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Exile trilogy #2
شمال
کتاب شمال رمانی به قلم لویی فردینان سلین در سال ۱۹۶۰ بر اساس زندگی شخصی وی نوشته شده است. روایتی از روزهای جنگ و فرارش از کشور فرانسه به دانمارک و حوادث تلخ و تجربیات او که در قالب داستان به روی کاغذ آورده است نخستین چاپ کتاب به زبان فرانسه بوده. برخی از شخصیت های کتاب شمال هم نام افرادی بودند که در زندگی سلین نقش داشته اند و این امر باعث مورد اتهام قرار گرفتن شد و مجبور شد در چاپ های بعدی کتاب نام شخصیت های کتاب را بر اساس تخیلش انتخاب کند
333 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
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1,551 people want to read
About the author
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
146books2,526followersLouis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name of Dr. Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, is best known for his works Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night), and Mort à crédit (Death on the Installment Plan). His highly innovative writing style using Parisian vernacular, vulgarities, and intentionally peppering ellipses throughout the text was used to evoke the cadence of speech.
Louis-Ferdinand Destouches was raised in Paris, in a flat over the shopping arcade where his mother had a lace store. His parents were poor (father a clerk, mother a seamstress). After an education that included stints in Germany and England, he performed a variety of dead-end jobs before he enlisted in the French cavalry in 1912, two years before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. While serving on the Western Front he was wounded in the head and suffered serious injuries—a crippled arm and headaches that plagued him all his life—but also winning a medal of honour. Released from military service, he studied medicine and emigrated to the USA where he worked as a staff doctor at the newly build Ford plant in Detroit before returning to France and establishing a medical practice among the Parisian poor. Their experiences are featured prominently in his fiction.
Although he is often cited as one of the most influential and greatest writers of the twentieth century, he is certainly viewed as a controversial figure. After embracing fascism, he published three antisemitic pamphlets, and vacillated between support and denunciation of Hitler. He fled to Germany and Denmark in 1945 where he was imprisoned for a year and declared a national disgrace. He then received amnesty and returned to Paris in 1951.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Henry Miller, William Burroughs, and Charles Bukowski have all cited him as an important influence.
Translated Profiles:
Луи-Фердинанд Селин
Louis-Ferdinand Destouches was raised in Paris, in a flat over the shopping arcade where his mother had a lace store. His parents were poor (father a clerk, mother a seamstress). After an education that included stints in Germany and England, he performed a variety of dead-end jobs before he enlisted in the French cavalry in 1912, two years before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. While serving on the Western Front he was wounded in the head and suffered serious injuries—a crippled arm and headaches that plagued him all his life—but also winning a medal of honour. Released from military service, he studied medicine and emigrated to the USA where he worked as a staff doctor at the newly build Ford plant in Detroit before returning to France and establishing a medical practice among the Parisian poor. Their experiences are featured prominently in his fiction.
Although he is often cited as one of the most influential and greatest writers of the twentieth century, he is certainly viewed as a controversial figure. After embracing fascism, he published three antisemitic pamphlets, and vacillated between support and denunciation of Hitler. He fled to Germany and Denmark in 1945 where he was imprisoned for a year and declared a national disgrace. He then received amnesty and returned to Paris in 1951.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Henry Miller, William Burroughs, and Charles Bukowski have all cited him as an important influence.
Translated Profiles:
Луи-Фердинанд Селин
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August 22, 2024
Philip Roth said “Céline is my Proust! . . . Even if his anti-Semitism made him an abject, intolerable person. To read him, I have to suspend my Jewish conscience, but I do it, because anti-Semitism isn’t at the heart of his books� . Céline is a great liberator.� (New Yorker, 2013)
has often spoken of the "accelerated novel." It's clear to me now that Céline was an early accelerator. Céline is his own most captivating character. Reading him is to understand just how absurd and homicidal humans can be. Anthropocene [term isn't viable, I know, this was written before the controversy] is a word he never uses, but it's clear his books track he era's "progress."
Just a few notes to give you a sense. This novel is the second of a trilogy. I am reading them in reverse order. The first is and the last, .
Céline was sort of the French equivalent of the American . Though to my knowledge, Pound never addressed his Nazi collaboration in print, as Céline does here. He was tried for treason, but declared incompetent and locked up in St. Elizabeth's, an asylum in Washington D.C. Céline wrote three or four anti-semitic pamphlets, at least one of which was removed from circulation by the Vichy collaborators, presumably because if its vitriol. Céline was cleared by a military tribunal in 1951, though I'm not sure what rationale was used. Maybe it was just his great literary fame.
The book starts with a gathering of "anti-Hitlerites" at the Simplon Hotel in Baden-Baden. (Today's Brenners Park Hotel & Spa.) The date is 20 July 1944. It's been reported that an attempt has been made on Hitler's life at the Wolfsschanze, but not whether he lives. Many of the people in the hotel are said by the fictional Céline to have been part of the plot.
Céline, a doctor, is asked by the local Nazi honcho to go to certain hotel rooms and check on the well-being of others. In the first room he sees a picture of Adolf Hitler hanging upside down with a piece of black crape across it. An orgy has been in progress; people lie about in various states of undress.
