My sister slept with the light on until she was 27. She rightfully blames me. I would leap out of closets with my hands made into claws. I would...
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Gisevius, January 9, 2012 (view all comments by Gisevius)
Described as the "companion" to Celine's Journey to the End of the Night, this is the first work by Celine that I have read. It took no more than 10 pages before I was hooked and was blazing through the ill-starred (anti-?) hero's misadventures. I am by no means an authority on the subject, but I nonetheless discerned the prototype of a style to be employed by writers such as Bukowski and some "Beat" writers, in the decades to follow this novel.
Although I can't compare Ray Manheim's translation to another, since I've only read his, and furthermore in spite of the fact that I can't and haven't read Mort a Credit in its original French, I sense that this translation is excellent at rendering the slangy and colloquial manner and idiomatic speech that Celine voices his characters with.
Certainly worth the time spent on reading it. Now I'm on to Journey to the End of the Night.
Anthony Pepitone, January 1, 2011 (view all comments by Anthony Pepitone)
This book is a very dark bildungsroman. The book's humor derives from Celine's usage of slang/argot within the context of the adult characters' various obsessions and compulsions. I don't think it is fair to characterize the novel as "nihilistic." It is very, very dark and filled with paranoid hallucinations, yet Celine conveys a genuine sense of a child's viewpoint . . . think of "A Christmas Story" set in France on the eve of World War I.
greengills, November 21, 2010 (view all comments by greengills)
Off all the books I've had to part with, I'm grad I lend this to someone so I at least know where it is, instead of having to sell it in a suitcase full of books that I only got 10 dollars for all 40 of them, thanks St Louis, MO.
I read the majority of this in my parents basement, I didn't want to stop, or work or sleep till i finished it then I did and I felt lost because my world had just ended and I had to come to terms with my shit situation and count the days til I moved out west.
Lunatics, every person in this book. Highly recommended.
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