Counter-Currents
Remembering Louis-Ferdinand Céline:
May 27, 1894–July 1, 1961
Greg Johnson
198 words
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name of French novelist, essayist, and physician Louis-Ferdinand-Auguste Destouches, who was born on this day in 1894. Céline is one of the giants of 20th-century literature. And, like Ezra Pound and so many other great writers of the last century, he was an open and unapologetic racial nationalist. For more on Céline, see the following works on this website:
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, “Céline on Journey to the End of the Night”
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, “Tempest in a Teapot: Céline on Sartre”
- Robert Brasillach, “Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night”
- Robert Brasillach, “Céline’s Trifles for a Massacre”
- François Gardet, Preface to Céline’s The School for Cadavers
- François Gardet, Introduction to Céline’s Trifles for a Massacre
- Greg Johnson, “Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Trifles for a Massacre” (Spanish translation here)
- Margot Metroland, “Céline Goes Hollywood,” Part 1, Part 2
- Margot Metroland, “The Enduring Reputation of Louis-Ferdinand Céline”
- Margot Metroland, “Céline at Sigmaringen, 1944–45”
- J. J. Przybylski, “Shakespeare. Céline. Secrets at Bottom”
- Tomislav Sunić, “Louis-Ferdinand Céline—An Anarcho-Nationalist”
- Karlheinz Weißman, “Right-Wing Anarchism” (Czech translation here)
- Dominique Venner, “Céline: Literary Giant and Racial Nationalist”
- Michael Walker, “Now for My Next Writer . . .”
- Leo Yankevich, “Céline”
The best online resource about Céline is Le Petit Célinien.
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2 comments
hey, do you guys think perchance Celine was one of these people the Js were after? What sort of blot upon his worldview do you think that would be? Would you reassess his worth or the groundedness of his opinions? They were after another chess master, Alekhine, back in Vichy France, so the persecutions they were being crushed by don’t seem to have impeded their necessity to defend themselves.
After reading the essay on Sartre, I think Celine put it pretty well, but its really worse than he says. Sartre’s essay was pandering. I find nothing original or fetching in Sartre. I feel his entire reputation is a house of cards built on pandering.
I meant Sartre without any intention of double speak. I had read sartre’s essay and celine’s response, linked in the article, and some of the things Céline(although I like his take down of Sartre) said made me think he might have been one of these people, which would be important for evaluating the quality of his thought. Was he one of those wild hare French geniuses like Paul rassinier, committed to Truth, or was he one of these piteous figures like Ezra Pound or Fischer, projecting their own personal demons onto the world stage? I am trying to understand the enigma of Céline.
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