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Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Followers (2,404)

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Louis-Ferdinand Céline


Born
in Courbevoie, Île-de-France, France
May 27, 1894

Died
July 01, 1961

Genre

Influences


Louis-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
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Average rating: 4.13 · 60,714 ratings · 4,627 reviews · 156 distinct worksSimilar authors
Journey to the End of the N...

by
4.19 avg rating — 42,903 ratings — published 1932 — 347 editions
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Death on the Installment Plan

by
4.21 avg rating — 8,503 ratings — published 1938 — 160 editions
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Guerre

by
3.79 avg rating — 1,476 ratings — published 2022 — 35 editions
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Castle to Castle

by
3.81 avg rating — 1,323 ratings — published 1957 — 72 editions
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Guignol's Band

by
3.72 avg rating — 1,208 ratings — published 1944 — 40 editions
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Conversations with Professo...

3.62 avg rating — 888 ratings — published 1955 — 35 editions
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North

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 761 ratings — published 1960 — 42 editions
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Semmelweis (Eclectics & Het...

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3.90 avg rating — 639 ratings — published 1952 — 29 editions
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Rigadoon

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3.93 avg rating — 534 ratings — published 1969 — 39 editions
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معرکه

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2.92 avg rating — 483 ratings — published 1949 — 13 editions
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More books by Louis-Ferdinand Céline…
Journey to the End of the N... Death on the Installment Plan
(2 books)
by
4.20 avg rating — 51,443 ratings

Castle to Castle North Rigadoon
(3 books)
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3.89 avg rating — 2,654 ratings

Guignol's Band London Bridge
(2 books)
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3.56 avg rating — 2,050 ratings

Fable for Another Time Normance
(2 books)
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3.84 avg rating — 375 ratings

Mea culpa: Un pamphlet poli... Bagatelles pour un massacre L'école des cadavres Les beaux draps
(4 books)
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3.51 avg rating — 375 ratings

More series by Louis-Ferdinand Céline…
Quotes by Louis-Ferdinand Céline  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“I have never voted in my life... I have always known and understood that the idiots are in a majority so it's certain they will win.”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline

“To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them!”
Louis-Ferdinand Celine

“The worst part is wondering how you’ll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you’ll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it’s treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn’t enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I’ve never been able to kill myself.”
Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Polls

February 2018 New School Poll

 
  59 votes, 17.3%

The Castle by Franz Kafka, 316 pages, 1926
 
  50 votes, 14.6%

 
  45 votes, 13.2%

 
  36 votes, 10.5%

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, 384 pages, 1956
 
  20 votes, 5.8%

The Wreath (book one of Kristin Lavransdatter) by Sigrid Undset, 305 pages, 1920
 
  18 votes, 5.3%

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, 104 pages, 1941
 
  16 votes, 4.7%

 
  16 votes, 4.7%

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, 127 pages, 1923
 
  15 votes, 4.4%

Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, 405 pages, 1991
 
  15 votes, 4.4%

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor, 256 pages, 1952
 
  14 votes, 4.1%

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather, 417 pages, 1915
 
  11 votes, 3.2%

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher, 530 pages, 1987
 
  10 votes, 2.9%

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, 216 pages, 1940
 
  8 votes, 2.3%

 
  8 votes, 2.3%

Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller, 357 pages, 1933
 
  1 vote, 0.3%

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