"They looked pretty dumb, loving it up as if the thing had come off! . . . that Adolf wasn't dead! . . . not in the least! . . . the blond colonel and the elevator boy lying on the carpet . . . drunk! . . . gagging." (p. 24)
Antisemite and Nazi collaborator Céline, in flight from France during World War II, thinks of his neighbors back home viciously stripping his home if its valuables. It's clear, he says a number of times, that had he stayed he and his loved ones would have been mobbed to death.
". . . our place on rue Girardon, I'm thinking it must be the same [looted] right this minute, they must be helping themselves . . . bet they've got sweet ordinances! [allowing them to do so] . . . and we'll never see any of the stuff again . . . one side or the other, Boches or brethren, don't worry! all the same, crooks, scavengers, vampires of disaster . . . bloodsuckers, phony lunatics, shysters barge in! . .. take everything you've got! . . . bad reputation? string him up!" (p. 58)
Céline starves himself because he thinks he will be poisoned by his German hosts. He can't sleep because he feels he or his wife Lili may be stabbed in the night. Never is any attempt made on their lives but he's sick to death with fear of what might happen. What us this but hypervigilance? Mental illness. My point is that he never depicts himself in cushy circumstances. He meets conscientious objectors, gypsies (Roma), SS men, Countesses and other remnants of the old nobility, but never does he feel himself safe. And he is forever suspect of any good turn done for him.
". . . we were talking about the picnic under the sequoias . .. Lili, Le Vig, and me, we've agreed not to touch a thing . . . but we've got to be polite, we pretend . . . Lili hands me a sandwich . . . another . . . Le Vig too . . . I've got enormous pockets . . . only one hand free, but it's very deft. . . I think . . . the only trouble. . . if they see my pockets swelling up . . . they won't like it ... I throw a few sandwiches behind me . . . and I chew . . . and chew some more . . . and tell the old battleax that it's really amazing all she's seen in Paris!. . . . . . have I got pockets? . . . ten! twelve on each side . . . leberwurst! . . . foie gras ... it spreads, it melts, it oozes . . . my pants are full of it ... I'll be afraid to move . . . horrible when I have to . . . but Inge interrupts her mother . . . time to get up . . . the picnic's over . . . at least a three-hour drive ahead of us . . . the horses are rested." (p. 271)
440 pages. So a lot more here I'm not even touching on. The end is so frenetic I am reminded of certain Marx Brothers films.
has often spoken of the "accelerated novel." It's clear to me now that Céline was an early accelerator. Céline is his own most captivating character. Reading him is to understand just how absurd and homicidal humans can be. Anthropocene [term isn't viable, I know, this was written before the controversy] is a word he never uses, but it's clear his books track he era's "progress."
Just a few notes to give you a sense. This novel is the second of a trilogy. I am reading them in reverse order. The first is and the last, .
Céline was sort of the French equivalent of the American . Though to my knowledge, Pound never addressed his Nazi collaboration in print, as Céline does here. He was tried for treason, but declared incompetent and locked up in St. Elizabeth's, an asylum in Washington D.C. Céline wrote three or four anti-semitic pamphlets, at least one of which was removed from circulation by the Vichy collaborators, presumably because if its vitriol. Céline was cleared by a military tribunal in 1951, though I'm not sure what rationale was used. Maybe it was just his great literary fame.
The book starts with a gathering of "anti-Hitlerites" at the Simplon Hotel in Baden-Baden. (Today's Brenners Park Hotel & Spa.) The date is 20 July 1944. It's been reported that an attempt has been made on Hitler's life at the Wolfsschanze, but not whether he lives. Many of the people in the hotel are said by the fictional Céline to have been part of the plot.
Céline, a doctor, is asked by the local Nazi honcho to go to certain hotel rooms and check on the well-being of others. In the first room he sees a picture of Adolf Hitler hanging upside down with a piece of black crape across it. An orgy has been in progress; people lie about in various states of undress.
"They looked pretty dumb, loving it up as if the thing had come off! . . . that Adolf wasn't dead! . . . not in the least! . . . the blond colonel and the elevator boy lying on the carpet . . . drunk! . . . gagging." (p. 24)
Antisemite and Nazi collaborator Céline, in flight from France during World War II, thinks of his neighbors back home viciously stripping his home if its valuables. It's clear, he says a number of times, that had he stayed he and his loved ones would have been mobbed to death.
". . . our place on rue Girardon, I'm thinking it must be the same [looted] right this minute, they must be helping themselves . . . bet they've got sweet ordinances! [allowing them to do so] . . . and we'll never see any of the stuff again . . . one side or the other, Boches or brethren, don't worry! all the same, crooks, scavengers, vampires of disaster . . . bloodsuckers, phony lunatics, shysters barge in! . .. take everything you've got! . . . bad reputation? string him up!" (p. 58)
Céline starves himself because he thinks he will be poisoned by his German hosts. He can't sleep because he feels he or his wife Lili may be stabbed in the night. Never is any attempt made on their lives but he's sick to death with fear of what might happen. What us this but hypervigilance? Mental illness. My point is that he never depicts himself in cushy circumstances. He meets conscientious objectors, gypsies (Roma), SS men, Countesses and other remnants of the old nobility, but never does he feel himself safe. And he is forever suspect of any good turn done for him.
