Celine was a continual and consistent cynic who no doubt loathed what he viewed as a society full of hypocrisy and folly. Celine's impetus to writing this book largely came from the trauma he suffered while serving in World War I. This 1932 novel follows the wayfarings of French antihero Ferdinand Bardamu in and after World War I through war-ravaged Europe, the African jungles and post-World War I New York City and Detroit, then back to France where he became an unsuccessful medical doctor after setting up a practice in a poverty-stricken Paris suburb. **** I cannot refrain from doubting that there exist any genuine realizations of our deepest character except war and illness, those two infinities of nightmare. "A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word." Ralph Waldo Emerson From Journey to the End of the Night: The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time.
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