Louis Ferdinand Céline Libri

Pubblicato nel 1932, questo libro autobiografico esplora temi di sradicamento, rivolta e sarcasmo, ed è considerato un classico della narrativa europea del Novecento. L'opera suscitò clamore e scandalo, alimentando un'aura di "maledettismo" attorno al protagonista e all'autore, grazie alla disturbante verità che attraversa il testo. Il viaggio del medico Bardamu, che si sposta dalla prima guerra mondiale all'Africa coloniale, dall'America fordista alla Parigi dei poveri, mette in luce le miserie individuali e quelle più gravi della società. In questo contesto, i valori morali perdono significato, e la distinzione tra bene e male diventa labile. Il duro sfruttamento nelle colonie francesi si riflette nel capitalismo americano, mentre la povertà è una costante comune. La legge della sopravvivenza costringe a scelte spesso disgustose e aberranti. Tuttavia, da questo materiale tragico emergono situazioni di esilarante comicità, in un mix di dolore e riso sostenuto da una scrittura originale, caratterizzata da ritmo sincopato e linguaggio colloquiale. Termini gergali e distorsioni sintattiche si intrecciano a momenti di straordinaria bellezza, creando un "miracolo" espressivo che segna la grande letteratura.

Death on the Installment Plan is the story of young Ferdinand's first 18 years. His life is one of hatred, of the grinding struggle of small shopkeepers to survive, of childhood sensations and fantasies - lusty, scatological, violent, but also poetic. There is a running battle with his ineffectual insurance clerk of a father, with his mother, who lives and whines around the junkshop she runs for the boys benefit; there is also the superbly funny Meanwell College in England, where the boy went briefly, a Dickensian, nightmare institution. Always there is humiliation, failure, and boredom, at least until he teams up with the "scientist" des Pereires. This inventor, con-man, incorrigible optimist - whose last project is to grow enormous potatoes by electricity - rescues him, if only temporarily; for the reader he is one of the most lovable charlatans in French literature.

The original manuscript of Cannon-Fodder (Casse-pipe) was in part destroyed or stolen when Céline's Montmartre flat was ransacked at the time of Liberation in 1944. Céline, a presumed collaborator and in fear of his life had already fled. This surviving fragment, translated into English here for the first time, is the opening chapter of that work and tells us of the experiences of a raw recruit on the first evening of his enrolment.

With an undercurrent of sensual excitement, C line paints an almost unbearably vivid picture of society and the human condition.

"The tale of a man imprisoned and reviled by his own countrymen, the Fable follows its character's decline from virulent hatred to near madness as a result of his violent frustration with the hypocrisy and banality of his fellow human beings. In part because of the story's clear link to his own case - and because of the legal and political difficulties this presented - Celine was compelled to push his famously elliptical, brilliantly vitriolic language to new and extraordinary extremes in Fable for Another Time. The resulting linguistic and stylistic innovation make this work stand out as one of the most original and revealing literary undertakings of its time."--BOOK JACKET.

Often considered to be Celine's funniest work, Guignol's Band showcases its author's idiosyncratic style at its finest, frantically blending slang, invective, onomatopoeia with literary language, and bridging the gap between gritty realism and absurd mysticism.

Translated now for the first time into English, War is a powerfully vivid, unflinching, darkly comical exploration of the physical and mental trauma of the Western Front, which provides a fascinating missing link in the writing career of one of the greatest - and most controversial - authors of the twentieth century.

Written in Celine's trademark style - a headlong rush of slang, brusque observation and quirky lyricism, delivered in machine-gun bursts of prose and ellipses - London Bridge recreates the dark days during the Great War with sordid verisimilitude and desperate hilarity.

Previously announced on Sun & Moon Press, this is the important volume of dances written by Louis-Ferdinand Céline.