". . . we were talking about the picnic under the sequoias . .. Lili, Le Vig, and me, we've agreed not to touch a thing . . . but we've got to be polite, we pretend . . . Lili hands me a sandwich . . . another . . . Le Vig too . . . I've got enormous pockets . . . only one hand free, but it's very deft. . . I think . . . the only trouble. . . if they see my pockets swelling up . . . they won't like it ... I throw a few sandwiches behind me . . . and I chew . . . and chew some more . . . and tell the old battleax that it's really amazing all she's seen in Paris!. . . . . . have I got pockets? . . . ten! twelve on each side . . . leberwurst! . . . foie gras ... it spreads, it melts, it oozes . . . my pants are full of it ... I'll be afraid to move . . . horrible when I have to . . . but Inge interrupts her mother . . . time to get up . . . the picnic's over . . . at least a three-hour drive ahead of us . . . the horses are rested." (p. 271)
440 pages. So a lot more here I'm not even touching on. The end is so frenetic I am reminded of certain Marx Brothers films.
August 4, 2023
گفتار اندر معرفی کتاب
شمال دومین عنوان، از سه‌گانه� «تبعید» به قلم دکتر لویی فردینان اوگوسته دتوش ملقب به «سلین» می‌باش�. عنوان نخست این سه‌گان� «قصر به قصر» نام دارد که در ایران توسط استاد «مهدی سحابی» ترجمه و نهایتا توسط نشر مرکز چاپ و منتشر گردیده است، و عنوان سوم این سه گانه نیز «ریگودون» نام دارد که در آینده به هنگام مطالعه� نسخه� انگلیسی به بررسی ترجمه� آن نیز خواهم پرداخت.
خواننده� ایرانی و به خصوص علاقه‌من� به دکتر سلین باید آگاه باشد که به هنگام مطالعه� این سه اثر چه خواهد خواند تا انتظارات خود را پیش از آغاز مطالعه تعدیل نماید. این سه عنوان هیچ شباهتی با عنوان‌ها� ناب «سفر به انتهای شب» و «مرگ قسطی» از مجموعه� «فردینان باردامو» ندارند و اساسا رمان نیستند. اگر بخواهم به ساده‌تری� شکل ممکن برایتان وصفشان کنم، می‌گوی� سه گانه� تبعید، دفتر خاطرات دکتر سلین در دوران در به دری از اینجا به آنجا به همراه همسرش لیلی و گربه‌ا� «بِبِر» است. سلین با همان ادبیات ناب، بی‌آلای� و عریان خود از وقایع زندگی‌ا� برای ما نوشته و بنابراین خواننده‌ا� که به سراغ این سه اثر می‌رو� باید صبور باشد و به رگبار ناله‌ها� دکتر مجبوب ما گوش جان فرا دهد وگرنه در همان ابتدای کار از هر کدام از این سه کتاب خسته خواهد شد.
گفتار اندر جهل مترجم و سودجویی ناشر ایرانی
شمال توسط مترجمی نادان، کم سواد و بی‌شناخ� نسبت به شخصیت و از همه مهمتر قلم دکتر سلین، به نام آقای «محمود سلطانیه» به صورت کاملا مبتدیانه و نیمه‌کار� ترجمه و این ترجمه� که به معنی واقعی کلمه یکی از ریدمان‌ها� ادبی‌س� توسط ناشرِ سودجو، فاسد و جیب‌بر� به نام «جامی» بدون هیچ توضیحی به اهل کتاب و جامعه� کتاب‌دوس� ایرانی چاپ و منتشر گردیده است.
بارها از اهل کتاب شنیده‌ا� که منظور محمود سلطانیه از اینکه در صفحه� پایینی ترجمه� خود نوشته «ادامه دارد» این است که ادامه� داستان کتاب بعدی سه گانه یعنی ریگودون است! که این نظری کاملا اشتباه است. البته که وقایع در هر سه کتاب به ترتیب به وقوع پیوسته‌ان� اما صفحه� آخر ترجمه� فارسی محمودسلطانیه، دقیقا صفحه� ۲۱۷ کتاب انگلیسی‌س� که تعداد صفحات این کتاب که از روی آن مطالعه نمودم ۴۵۴صفحه است. این مورد به ما نشان می‌ده� ایشان حتی نیمی از کتاب را نیز ترجمه ننموده و در طی سال‌ه� هیچ توضیحی در مورد این حرکت مبتدیانه و سودجویانه توسط مترجم و ناشر ارائه نگردیده است. بنابراین به خواننده� ایرانی و علاقه‌من� به دکتر سلین صمیمانه پیشنهاد می‌کن� که پول در جیب چنین ناشر فاسد و سودجویی بابت خرید کتاب نریزند.
در شمال چه خواهیم خواند؟
کتاب با مقدمه‌ا� بسیار خوب در باب معرفی دکتر سلین به قلم آقای «کورت ونه‌گات»� نویسنده� امریکایی آغاز می‌گرد�. سلین، نویسنده� محبوب من است و پیشتر اطلاعاتی از او داشتم اما این مقدمه به من کمک کرد تا اطلاعات جدیدتری از او بدست آورم نظیر برخورد جسمی که در جنگ به سرش خورد و باعث شد، در موقعیت‌ها� مختلف در زندگی بی‌ارتبا� با شرایط لبخندی غیرارادی بزند که چون مطالعه� کافی در حوزه� روان‌شناس� ندارم، نمی‌دان� این چه نوع بیماری‌ا� محسوب می‌گرد�.
