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parmyc's review against another edition
5.0
ابتداً تنها چیزی که برای توصیف حسم به این کتاب به ذهنم میرسه اینه که بگم «کیف کردم!»
از همون صفحه‌ی اول پر واضح بود که قراره ازم ۵ بگیره. یه سری کتابها از همون خط اول به دلم میشینن.
بیشتر از اون چیزی که انتظار داشتم خودم رو در شخصیت فردینان پیدا کردم. بعد از مدتی به عنوان خواننده اینقدر نسبت به شخصیتش شناخت پیدا میکنید که اول هر فصل میشه حدس زد قراره تو این موقعیت جدید دووم بیاره یا نه.
قلم نویسنده به قدری حرفه‌ایه که شما حتی گذر عمر فردینان رو هم حس میکنید.
و صد البته! ترجمه‌ی شاهکار مرحوم غبرایی. ترجمه‌ای که اینقدر روون و بی‌نقصه که انگار ترجمه نیست، اثر تالیفی خود آقای غبراییه.
بی نهایت کوت محبوب دارم تو این کتاب. تماماً پر از هایلایت و خط‌خطیه.
اما میخوام این کوت رو بذارم چون تقریباً آخراش بود و به نظرم فلسفه کل کتاب تو همین پاراگراف خلاصه میشه.
«آن طرف، دور دورها، دریا بود. ولی حالا دیگر هیچ میلی نداشتم که تصور دریا را توی ذهنم زنده کنم. کار دیگری در پیش داشتم. هر چه سعی می‌کردم که خودم را به راه دیگری بزنم و روبروی زندگیم قرار نگیرم فایده‌ای نداشت، همه جا روبرویش قرار می‌گرفتم. هر گوشه‌ای خودم را می‌دیدم. در بدری من دیگر تمام شده بود. حالا نوبت دیگران بود!… پرده صحنه زندگی پایین افتاده بود! همه ما به آخر خط رسیده بودیم!…»
از همون صفحه‌ی اول پر واضح بود که قراره ازم ۵ بگیره. یه سری کتابها از همون خط اول به دلم میشینن.
بیشتر از اون چیزی که انتظار داشتم خودم رو در شخصیت فردینان پیدا کردم. بعد از مدتی به عنوان خواننده اینقدر نسبت به شخصیتش شناخت پیدا میکنید که اول هر فصل میشه حدس زد قراره تو این موقعیت جدید دووم بیاره یا نه.
قلم نویسنده به قدری حرفه‌ایه که شما حتی گذر عمر فردینان رو هم حس میکنید.
و صد البته! ترجمه‌ی شاهکار مرحوم غبرایی. ترجمه‌ای که اینقدر روون و بی‌نقصه که انگار ترجمه نیست، اثر تالیفی خود آقای غبراییه.
بی نهایت کوت محبوب دارم تو این کتاب. تماماً پر از هایلایت و خط‌خطیه.
اما میخوام این کوت رو بذارم چون تقریباً آخراش بود و به نظرم فلسفه کل کتاب تو همین پاراگراف خلاصه میشه.
«آن طرف، دور دورها، دریا بود. ولی حالا دیگر هیچ میلی نداشتم که تصور دریا را توی ذهنم زنده کنم. کار دیگری در پیش داشتم. هر چه سعی می‌کردم که خودم را به راه دیگری بزنم و روبروی زندگیم قرار نگیرم فایده‌ای نداشت، همه جا روبرویش قرار می‌گرفتم. هر گوشه‌ای خودم را می‌دیدم. در بدری من دیگر تمام شده بود. حالا نوبت دیگران بود!… پرده صحنه زندگی پایین افتاده بود! همه ما به آخر خط رسیده بودیم!…»
kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review against another edition
5.0
In the spirit of Celine’s book I will try to curse in this review. I think he would approve.
Well, shit.
The bastards are out to get you.
The question is, which bastards.
This book, this stream of piss, is just like piss. No, really it is because we all need to piss, right? You go to the doctor if you can’t. That’s like this book. You’re not going to want to read this book. You’re going to cock that eyebrow and shake that head. The words racist and sexist are going to dump from your mouth when you discuss Celine. You will say, correctly, that the world is a depressing enough place already, and you really don’t want to increase the dosage of your happy pills again.
All that will be true.
But you should read this book. Because it tells you, strangely and in a depressing way, that you are not alone. It also contains pearls of wisdom like:
“Dogs look like wolves when they’re sleeping” (106).
“Love is harder to give up than life. In this world we spend our time killing or adoring or both together” (59).
“The rich don’t do evil themselves. They pay” (287).
Celine writes at one point, “The best thing to do when you’re in this world, don’t you agree, is to get out of it” (49). He’s not advocating suicide (and neither am I), but let’s be honest, we’ve all felt this way. Getting out of it can even mean going to Mars. See, this book is about the human condition, but the internal human condition, the dark night of the soul in reality, the side we don’t let people see, that we rarely talk about, the fucking black dog that Churchill walked.
