Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Louis-Ferdinand Céline is comprehensive and lucid . . . The book is particularly good on the scandal of Céline being republished . . . Aside from the political iniquities, Catani argues that Céline wasn't an unrepentant pessimist but a badly bruised optimist. It is hard to believe, as we are informed, that the razor-tongued Céline composed a ballet called The Birth of a Fairy. * Tibor Fischer, The Spectator *
Catani’s book seeks to “encompass Céline’s lesser-known novels” and to take a “a bird’s eye view of the larger literary landscape” . . . It does both these things well, and much else too. * London Review of Books *

Catani's account of this extraordinary life is as admirably detailed and forensic as any Céline biography I have read, in French or English. It is far more readable than most, capturing the same picaresque tone as Céline's early novels . . . a fine biography.

* Literary Review *
Catani’s refreshing and dramatic biography of Céline is a serious piece of work. It assesses his achievements and failures in a level-headed and carefully presented manner. While not all will concur with Catani’s precise weighting of evidence or agree with his conclusions, none will doubt his sincerity and diligence. The thoroughness of the sources and footnotes attest to that. * The Critic *
Catani does plenty of work to tie his reading of Céline’s life to the present day, spotlighting, for instance, a strain of contemporary French scholarship that interprets the author’s anti-Semitic writings as hiding "behind an ironic aesthetic façade." Readers interested in the perennial debate about whether or how to separate the art from the artist will find much to consider in this thoughtful work * Publishers Weekly *
The first full-length examination of Céline’s life and work in more than twenty years, and the first to explore the fastest-growing debate of Céline scholarship – whether people should continue reading a Nazi sympathizer. A large chunk of this book considers various opinions, which fall into several obvious camps: those who argue against reading Céline; those who argue he was a nihilist but not a Nazi; those who argue his politics had little to do with the lasting greatness of his books, since the foremost among them – Journey to the End of Night – was published before his fascist polemics started coming along . . . While Catani provides a fairly robust critical argument for continuing to read Céline, much of this book has less to do with Céline the writer than with our current anxieties about the responsibilities of literature. * New Republic *

Catani really justifies his enterprise on the following grounds. First, among Englishspeaking readers in particular, Céline’s wider oeuvre is little known; most are familiar with Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932) and Mort a crédit (1936), but not Guignol’s Band (1944) or Le Pont de Londres (1964), not to mention other late works, such as Normance (1954) or Rigadon (1969). Catani’s book offers a welcome corrective to this imbalance. Second, he makes a compelling case for Céline’s enduring relevance, this not in spite of the controversies surrounding
him, but because of them. The book offers lucid responses to recent iterations of "le cas Céline", especially the furore surrounding Gallimard’s – now suspended – proposal to publish the writer’s violently antisemitic pamphlets.

* French Studies *
In this major new biography of Céline Damian Catani deftly weaves together the life and the work allowing each to illuminate the other in a brilliant portrait. One of the twentieth century’s most important literary figures, Céline emerges here in all his ambivalence, his outstanding talent as a writer matched only by his obvious flaws as an individual. * Ian James, Reader in Modern French Literature and Thought, University of Cambridge, and author of The Technique of Thought and The New French Philosophy. *
One of the best French writers ever, who re-invented the very language of literature, and a complete SALOPARD. * Marie Darrieussecq *
A comprehensive, rigorously researched and richly historicized account of his Céline’s life and literature . . . Catani handles toxic subject matter with admirable clarity, critical insight and documentary precision . . . Louis-Ferdinand Céline: A Journey to the Extremes might also serve as a wake-up call that jars contemporary readers into seeing the similarities between the sorry times in which Céline lived and wrote and our increasingly worrisome present. For readers who have little to no familiarity with Céline’s writing, Catani’s study is an excellent primer . . . a remarkable work of outstanding scholarship and critical imagination which has valuable insights to offer the field of French literary studies, to French and European historians and, more importantly, to the broader contemporary readership it richly deserves. * H-France *