روایت وقایع در شمال، با یک گردهمایی که توسط مخالفان هیتلر در «بادن-بادن»، مورخ بیستم جولای ۱۹۴۴ برگزار گردیده بود، آغاز می‌گرد�. سلین، همسرش و گربه‌ا� از فرانسه به آلمان گریخته‌ان� و در سفر در فکر این است که همسایه‌ا� هرچه اقلام قیمتی در خانه‌ا� قرار دارد را به سرقت خواهد برد. او با ورود به آلمان نگران است که مسمومش کنند و به همین دلیل تا مجبور نشود غذا نمی‌خور� و به خود گرسنگی می‌ده�. شب‌ه� نمی‌خواب� چون فکر می‌کن� ممکن است مورد سوقصد یک آلمانی واقع شوند و در یک جمع‌بند� او از سایه� خود می‌ترسی�. ترس سلین برای من غریبه و بیگانه نبود و خود در روزهای ابتدایی مهاجرتم آن را تجربه کرده و از سایه� خود نیز می‌ترسید�. سلین در ۴۵۴ صفحه بصورت رگباری به شرح وقایع پرداخت و تلاشی برای بهتر شدن شرایط انجام نمی‌داد� او پذیرفته بود که نمی‌توا� چیزی را تغییر داد و صرفا می‌بایس� زندگی را به شکلی پیش برد که از بین نرفت. قلم سلین در این کتاب نیز آغشته به طنز سیاه و مختص به خود اوست که همیشه بوده، گاهی با تمام حرصی که می‌خورد� و می‌خواست� سر خود را به دیوار بکوبم لبخند به روی لبم می‌نشست� اما آن لبخند از مرگ نیز تلخ‌ت� بود.
در پایان امیدوارم که عمرم آن‌قد� کفاف دهد که روزی «ریگودون» را نیز مطالعه نمایم تا بفهمم مقصد این در به دری نهایتا کجا بود.
فایل ای‌پا� کتاب را در کانال تلگرام آپلود نموده‌ام،د� صورت نیاز می‌توانی� آن‌ر� از لینک زیر دانلود نمایید
سیزدهم مردادماه یک‌هزا� و چهارصد و دو
شمال دومین عنوان، از سه‌گانه� «تبعید» به قلم دکتر لویی فردینان اوگوسته دتوش ملقب به «سلین» می‌باش�. عنوان نخست این سه‌گان� «قصر به قصر» نام دارد که در ایران توسط استاد «مهدی سحابی» ترجمه و نهایتا توسط نشر مرکز چاپ و منتشر گردیده است، و عنوان سوم این سه گانه نیز «ریگودون» نام دارد که در آینده به هنگام مطالعه� نسخه� انگلیسی به بررسی ترجمه� آن نیز خواهم پرداخت.
خواننده� ایرانی و به خصوص علاقه‌من� به دکتر سلین باید آگاه باشد که به هنگام مطالعه� این سه اثر چه خواهد خواند تا انتظارات خود را پیش از آغاز مطالعه تعدیل نماید. این سه عنوان هیچ شباهتی با عنوان‌ها� ناب «سفر به انتهای شب» و «مرگ قسطی» از مجموعه� «فردینان باردامو» ندارند و اساسا رمان نیستند. اگر بخواهم به ساده‌تری� شکل ممکن برایتان وصفشان کنم، می‌گوی� سه گانه� تبعید، دفتر خاطرات دکتر سلین در دوران در به دری از اینجا به آنجا به همراه همسرش لیلی و گربه‌ا� «بِبِر» است. سلین با همان ادبیات ناب، بی‌آلای� و عریان خود از وقایع زندگی‌ا� برای ما نوشته و بنابراین خواننده‌ا� که به سراغ این سه اثر می‌رو� باید صبور باشد و به رگبار ناله‌ها� دکتر مجبوب ما گوش جان فرا دهد وگرنه در همان ابتدای کار از هر کدام از این سه کتاب خسته خواهد شد.
گفتار اندر جهل مترجم و سودجویی ناشر ایرانی
شمال توسط مترجمی نادان، کم سواد و بی‌شناخ� نسبت به شخصیت و از همه مهمتر قلم دکتر سلین، به نام آقای «محمود سلطانیه» به صورت کاملا مبتدیانه و نیمه‌کار� ترجمه و این ترجمه� که به معنی واقعی کلمه یکی از ریدمان‌ها� ادبی‌س� توسط ناشرِ سودجو، فاسد و جیب‌بر� به نام «جامی» بدون هیچ توضیحی به اهل کتاب و جامعه� کتاب‌دوس� ایرانی چاپ و منتشر گردیده است.