What the hell, just read it and get drunk afterwards.
ayahefnawy5's review against another edition
3.0
dont know how to rate this one, loved some passages but couldnt follow the story line
literaryjunk's review against another edition
4.0
Brilliant, funny, philosophical, misanthropic. It's hard to understand how great writers (also Knut Hamsun) could be rabid Nazi supporters as well - I'd have thought the sensitivity and sensibility required for the first would rule out the second - but there you have it.
johnsalomon's review against another edition
5.0
I'm about 1/3 into this book and it's already amazing. I've rarely come across a translation (this is the OneWorld Classics / Ralph Manheim version) that's been so eloquent in its own right, and which let me map the colorful idiomatic phraseology and humor to the original so well.
The story and prose flow marvelously, so far it's one of my favorite books this year.
The story and prose flow marvelously, so far it's one of my favorite books this year.
david_mag's review against another edition
5.0
What a book. If possible has to be read in french because I doubt any translation can do justice to the strength of the prose. Most of the book resonated with me, it's curious to see how many parallels there are with situations and feelings of a man that wrote this a hundred years ago, to paraphrase Celine you'd like to think men have gotten slightly better while time passed...
finallysref's review against another edition
5.0
A meandering, quasi-autobiographical, existential travelogue of the worst places on earth - which was anywhere Ferdinand happened to be shirking responsibility at the moment: Paris --> WWI --> colonial Africa --> United States --> France again. The City of Light is no different than the heart of earth's darkest continent (take your pick on the latter).
I found a long-lost and sought-after brother-in-arms that both doesn't discriminate when he discriminates (despise everyone/thing with the same passionate indifference) and rampant/serial user of ellipses. While there is a plot, that ends predictably badly, the story (for me) succeeds best when viewed as a vector for stringing along some of the best one-offs in the history of writing, all jointedly bringing home the same point...
"Suddenly he fell asleep in the candlelight. After a while I got up to look at his face. He slept like everybody else. He looked quite ordinary. There ought to be some mark by which to distinguish good people from bad."
"...the only true manifestations of our innermost being are war and insanity, those two absolute nightmares..."
"There's no tyrant like the brain."
I found a long-lost and sought-after brother-in-arms that both doesn't discriminate when he discriminates (despise everyone/thing with the same passionate indifference) and rampant/serial user of ellipses. While there is a plot, that ends predictably badly, the story (for me) succeeds best when viewed as a vector for stringing along some of the best one-offs in the history of writing, all jointedly bringing home the same point...
"Suddenly he fell asleep in the candlelight. After a while I got up to look at his face. He slept like everybody else. He looked quite ordinary. There ought to be some mark by which to distinguish good people from bad."
"...the only true manifestations of our innermost being are war and insanity, those two absolute nightmares..."
"There's no tyrant like the brain."
leadbelly's review against another edition
3.0
A bleak, pessimistic, nihilistic, violent odyssey that was considered shocking when it came out in 1930s France, and not just for its argot and structure.
christinaoh's review against another edition
4.0
What William T. Voormann wrote in the Afterword of the edition I read is indisputable.
I can't put it in words as precise as his, at least, not in a commercialized online space
with a Code of Conduct. To those who will read Journey to the End of the Night
in translation, as I did, do read the Glossary. It's bitter, polemic, absurd, explosive,
adroit and cynical, and if society's hypocrisy and idiocy ever raised your bile, laughter
may be the best medicine.
I can't put it in words as precise as his, at least, not in a commercialized online space
with a Code of Conduct. To those who will read Journey to the End of the Night
in translation, as I did, do read the Glossary. It's bitter, polemic, absurd, explosive,
adroit and cynical, and if society's hypocrisy and idiocy ever raised your bile, laughter
may be the best medicine.
conorpittman's review against another edition
5.0
Journey to the End of the Night is a well-written and profound novel detailing the life and adventures of the narrator, Ferdinand Bardamu (loosely based on the author himself). The novel is deeply existentialist and pessimistic in tone, portraying a crumbling humanity rife with apathy and immorality. Almost every major character in the book has one or more major vices, and most, especially toward the end, demonstrate abject cruelty and disregard for others. Céline portrays humanity through a lens of its negative qualities, and this is amplified through the viewpoint of Bardamu who infused everything with a very sterile and negative tone. The characters in the novel toil endlessly, trying to escape their wretched lives but always ending up in the same place.
The novel is incredibly well written and there were many times when I was stopped by a particularly good sentence.
The characters are all fairly fleshed out and given good characterization. The locations are also very detailed and give you a good sense of the locales Bardamu visits.
A note to some readers, the book was written in the 20’s during France’s colonial control over Africa, and includes copious amounts of extreme racism and racist language, especially when Bardamu is in the African colonies.
Overall I would recommend this book to people who enjoy 20th century literature and existentialist literature.
The novel is incredibly well written and there were many times when I was stopped by a particularly good sentence.
The characters are all fairly fleshed out and given good characterization. The locations are also very detailed and give you a good sense of the locales Bardamu visits.
A note to some readers, the book was written in the 20’s during France’s colonial control over Africa, and includes copious amounts of extreme racism and racist language, especially when Bardamu is in the African colonies.
Overall I would recommend this book to people who enjoy 20th century literature and existentialist literature.