Bouge
pas Andre!
Normance
by Louis Ferdinand Céline
The following article is about a novel of fiction by
the now all but cancelled French 20th century stylist which is much
less well known than Voyage au bout de la nuit ( 1932) or Mort et
credit ( 1936), both published in the same decade when Céline first exploded onto the literary
scene in France and internationally. After quickly becoming a hero for the
left, he quickly lost favour once he let his political opinions be known in the
first of his notorious pamphlets Mea culpa , published in the same year
as his second novel, in which he let his
feelings be known about what he thought of the Soviet Republic having gone on a
short trip to recuperate the royalties from his translated books there.
Although, it must be said also that his second novel had prepared the way for
his descent from grace, as the overuse of slang, cynicism, and the author’s
overall vision of existential misery being the store of man’s human existence
had already paved the way. However, Céline, never one to give up, after
producing the anti-Semitic pamphlets, which had a considerable success it must
be said mainly due to the rampant antisemitism that existed in France leading
up to the war and during the war period, then returned to novel writing during
the occupation. Normance ( 1954) covers the war years, particularly the
years 1943 and 44 when the allies bombed the suburbs of Paris, and which Céline
witnessed first- hand. Written just a few years after the war while the author was living in exile in
Denmark during the early fifties, Normance is a tour de force despite
being relatively unknown in the English speaking world, as the 375 page novel
is primarily concerned with describing a three hour bombardment of Paris, in
which the author uses his typical keen eye and ear, and devasting sense of
humour. I personally consider this book a very timely work to be reviewed
considering the amount of civilians, once again, being systematically bombed
out of house and home both in Eastern Europe, particularly, and in the Middle
East.
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