Rating: 
Summary: A great book but . . .
Review: Not to be a naysayer, because I know this translation has received quite a bit of critical acclaim, but Celine remains much more lucid and enjoyable in the original Marks translation, which you can probably pick up at any used book store.I looked at a few of my favorite scenes in both books and, while Marks doesn't quite capture Celine's frenetic style, he seems to have a better sense of comic timing, and has a wonderful sense of the rhythm of the book's language. While it may not be as faithful as the Manheim, all in all, it makes for a better read. The book itself is wonderful. I discovered this book by way of Catch-22, because Heller said this Celine was one of his major influences, and found that Journey to the End of the Night was actually a more rewarding read (if a little less funny) than Catch-22. It not only encapsulates most of Heller's ideas about sanity and war, but expands into much richer territory. Also, a little too much has been made of the constant pessimism of the book. It isn't as soul crushing as one might think, and isn't the sort of facile hipster cynicism that a lot of books settle for. Scratch the surface of a pessimist and you'll find a disillusioned optimist. There is a strong undercurrent of humanity in this book, which I didn't always find in Catch-22. I realized this as soon as I came across the character of Alcide, who is living his "wretched life in this tropical monotony...for a little girl who was vaguely related to him, without conditions, without bargaining, with no interest except that of his own good heart." Although the bitterness in this book can sometimes be grating, it is never nasty, stupid, all-encompassing bitterness. The only problem is finding the pockets of hope. As Celine writes, "It wouldn't be a bad idea if there were something to distinguish good men from bad."
Rating: 
Summary: On a Long Dark Path
Review: From up high where I was, you could shout anything you liked at them. I tried. They made me sick, the whole lot of them. I hadn't the nerve to tell them so in the daytime, to their face, but up there it was safe. "Help! Help!" I shouted, just to see if it would have any effect on them. None whatsoever. Those people were pushing life and night and day in front of them. Life hides everything from people. Their own noise prevents them from hearing anything else. They couldn't care less. The bigger and taller the city, the less they care. Take it from me. I've tried. It's a waste of time. --from Journey to the End of the Night Journey is very much what it sounds like -- a loosely autobiographical wandering that starts with the author enlisting almost by accident to fight in WWI. He doesn't waste time describing the war as being a giant, immoral waste of everyone's time and life, really, with the soldier's main mission of the day being little more than looking for a place to eat without getting his head shot off. And to treat it as anything more than that, Celine suggests, is something of a waste of time: What's more important to any discussion of war than its inherent stupidity? The same, it seems, goes for the rest of the story -- the basic undercurrent of the story is the world's core idiocity and how you deal with it (if you choose to). Bardamu, Celine's alter ego, heads for the USA and back, into the slums of Paris and the Congo, and never manages to escape the stupidity and brutality of the men around him. It's not a story of escape, but understanding, you do what you can with what you have. Soon the only way to keep the rest of the world at bay is to use the terror tactics of those around you in reverse... and of course, it's only a matter of time before that backfires as well...
Rating:
Summary: Hardcore Classic
Review: Celine was a WWI veteran, sometimes discontented vagabond, and qualified but barely surviving Doctor/Physician who wrote one of the greatest novels of the 20th Western century. This is it. It's like a bomb hitting you on every page. The level of pessimism, cynicism, black humor, and its concomitant in the bargain--unflinching honesty--had never been equaled before in literature & few have matched it since. By his example, he inspired Henry Miller, Philip Roth, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jack Kerouac & many other luminaries to write in a similar no-holds-barred style. But as they say, the original is always the best & Celine was an original. No less a literary master and 'black satirist' than Nabokov himself has called Celine nothing but a second-rater; but even if you agree with that assesment of Celine's purely literary skills, you have to give credit to the guy for originating the no-nonsense style which made possible an artistically illuminating foray of unprecedented brutal honesty into the seedier aspects of life. During the second World War, Celine wrote and distributed anti-semitic pamphlets and was ardently pro-Nazi and pro-German occupation of France. A lot of people couldn't understand how such an indisputably important artist could also be a Fascist sympathizer. Fascism & art didn't go together in their minds (especially since most of the literati in France who had liked Celine's novels were either strong lefists and/or pro-USSR Communists). Celine had to live in exile for many years as a result of this war-time pro-fascist business, and never regained the scary perfection of form, the shattering style evident on every page of "Journey" (and its less impressive but still amazing follow-up "Death On the Installment Plan"). There's very little in "Journey" that's scatologically trite & meandering, ... this is strong, even poetic stuff--some of the most original prose ever written. At this point in his career Celine's writing was an absolute revelation to most people who read it, and it was equally popular with low-brow and high-brow readers alike. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir used to know entire passages of "JTTEOTN" by heart and quoted from it often to spice up conversations that were getting too uptight. Some people swear by the newer Mannheim translations as the absolute best, but I for one, found them a little too willing to please 'hip' American audiences by using certain more popular forms of speech, at the expense of a stronger but more restrictively high-brow literary quality. That's why I say, read the Manheim versions but don't ignore the older translations available in the libraries , some of them are brilliant and turn Celine into a much more refined writer than Manheim, even if the curse words are toned down and euphemised. Of course, most French people will tell you that it's absolutely ridiculous to read Celine in anything but French!