بارها از اهل کتاب شنیده‌ا� که منظور محمود سلطانیه از اینکه در صفحه� پایینی ترجمه� خود نوشته «ادامه دارد» این است که ادامه� داستان کتاب بعدی سه گانه یعنی ریگودون است! که این نظری کاملا اشتباه است. البته که وقایع در هر سه کتاب به ترتیب به وقوع پیوسته‌ان� اما صفحه� آخر ترجمه� فارسی محمودسلطانیه، دقیقا صفحه� ۲۱۷ کتاب انگلیسی‌س� که تعداد صفحات این کتاب که از روی آن مطالعه نمودم ۴۵۴صفحه است. این مورد به ما نشان می‌ده� ایشان حتی نیمی از کتاب را نیز ترجمه ننموده و در طی سال‌ه� هیچ توضیحی در مورد این حرکت مبتدیانه و سودجویانه توسط مترجم و ناشر ارائه نگردیده است. بنابراین به خواننده� ایرانی و علاقه‌من� به دکتر سلین صمیمانه پیشنهاد می‌کن� که پول در جیب چنین ناشر فاسد و سودجویی بابت خرید کتاب نریزند.
در شمال چه خواهیم خواند؟
کتاب با مقدمه‌ا� بسیار خوب در باب معرفی دکتر سلین به قلم آقای «کورت ونه‌گات»� نویسنده� امریکایی آغاز می‌گرد�. سلین، نویسنده� محبوب من است و پیشتر اطلاعاتی از او داشتم اما این مقدمه به من کمک کرد تا اطلاعات جدیدتری از او بدست آورم نظیر برخورد جسمی که در جنگ به سرش خورد و باعث شد، در موقعیت‌ها� مختلف در زندگی بی‌ارتبا� با شرایط لبخندی غیرارادی بزند که چون مطالعه� کافی در حوزه� روان‌شناس� ندارم، نمی‌دان� این چه نوع بیماری‌ا� محسوب می‌گرد�.
روایت وقایع در شمال، با یک گردهمایی که توسط مخالفان هیتلر در «بادن-بادن»، مورخ بیستم جولای ۱۹۴۴ برگزار گردیده بود، آغاز می‌گرد�. سلین، همسرش و گربه‌ا� از فرانسه به آلمان گریخته‌ان� و در سفر در فکر این است که همسایه‌ا� هرچه اقلام قیمتی در خانه‌ا� قرار دارد را به سرقت خواهد برد. او با ورود به آلمان نگران است که مسمومش کنند و به همین دلیل تا مجبور نشود غذا نمی‌خور� و به خود گرسنگی می‌ده�. شب‌ه� نمی‌خواب� چون فکر می‌کن� ممکن است مورد سوقصد یک آلمانی واقع شوند و در یک جمع‌بند� او از سایه� خود می‌ترسی�. ترس سلین برای من غریبه و بیگانه نبود و خود در روزهای ابتدایی مهاجرتم آن را تجربه کرده و از سایه� خود نیز می‌ترسید�. سلین در ۴۵۴ صفحه بصورت رگباری به شرح وقایع پرداخت و تلاشی برای بهتر شدن شرایط انجام نمی‌داد� او پذیرفته بود که نمی‌توا� چیزی را تغییر داد و صرفا می‌بایس� زندگی را به شکلی پیش برد که از بین نرفت. قلم سلین در این کتاب نیز آغشته به طنز سیاه و مختص به خود اوست که همیشه بوده، گاهی با تمام حرصی که می‌خورد� و می‌خواست� سر خود را به دیوار بکوبم لبخند به روی لبم می‌نشست� اما آن لبخند از مرگ نیز تلخ‌ت� بود.
در پایان امیدوارم که عمرم آن‌قد� کفاف دهد که روزی «ریگودون» را نیز مطالعه نمایم تا بفهمم مقصد این در به دری نهایتا کجا بود.
فایل ای‌پا� کتاب را در کانال تلگرام آپلود نموده‌ام،د� صورت نیاز می‌توانی� آن‌ر� از لینک زیر دانلود نمایید
سیزدهم مردادماه یک‌هزا� و چهارصد و دو
October 17, 2012
By the time cranky French anti-patriot Louis-Ferdinand Celine scratched out North, he had wandered a far distance from the truculent cataclysms of his Journey to the End of the Night. Celine had slipped from acclaimed iconoclast to outsider disgrace. Branded an anti-Semite, reviled as a Nazi sympathizer, Dr. Destouches had etched a paper trail to support both those assessments. North depicts the squalid exile of Celine, his wife and his cat (the cat is much more fleshed-out than the wife), accompanied by a neurasthenic French actor, in a Nazi German countryside darkened by perpetual clouds of RAF bombers on flybys toward dumping deluges of ordnance on Berlin, 70 miles away. The book corrals a scurvy crew of feckless killers, ruthless refugees and aristocratic buffoons and shuffles the human rubble along for nearly 500 pages. North exhibits no conceit of plot and no identifiable narrative drive, is exempt of sympathetic characters and is narrated with far more score-settling complaint than apology. These chapters were written through the hindsight of three prison stints and in the foreshadow of a death that wouldn’t stay away for much more than a year, perspectives reflected in the narrator’s unrelenting humors of lamentation. Reading North took just a little less than forever—just as it had my first time through as a snoozy youth with cigarette burns in all my clothes—but as the last 40 pages closed out, I was already missing Louis-Ferdinand’s whiney extolment of the human condition, not a complex of frailties and refined sensibilities, but a brutish will to endure that is every bit sacred for being entirely profane.
January 8, 2020
Céline nunca desilude: foi com este pensamento que terminei a leitura deste magnífico livro.
A leitura desta obra trouxe-me à memória uma outra: Kaputt, de Curzio Malaparte. Um livro denso e tortuoso onde este autor faz uma viagem similiar à de Céline.
