Castle to Castle (French Literature) [Paperback]

Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Author), Ralph Manheim (Translator)

Book Description

Series: French Literature | Publication Date: April 1, 1997

It is Germany near the end of World War II, the Allies have landed and members of the Vichy France government have been sequestered in a labyrinthine castle, replete with secret passages and subterranean hideaways. The group of 1,400 terrified officials, their wives, mistresses, flunkies, and Nazi protectors—including Céline, his wife, their cat, and an actor friend—attempt to postpone the postwar reckoning under the constant threat of air raids and starvation. With an undercurrent of sensual excitement, Céline paints an almost unbearably vivid picture of human society and the human condition.
,br>Called by Atlantic Monthly "the blackest of the black" of Céline's novels and hailed by the Washington Post Book World for its "intense sympathy with individual human beings," Castle to Castle is brilliantly rendered in Ralph Manheim's translation, for which he won the National Book Award.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Published in English seven years after his death (LJ 11/15/68), this is considered one of Celine's darkest novels. It is also autobiographical. Like the author, the novel's central character is a Nazi collaborator who is nonetheless destroyed by them. This translation won a National Book Award.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Castle to Castle [is] a literary event of the first order." -- Newsweek

"Castle to Castle proves how appallingly up to date its dead appalling author is. . . . Cline's style consists of outcries and exclamations, groans and curses, all in white heat, separated by dots which like machine-gun bullets mow down even the mitigating orderliness of grammar." -- Nation

"Celine's mastery in creating one of the truly cathartic experiences of contemporary literature is indisputable." -- Saturday Review

"Cline walks into great literature as other men walk into their own homes." -- Atlantic Monthly

"Cline's experiences have not mellowed him. Here, as in all his novels, . . . he hates everybody, regardless of race, creed or color. If anyone is singled out, it is his publishers, whose limousines, he says, grow even longer, while their authors, in rags, cling behind like pitiful hitchhikers. . . . the translation is a masterpiece." -- New York Times Book Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 362 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156478150X
• ISBN-13: 978-1564781505
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stimulation From Start To Finish., March 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Castle to Castle (French Literature) (Paperback)

This,the first in the trilogy which depicts the author'sexperiences during the last WW,is a wacky gut-spilling,bile grittingnarrative on Celine's situation as he humorously & matter of factly relates his ordeal centered at a castle with the inhabitants there.His style in doing so:3-dot spiteroons;interjections between story lines that may surprise the unsuspecting reader;& coagulations of the story's narrative with personal thoughts from out of the blue.The crude,free form technique which has spawned numerous bastard writers is brilliantly expressed here once again.His boundless imagination & endless ideas for lashing out at people are intoxicating & admirable the least.In fact,the first 120 pages are all but scathing & brutal,if I should say heinous attacks on his opponents;& so brilliantly amusing that you wouldnt know who to feel sorry for.A man "unjustly" persecuted in his own lifetime,the pathological tales of persecution in this novel border at times on the fantastic to the point that it's quite difficult to tell whether one should believe it or not.The novel is a bit tough on the read;a few of his slang & offhand remarks demand digestible consumptions once in a while.And the childish spurts of humor that jump at times can be cute or funny,but in continous instances can be a wee bit tiring.All said,one of the best works from probably the most realistically revolutionary & most truthfully influential novelist of the 20th Century.The work of a genius.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 20th Century Prince of Darkness, January 17, 2008

By 

Cliff Burns (Western Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Castle to Castle (French Literature) (Paperback)

Why aren't you reading Louis Ferdinand Celine? Few authors of the 20th century come close to the brilliance and sheer venom of the man. Nazi collaborator, anti-Semite, CASTLE TO CASTLE finds the author and his wife (and cat) on the run from the "fifis", the triumphant French Army, which is rolling through the countryside, wreaking a terrible vengeance upon any who actively cooperated with or aided the Germans. The stories of atrocities fill those who have sought shelter under the auspices of the defeated German army with terror and dread. Celine is, quite rightly, furious at the hypocrisy of it all--especially since a significant proportion of French intellectuals and artists sat out the war and certainly lied about or exaggerated their work with the Resistance. Surreal at times, always literate, Celine's voice ever-present, CASTLE TO CASTLE is one of the finest works by this tragically under-appreciated master of the printed word.

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Destruction in Grand Eloquence, March 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Castle to Castle (French Literature) (Paperback)

Castle is a book that Celine felt he had to write before he died,...in it he describes his flight from France in 1944 and engages the reader with the last vision of the dying Vichy government in exile...Celine is humorous and even shows a hint of redemption for the destructive behavior of man that produced World War 2...