Rating:
Summary: Voyage through the mind of Celine
Review: Voyage au bout de la Nuit is a haunting masterpiece. It is impossible to finish this opus without having its images prance through your mind- his first encounter with Robinson during the war, his time in the psychiatric center in Paris to be cured by "patriotism" (of all the cures out there), his amusing boat trip to Africa, his riverboat captain who remitted his earnings in the colony to his sick little niece in France whom he had never met and the spellinding denouement of the journey. The character studies that appear in this work are of the same high quality as Balazac- Celine's brilliant sarcastic sense of humor brings a ray of light to the darkness of the work. He seems to always make just the right observation in every scene. As bizarre a statement as it may be with respect to a work by Celine, there were moments where I could not help myself from laughing aloud. The recurrent themes of the night, travel and Robinson (I am still not sure if Robinson was real or a product of bardamu's delerium), provide a coherent structure that is internally consistent for a book that at first glance seems devoid of any structure. A number of the criticisms of this book on this site missed the mark. One reviewer complained the story lagged after the African part. I would agree that the most entertaining part of the book is the African section and World War I (Celine's descriptions of this war are even better than Remarque's), but the "journey" could not end there because Bardamu had yet to learn anything about life. It is not any single experience, including the finale, that taught him life lesson's, but by observing people and most importantly, following in the steps of Robinson. As for those who point to Celine's cynicism and utter pessimism, I think they read a different novel than I did, because Bardamu, in my estimation, wanted nothing more than to find more meaning in life than he did. I would strongly advise people who read French to read it in its original language, since word choice and style are so important for Celine. Journey to the End of the Night is a book that I will be able to pick up time and time again to reread even just a few pages at a time with a wry smile on my face.
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Piece of Work
Review: I always thought that modern French literature began with Jean Paul Sartre or Albert Camus, but as I delved deeper into the understanding of subject, I found "Journey". I started reading it and I was captivated by it's brutal power and energy...I never read anything like it. It ranks with me the most significant piece of literature ever written.
Rating:
Summary: Best work of fiction I've ever read
Review: Intense compression of ideas, events, locale makes this the rare novel without any filler -- by turns harrowing and laugh-out-loud funny. Although I consider it the best case cowardice has ever made for itself, this is paradoxically a book for the brave: those with the courage, confronted with life's endless horror and hypocrisy, not to look the other way. Yes, I know it's best read in French, but don't let that stop you: a partly obscured glimpse of genius is better than no glimpse at all.
Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Rreverse Engineering Experience
Review: Hi, I' rank this book among my three or four favorites , for two reasons: - stylistic mastery and incredible power of language - brilliant idea of "reverse" journey : story starts with World War I, and ends up in day to day horrific description, and the tension still goes up ! It's an absolute must read of all times (in French, if possible !) Bye
Rating:
Summary: Celine translated from French?
Review: The only way one can truly appreciate Celine's work is to read it in French. If you read a translated version of one of his books, you only get a glimpse at the true genius he was (style has always been more important to Celine than the story itself...). For that, I envy those who master English enough to read Joyce: I've tried to read it in English but had to swich to the French translation. I resumed reading with a vague sentiment of frustration, feeling I had missed something... So much for the language barrier!
Rating:
Summary: Take the highway to the end of the night!
Review: Perhaps you are like me, who has come upon this book by hearing it from the late great poet/writer/frontman Jim Morrison mentioning it in great lengths. There's even a song dedicated to it. De Celine has been accused of being a nazi collaborator and a misanthrope, but it is the work of Art that we should judge. This book is not as misanthropic as what most contend, it is written in an amazing way, and to say the least is one of the most unstable books I have ever read. The main character finds himself in the strangest situations, and goes through an array of adventorous, grotesque, and ultimately absurd tribulations. It's a very strange book, and that's why I enjoyed it.
Rating:
Summary: The novel from the century
Review: Céline has understood everything about writing novels. He built his own style, inimitable, a revolution in world literature. His first novel shows his works at its beginning until he reaches the summit with "North".
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