A escrita de Céline não é subserviente a adjectivos bonitos e metáforas polidas.
Nasce e permanece crua, sombria. Persegue-nos até ao fim, indiferente, desassossega-nos. Permanece. Insiste em ser lembrada. Serve-nos o coração fétido do homem. Faz-nos desacreditar.
Uma descida aos infernos da Alemanha nazi, numa peregrinação de desencanto, cheia de apátridas e onde apenas a morte (mais do que a vida!), é a única capaz de revelar a verdadeira igualdade fraterna dos homens.
Excelente. A cada obra sua, percebo que será sempre o meu autor favorito.
~
"...é que não interessa onde ou quando, haja paz, calmaria, guerra, convulsões, são tantas as vaginas, os estômagos, as vergas, as fuças, que não sabemos onde os meter! são às pazadas!... e os corações?... extremamente raros! desde há quinhentos milhões de anos os pénis e os tubos gástricos já não têm conta, e os corações?... contam-se pelos dedos!..."
A leitura desta obra trouxe-me à memória uma outra: Kaputt, de Curzio Malaparte. Um livro denso e tortuoso onde este autor faz uma viagem similiar à de Céline.
A escrita de Céline não é subserviente a adjectivos bonitos e metáforas polidas.
Nasce e permanece crua, sombria. Persegue-nos até ao fim, indiferente, desassossega-nos. Permanece. Insiste em ser lembrada. Serve-nos o coração fétido do homem. Faz-nos desacreditar.
Uma descida aos infernos da Alemanha nazi, numa peregrinação de desencanto, cheia de apátridas e onde apenas a morte (mais do que a vida!), é a única capaz de revelar a verdadeira igualdade fraterna dos homens.
Excelente. A cada obra sua, percebo que será sempre o meu autor favorito.
~
"...é que não interessa onde ou quando, haja paz, calmaria, guerra, convulsões, são tantas as vaginas, os estômagos, as vergas, as fuças, que não sabemos onde os meter! são às pazadas!... e os corações?... extremamente raros! desde há quinhentos milhões de anos os pénis e os tubos gástricos já não têm conta, e os corações?... contam-se pelos dedos!..."
February 8, 2018
Kakvo je samo iskustvo bilo citati ovu knjigu. Selin je jedan veliki genije, majstor svog zanata! Nacin na koji on poima stvarnost je moguc samo za ljude visoke inteligencije. Uz to on je talentovan, talentovan za zivot, ne samo za pisanje. Bas zbog svega ovoga je i najebao kao niko. Putovanje Nakraj Noci, Smrt na Kredit, Od zamka do Zamka, Sever....... Samo citajte, uzivajte. Veliki Selin.
May 6, 2015
One of the best books I have ever read! By turns grotesque and savagely funny, Céline is in top form here.
Who knows how much of this story is fictionalized, but the writer - a Nazi collaborator - did flee Paris as the Allies invaded the continent at the end of WWII.
The journey is a harrowing one but only Céline could make such a thing laugh out loud funny.
HIGHLY recommended.
Who knows how much of this story is fictionalized, but the writer - a Nazi collaborator - did flee Paris as the Allies invaded the continent at the end of WWII.
The journey is a harrowing one but only Céline could make such a thing laugh out loud funny.
HIGHLY recommended.
November 21, 2012
I wish I could go on adventures with Celine and his wife and his cat
January 30, 2023
سه ستاره دادم به ترجمه نه به کتاب!!
آخه مترجم گرامی آقای محمود سلطانیه!کجای دنیا کتابی رو نصفه ترجمه میکنند؟!انتهای کتاب نوشتن ادامه دارد !!هشت سال از چاپ کتاب گذشته و هنوز ادامه کتاب ترجمه و چاپ نشده!
افسوس
آخه مترجم گرامی آقای محمود سلطانیه!کجای دنیا کتابی رو نصفه ترجمه میکنند؟!انتهای کتاب نوشتن ادامه دارد !!هشت سال از چاپ کتاب گذشته و هنوز ادامه کتاب ترجمه و چاپ نشده!
افسوس
July 8, 2009
I love this book and have finished it more than
once but just keep dipping back into it. It's
always invigorating. If you had to be in Europe
during the final months of World War II, you'd
be lucky to be in the company of this shrewd,
humane doctor (the autobiographical narrator),
and his wife and cat and their actor friend.
"Documentary realism and hallucinatory images"
abound, as the book cover says
once but just keep dipping back into it. It's
always invigorating. If you had to be in Europe
during the final months of World War II, you'd
be lucky to be in the company of this shrewd,
humane doctor (the autobiographical narrator),
and his wife and cat and their actor friend.
"Documentary realism and hallucinatory images"
abound, as the book cover says
January 1, 2008
The image of Celine, his wife, best homey and THEIR CAT wandering through bombed out europe during the war, alternating stops between resistance and nazi strongholds is one you will never forget.
Great because it's true (for the most part, I think).
Great because it's true (for the most part, I think).
