About this title: The dark side of On the Road: instead of seeking kicks, the French narrator travels the globe to find an ever deeper disgust for life.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New Directions, New York
Date Published: 1960
Description: Not Issued jacket. 1960 New Directions paperback in FAIR condition; no dust jacket as issued. Translated from French by John H. P. Marks. Binding OK, except cover separating from front at the top; edge wear; many spine creases; pages are starting to tan; saw 2 pencil marks. 509 p. (2890) read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: New Directions
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780811208475ISBN:0811208478
Description: Very Good. GREAT BOOK! NO SPINE CREASES, MODERATE WEAR & CORNER BEND ON COVER. LIGHTLY AGED PAGES, NO MARKINGS IN TEXT. "Description: The dark side of On the Road: instead of seeking kicks, the French narrator travels the globe to find an ever deeper disgust for life. " read more
Description: Good. Creased corner tips of covers & first few pages. Otherwise nice copy. Pages are clean, otherwise straight, & unmarked. Spine is uncreasead. B6a. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780811200196ISBN:0811200191
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Text in English, French. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. Modern Readers Series. Front cover has a crease and the edges of the pages are tanned. read more
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
ISBN-13:9780811208475ISBN:0811208478
Description: Very Good. 0811208478 Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light curve to the spine / light reading creases to the covers. read more
Description: New Directions Books, New York, 1960; Very Good; no d/j; NDP84, Fifteenth Printing; Translated from the French by John H. P. Marks. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Date Published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780811200196ISBN:0811200191
Description: A good reading copy only. Previous owners name inscribed inside front. May have underlining or highlighting throughout. -, Trade PaperBack, Good / read more
Description: Reader copy. Earlier New Direction paperback-different cover-creases to binding wear to cover-tanning to page edge-some underlining-otherwise binding strong contents fine-enjoy. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: New Directions
Date Published: 2006-05-17
ISBN-13:9780811216548ISBN:0811216543
Description: New. New, unread, unused & in perfect condition with no damaged or missing pages. Pre-release book with same cover and stickers. Great Copy. Ships Lightning Fast. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New Directions
Date Published: 2006-04-03
ISBN-13:9780811216548ISBN:0811216543
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780811216548. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: New Directions
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780811216548ISBN:0811216543
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Edition: Third printing
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: New Directions, New York
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780811216548ISBN:0811216543
Description: NEW. 453pp. Octavo [20.5cm] Paperback. NEW. From the back cover: "Celine's revulsion at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society bursts from nearly every page of this novel. Written in urgent and explosive language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence and cruelty. " Afterword by William T. Vollmann. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap, New York, NY
Date Published: 1934
Description: Good. 8vo-7¾"-9¾" Tall. Covers lightly soiled, rubbed, bumped, POS on flep 509 pp. EuropeanPRIC|20.95om 1930s, translated from French to English. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown
Date Published: 1934-01-01
Description: Fair. A New Directions Book (Little, Brown) [Published date: 1934]. Hard cover, 509 pp. No other printings listed. Fair/NO dust jacket. Blue cloth covered boards have heavy rubbing and fading along edges and spine. Bumping to edges and corners. Light overall rubbing and soiling. Spine cocked but binding is still tight. Pages yellowed but otherwise unmarked, with a few light age spots. NOT Ex-library. NO remainder marks. A good reading copy. read more
Edition: First Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Avon Books, New York
Description: Very Good. Avon G1014. Softcover, edition not stated (presumed first printing), shallow scuff to top of spine, light reading crease and a little soiling to spine, light corner crease and small glue spot to rear cover, pages lightly browned, otherwise a bright and tight, VG+ copy. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little, Brown, Boston
Date Published: 1934
Description: Good. No dust jacket. Good Copy. Hardcover, Text is clean and unmarked. binding is tight, with wear, and bumping to corners, both hinges are broken, has name on endpaper. Text in English, French. 509 p.; 22 cm. Translation of Voyage au bout de la nuit. read more
"Finally, after a busy week, I have finished my journey to the end of this book. Savage, brutal, disgusting, repulsive, and misanthropic are not necessarily adjectives I would use to describe a masterpiece, but with Celine, they're all meant as compliments.
