Louis-Ferdinand C茅line, 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 脿 cr茅dit (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鈥攁 crippled arm and headaches that plagued him all his life鈥攂ut 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.
鈥瑿asse - pipe. Suivi du Carnet du cuirassier Destouches = Cannon-Fodder (Guignol's Band), Louis-Ferdinand C茅line
Cannon-Fodder is an unfinished novel by the French writer Louis-Ferdinand C茅line.
The largely autobiographical narrative is set before World War II, and roughly continues where C茅lines' 1936 novel Death on Credit ended.
Much of the novel disappeared in 1944. Surviving fragments have been published from 1948 and onward, the main part in book form in 1949.
The story begins at night with the arrival of a new soldier in a regiment, and ends at dawn the next day. During the night, we see slang, violence and military rudeness. A scurrile, and grumpy commander, whose words at the same time make people happy, a squad that all together have forgotten the password of the night and ...
In what other context than war, stench, vulgarity, and what is most repugnant in man could C茅line best express herself? Very little, in my opinion, and it is in this context that this short novel takes place. Rarely has C茅line been so at ease in making us uncomfortable. We feel the stench, the cramped environment, the confused language of the drunks, and we hear the officers bellowing at us; C茅line truly has the art of propelling us into the universe that he depicts for us, and this is perhaps one of those that best allows him to express his talent.
Un fragment de la vie d'un bleu engag茅 volontaire dans la cavalerie lourde 脿 l'aube de la guerre 14-18. Bien qu'un peu familier de l'艙uvre de C茅line, le jargon militaire combin茅 脿 l'argot cher 脿 l'auteur rend quelques demi-pages parfois difficilement intelligibles. Mais c'est bien du C茅line, 莽a envoie et c'est bon, m锚me si c'est tr猫s (trop) court.
Dit verhaal is een fragment van een verloren gegaan manuscript. Een jongeman meldt zich aan bij de cavalerie als vrijwilliger, de ellende begint vanaf de eerste minuut.... Dat C茅line niet van het leger en het kazerneleven hield, is een understatement. Van begin tot het einde schuttingtaal, kleinerende scheldpartijen, de gewone soldaat krijgt nogal wat stront over hem heen, letterlijk en figuurlijk.
鈥楢lles wat strepen heeft is alleen maar op de wereld gezet om Jan Lul kapot te krijgen! Ik weet waar ik het over heb! Ik heb mijn portie gehad! Het is overal niks, maar het ergste is wel zoveel stront te vreten voor een sou per dag!鈥� (鈥�) Wij arme stakkers! De gebeten honden! Als het oorlog wordt gaan we d鈥檙 allemaal aan! Arme ons! Kanonnevoer! Schietschijven!鈥�
A volunteer experiences World War I as a soldier. It 鈥檚 no feast, it 鈥檚 hardship to the excremential. I can see for C茅line the need to live it up and take it out on readers, but I cannot see literature in it. JM