May 5, 2017
کتاب ته ندارد، یعنی در واقع ادامه ای دارد که ترجمه نشده، در ویکیپدیا نوشته بعدش ریگادون است. کتاب ابتدا هم ندارد، در ویکیپدیا نوشته قبلش «قصر به قصر» است، که این یکی ترجمه شده، اما چون حواسم نبود که در کتابخانه دارمش و هیچ جای مقدمه به آن اشاره ای نشده متاسفانه نخواندمش
داستان در هتلی در سوییس شروع می شود، آقای سلین مثل خودش دکتر است و زن دارد، اولین بار است که داستانی از سلین میخوانم و ایشان متاهل است، اما تقریبا شخصیتش هیچ جایی حضور ندارد، بیشترین محبتی که آقای نویسنده به زنش کرده فصل آخر بود که برایش از آشپزخانه ی روس ها یک قابلمه سوپ دزدید، تقریبا هیچ مکالمه ای با هم ندارند و جز اینکه با او از این شهر به شهر بعدی می رود تقریبا هیچ نقشی هم در داستان ندارد
نویسنده زبانش به تندی «دار و دسته ی دلقک ها» و «مرگ قسطی» نیست و اوضاع انقدر همیشه بحرانی است که فرصتی ندارد برایش در زندگی بدشانسی های عجیب پیش بیاید، و از آدم های اطرافش رذالت ببیند، به عبارتی جنگ است دیگراینجا در این کتاب هیچ کس حتی ادای خوب بودن هم در نمیاورد
از شخصیت ها فقط «هاراس» یاد آدم می ماند، «لویگ» هم در طول این همه صفحه هیچ حرفی ندارد بزند یا شاید هم در واقعیت زده و سلین انقدرمطالب خودش مهم تر بوده، حوصله نداشته بنویسد
کتاب خیلی خوب است، نثر سلین مگر می تواند بد باشد، کسی که این همه از آدم ها بدش می آمده
داستان در هتلی در سوییس شروع می شود، آقای سلین مثل خودش دکتر است و زن دارد، اولین بار است که داستانی از سلین میخوانم و ایشان متاهل است، اما تقریبا شخصیتش هیچ جایی حضور ندارد، بیشترین محبتی که آقای نویسنده به زنش کرده فصل آخر بود که برایش از آشپزخانه ی روس ها یک قابلمه سوپ دزدید، تقریبا هیچ مکالمه ای با هم ندارند و جز اینکه با او از این شهر به شهر بعدی می رود تقریبا هیچ نقشی هم در داستان ندارد
نویسنده زبانش به تندی «دار و دسته ی دلقک ها» و «مرگ قسطی» نیست و اوضاع انقدر همیشه بحرانی است که فرصتی ندارد برایش در زندگی بدشانسی های عجیب پیش بیاید، و از آدم های اطرافش رذالت ببیند، به عبارتی جنگ است دیگراینجا در این کتاب هیچ کس حتی ادای خوب بودن هم در نمیاورد
از شخصیت ها فقط «هاراس» یاد آدم می ماند، «لویگ» هم در طول این همه صفحه هیچ حرفی ندارد بزند یا شاید هم در واقعیت زده و سلین انقدرمطالب خودش مهم تر بوده، حوصله نداشته بنویسد
کتاب خیلی خوب است، نثر سلین مگر می تواند بد باشد، کسی که این همه از آدم ها بدش می آمده
September 23, 2007
Run Ferdinand! Run!
March 22, 2017
Hilarious. Céline translated by Manheim is just sheer perfection and I wouldn't mind traveling with Céline, Lili and Bébert.
May 3, 2011
very nice celine, probably his funniest post ww2 novel imho, + nice splenetic h8 for everyone except his wife and bebert the cat. everyone who says journey and morte on the installment plan are his only good books are wrong and imma punch you if you say it to my face. well, not really. but please to reading about a horde of attack geese trained by angry german housewives and have a larff or two. kind of wish they would update the footnotes tho, like, i don't know who all these political ppl form the 60s who are also frenchmen are, mannheim, except de galle.
April 24, 2022
On a reread (2022), the book was a bit too long, and not as astonishing (of course) as when I first read this. I have now reread, in the past two years or so, Voyage, Mort, Castle, and North � and will presently reread Rigadoon.
I have a copy of the French at hand for passages that were particularly interesting. Certainly, Céline is unique.
I have a copy of the French at hand for passages that were particularly interesting. Certainly, Céline is unique.
November 9, 2020
Yes, Celine was more than merely politically incorrect, but the old bastard could write. Always interesting and often funny, he gives a master-class in the art of ridicule � his off-hand curses continue to maim reputations.
July 4, 2014
J'ai lu la moitié et je suis fasciné. Imaginez un melange de que sais-je? Virginia Woolf et Ernst Junger, peut-être cas donne une idée de cet débordement des récits, obervations, exclamations. Nous sommes aux temps des derniers mois du Troisième Reich. Celine, "collabo" s'échappa de Paris afin de se sauver d'une France invahie par les alliés et les "francais libres" de de Gaulle, une Franmce où il serait surement éxecuté. Comme le francais n'est pas ma langue maternelle j'ai rencontré pas mal des most nouveaux pour moi qui ne se trouvent pas ni dans mon dictionnaire Cassels ni dans mon "petit Robert". Afin de les trouver, je peux prendre mon ordinateur..Bravo la toile! L'energie, le drole d'humeur, le perspective-tous assurent que le récit ne soit jamais ennuyeux. La neutralité parfaite du raconteur fait partie de l'humeur ironique, distance stoicienne, le dieux raconteur, ce qui me fait penser, bizarreemnt peut-être à Jeremy Clarke du "Low Life" dans le "Spectator".
