
conditions in the Ford factory. In 1928 he opened a private practice
in a suburb of Paris and in 1931 he began to work for a municipal
clinic at Clichy, in Paris.
"Those who talk about the future are scoundrels. It is the
present that matters. To evoke one's posterity is to make a speech
to maggots."
(from Journey to the End of the Night, 1932)
As a novelist Céline made his debut with Journey to the End
of the Night, which appeared in 1932. It was praised both the
right-wing extremist Léon Daudet and Leon Trotsky, an exiled Communist.
The modern antihero of the story, Ferdinand Bartamu, had much in
common with Céline and covered author's life from1913 to 1932, although
the events are rearranged and re-created to fit in the epic tale.
Céline's second novel, Death on the Installment Plan (1936)
also gained critical success. His journey to the Soviet Union produced
the pamphlet, MEA CULPA, where Céline declared his disenchantment
with the Communist system. He started to work on a third novel but
interrupted it because he thought it was more urgent to try to prevent
his country from entering a new war that he thought would be disastrous.
Céline produced anti-Semitic, pacifist pamphlets, two of which
were condemned by the courts. In BAGATELLES POUR UN MASSACRE Céline
argued, that there is an international Jewish conspiracy to start
a world war. Although Céline´s political ideals had much in common
with the Nazis, he claimed that Hitler was a Jew. Céline's writings
also expressed the fears of an anti-Semitic petit bourgeois who
bitterly resented Léon Blum's Popular Front government (1936-38).
"If you aren't rich, you should always look useful."
 At
the outbreak of World War II Céline served as a volunteer doctor
on a French naval vessel, which was sunk by a Nazi submarine. After
the fall of France in 1940, he rejected both resistance and collaboration
and worked in municipal clinics in Satrouville and in a dispensary
at Bezons. Céline was denounced on the BBC as a traitor and to avoid
execution during the Allied liberation of France, he fled to Berlin
with his third wife, the dancer Lucette Almanzor. In Germany he
was arrested for a short time.
In Sigmaringen Céline treated refugees of the Vichy regime and
settled in Denmark, where he had deposited his savings. He was imprisoned
over a years because of accusations of the Resistance, and released
then on the grounds of ill health.
During his stay in Denmark Céline was convicted in absentia by
a civil court, but in 1951 he was cleared and permitted to return
to France. Gallimard, France's leading publishing house, printed
in the 1950s such Céline's works as FÉERIE POUR UNE AUTRE FOIS I-II
(1952-54) and D'UN CHÂTEAU A L'AUTRE (1957). They were badly received.
Soon after finishing the novel RIGADON, Céline had a stroke. He
died on July 1. 1961.
Céline's reputation as a writer has been shadowed by his anti-Semitism
and anti-Communism, although his importance as an innovative author
has been recognized. Céline used in his works slang, which owed
much to the Parisian poet Jehan Rictus (Gabriel Randon, 1967-1938).
The author's attacks against war, colonialism, and the nightmarish
conditions of urban life influenced such writers as Henry Miller,
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and William Burroughs. All of Céline's books
are more or less based on his own life. In the post-war works the
narrator is a Louis-Ferdinand Céline / Dr. Louis Destouches, exept
in Conversations with Professor Y, which is a series of imaginary
interviews.
For further reading: The Crippled Giant by M. Hindus (1950);
Louis-Ferninand Céline by D. Hayman (1965); Céline and His Vision
by E. Ostrovski (1967); Voyeur, Voyant by E. Ostrovski (1971);
Céline: The Novel as Delirium by A. Thiher (1972); Céline: Man
of Hate by B. Kanpp (1974); Céline by P. McCarthy (1975); The
Inner Dream by J.H. Matthews (1978); Understading Céline, ed,
by W. Burns, J. Flynn and C.K. Mertz (1984); Critical Essays on
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, ed. by W.K. Buckley (1988); Enfin Céline
vint: A Contextualist Reading of Journey to the End of the Night
and Death on the Installment Plan by W. Burns (1989); Céline:
A Biography by F. Vitoux (1992) - SEE ALSO: Other writers with
Nazi symptahies: Knut Hamsun.
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