Is it the most pessimistically scathing book ever written? I think so."
"This book was a re-read for me -- some thirty years later. Celine really started something with JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT: His Ferdinand Bardamu is a disenchanted traveler through life, snatching food and women when he can, mostly winding up being disenchanted with a sour feeling of bad things to come.
An interesting device in the book is an alter ego named Leon Robinson who keeps turning up like a bad penny. During World War I, he plans on surrendering to the Germans, but fails at that. He turns up in Africa around the same time that Ferdinand does, and later on in Detroit when Ferdinand is working for an auto manufacturer. Finally, after a failed attempt at murdering an old woman, he goes off with his intended victim to Toulouse, where he falls in love with a young woman who finally proves to be his undoing.
Through it all, Ferdinand is an increasingly unwilling witness to Leon's deterioration, and when the latter dies, is left desolate. His last words in my edition are: "Let's hear no more of all this.""
"henry miller, chuck bukowski and I all agree: drinking booze is terrible for you. And we also all agree that this book is THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK EVER WRITTEN, PERIOD. I read the first five pages when I was in 9th grade, and I put it down because it made me feel funny, but I say with confidence that what I read on those five pages contained some of the most important stuff I ever read. Reading this book is comparable to listening to the Velvet Underground for the first time.
On the negative side: Celine was a Nazi sympathizer, and the book is like 700 pages long."
"Where to start? Probably at the beginning. The edition I picked is not the one I read (mine was in Dutch), but it WAS the edition that got me to reading it in the first place.
What happened? Well, when I was walking around in Amsterdam many years ago, I heard a soprano voice singing above the clatter and clamour of traffic and people. A nice young girl was standing in front of what was then Australian Icecream on the corner of the Leidsestraat and another street, and as I happened to still be carrying my voicerecorder with me back then, I pressed the rec button and let the tape roll. After a while, I talked with her a little until the cops told her to quit, or move away. She told me she usually sang here at this time of day, despite the police, and I made plans to check out her singing once more. (Boy, writing this, and I've not even properly started my review yet!, sure does bring back memories...)
Anyway... when I next met her I had already been hanging around the same spot, until she came along with a bag full of books she had just bought, this being the one that I most remembered afterwards. Therefore it is at this place that I thank Libby (? if I remember her name correctly) from the US and her beautiful voice for setting me on the trail of a dark and daring journey called Voyage au bout de la nuit.
Yes, I admit, it was a post-puberty crush that got me curious about this book in the first place. But that disappeared within seconds upon finding a copy in my favourite bookstore. Just reading the back of it and then flipping open the first chapter made me realise this might just be the book that would change my life. Or at least the way I perceived the world.
Back then, I had copied a habit of a dear friend of mine, who underlined all the sentences she loved in a book - sometimes even in pen! (Wow, those really WERE daring days back then! :)) Well, it is no exaggeration to say I practically underlined this entire book! Honestly, some chapters I simply didn't bother anymore and just drew vertical strokes in the margin when page after page I felt electric about every word.
I honestly couldn't believe what I was reading, that someone had actually been communicating THIS to me. Such dark despair, such hatred and filth, such tears and hollow longing. It was like listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor or Catharsis; at that time, for me, those were the books and music that completely filled up my world and lit a fire that is still glowing underneath somewhere. A fire that started to blaze in my own poetry, and the dreams that ended up failing.
Nowadays I think of Céline as that bitter old right wing guy. I have grown up, matured, lived, loved, fallen and risen since reading, no, feverishly devouring his Voyage. And I am thankful for that. It doesn't ring true for me anymore. I used to feel it conveyed exactly what my soul was going through but couldn't let out because it felt trapped. Perhaps Céline helped me to get that beast inside me some air, in order to grow from darkness into light. Despair has turned into hope for me, and I can say I've put Céline's harsh Voyage in the past a long time ago.
But boy, was this ever intense to read. Amazing how excited and fulfilled I once felt with so much blackness and misery. So therefore, 5/5 for memory's sake, and a prayer for Céline's poor and angry soul.
(I wonder what Libby the soprano thought about this book... and where I left that tape I made of her singing)"
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