November 18, 2008
Cleline continues his grotesque and unbearably funny journey to the end of the night as WWII ends and he must flee Paris, where he has been rightly branded a Collaborator. This is the story of his escape from France and his journey through a crumbling Germany . . . an absolutely must read for Celine nuts, like me.
February 20, 2015
At 450 pages, it's quite a challenge to get through it. I tore through the last 100, though. Celine's style has matured a lot from Journey to North. He's only gotten more despicable and charming over the years. He paints an interesting picture of Nazi Germany on the cusp of defeat. There's a lot to learn from it, and Celine keeps the reader on his toes. I highly recommend this book.
Read
June 4, 2014ترجمه� بد در حد فاجعه
February 9, 2022
Just starting but impossible for me to think any Celine is any less than 5 stars.
But had to write this corrective to the other reviews which claim that Celine was a Nazi sympathizer. That is the most profound misreading of him imaginable. Celine was an incredibly compassionate advocate for the oppressed and suffering individual, read his treatment of the boy who died under his care in Voyage, or the pregnant German woman at the end of D'un chateau (which I just finished last night).
And try to integrate the fact that the boy was named.....Bebert. Naming the cat you love after a character you lost as a physician, that's really more than it seems.
But most importantly, that Nazi sympathizer bit is objectively wrong. Nazis are a group of humans, and if anyone reads Celine and misses his deeper than the deepest contempt for groups of humans, time has been wasted. He hated them all, Vichy, Nazis, Allies, publishers.. every one except ballerinas, a fetish if ever there were one.
Not a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer, he'd have seen them fast to hell if he'd had a chance.
But had to write this corrective to the other reviews which claim that Celine was a Nazi sympathizer. That is the most profound misreading of him imaginable. Celine was an incredibly compassionate advocate for the oppressed and suffering individual, read his treatment of the boy who died under his care in Voyage, or the pregnant German woman at the end of D'un chateau (which I just finished last night).
And try to integrate the fact that the boy was named.....Bebert. Naming the cat you love after a character you lost as a physician, that's really more than it seems.
But most importantly, that Nazi sympathizer bit is objectively wrong. Nazis are a group of humans, and if anyone reads Celine and misses his deeper than the deepest contempt for groups of humans, time has been wasted. He hated them all, Vichy, Nazis, Allies, publishers.. every one except ballerinas, a fetish if ever there were one.
Not a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer, he'd have seen them fast to hell if he'd had a chance.
February 26, 2017
Funny, brutal, hallucinatory novel about the destruction of Germany at the end of WWII. I'm an admitted Celine nut, but this (along with Castle to Castle and Rigadoon, the other two novels in this WWII trilogy) is just brilliant on another level.
November 9, 2007
hoorar bebert
October 19, 2013
چیز زیادی از کل کتاب نفهمیدم... به نظرم یه روایت نگاری اومد اما خیلی برام مفهوم نبود...
January 11, 2022
چرا که حقیقت همان بازتاب اندیشه است
November 27, 2024
It's Celine! . . . Most people won't like it! . . . Maybe that's why I like him so much! . . .
February 26, 2012
Céline's writing style isn't for everyone, but I dig it. I got into him in a European Lit class in college where we read Guignol's Band, which wound up being one of my favorite novels. North comes nowhere near the excellence of that book, but along the way Céline provides us with many great insights and entertaining moments.
North is a sequel to Guignol's Band, and I feel like at this point Céline wasn't as passionate about the events happening to his characters (the main one being a fictionalized version of himself). Where every page of GB screamed to life, here everything seems tired and worn-out. Which is more or less where the characters are, having been on the move throughout much of World War II, but to have the tone match the action this much often left me feeling bored and indifferent to what was going on. A non-ending didn't help either.
Worth reading if you're really into Céline, but otherwise not necessary.
North is a sequel to Guignol's Band, and I feel like at this point Céline wasn't as passionate about the events happening to his characters (the main one being a fictionalized version of himself). Where every page of GB screamed to life, here everything seems tired and worn-out. Which is more or less where the characters are, having been on the move throughout much of World War II, but to have the tone match the action this much often left me feeling bored and indifferent to what was going on. A non-ending didn't help either.
Worth reading if you're really into Céline, but otherwise not necessary.
January 20, 2020
nothing needs to be said here. but as a personal footnote, this book changed my life as a writer and thinker, the first time i read it, in 1977. bébert the cat, especially, has remained indelible for me, as a perfect witness to the disorder, irrationality, contradictions and chaos of human society and its woes. bébert lives!
January 20, 2012
Une merveille. Sûrement, le meilleur ours de Céline avec l'indépassable Voyage.
Un style hallucinant, un sens aigü de l'observation au service d'une histoire parfaitement construite. Un chef d'oeuvre !
Un style hallucinant, un sens aigü de l'observation au service d'une histoire parfaitement construite. Un chef d'oeuvre !
March 31, 2012
The second of Celine's end of war trilogy. It is not my favourite and had to be withdrawn and changed because of its depiction of one of the characters. Still, yet another wild ride en route to the finale...
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