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L'Église
This play is a highly satirical work that mocks almost all races and religions, typical, in part, of Celine's diatribes. Yet here also is a work of high wit, sharing Celine's great comedic-tragic vision of humankind.
269 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1933
About the author
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
148 books2,758 followersLouis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name of Dr. Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, is best known for his works Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night), and Mort à crédit (Death on the Installment Plan). His highly innovative writing style using Parisian vernacular, vulgarities, and intentionally peppering ellipses throughout the text was used to evoke the cadence of speech.
Louis-Ferdinand Destouches was raised in Paris, in a flat over the shopping arcade where his mother had a lace store. His parents were poor (father a clerk, mother a seamstress). After an education that included stints in Germany and England, he performed a variety of dead-end jobs before he enlisted in the French cavalry in 1912, two years before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. While serving on the Western Front he was wounded in the head and suffered serious injuries—a crippled arm and headaches that plagued him all his life—but also winning a medal of honour. Released from military service, he studied medicine and emigrated to the USA where he worked as a staff doctor at the newly build Ford plant in Detroit before returning to France and establishing a medical practice among the Parisian poor. Their experiences are featured prominently in his fiction.
Although he is often cited as one of the most influential and greatest writers of the twentieth century, he is certainly viewed as a controversial figure. After embracing fascism, he published three antisemitic pamphlets, and vacillated between support and denunciation of Hitler. He fled to Germany and Denmark in 1945 where he was imprisoned for a year and declared a national disgrace. He then received amnesty and returned to Paris in 1951.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Henry Miller, William Burroughs, and Charles Bukowski have all cited him as an important influence.
Translated Profiles:
Луи-Фердинанд Селин
Louis-Ferdinand Destouches was raised in Paris, in a flat over the shopping arcade where his mother had a lace store. His parents were poor (father a clerk, mother a seamstress). After an education that included stints in Germany and England, he performed a variety of dead-end jobs before he enlisted in the French cavalry in 1912, two years before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. While serving on the Western Front he was wounded in the head and suffered serious injuries—a crippled arm and headaches that plagued him all his life—but also winning a medal of honour. Released from military service, he studied medicine and emigrated to the USA where he worked as a staff doctor at the newly build Ford plant in Detroit before returning to France and establishing a medical practice among the Parisian poor. Their experiences are featured prominently in his fiction.
Although he is often cited as one of the most influential and greatest writers of the twentieth century, he is certainly viewed as a controversial figure. After embracing fascism, he published three antisemitic pamphlets, and vacillated between support and denunciation of Hitler. He fled to Germany and Denmark in 1945 where he was imprisoned for a year and declared a national disgrace. He then received amnesty and returned to Paris in 1951.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Henry Miller, William Burroughs, and Charles Bukowski have all cited him as an important influence.
Translated Profiles:
Луи-Фердинанд Селин
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 15, 2012
Celine wrote this satirical five-act play a year after his first novel, the masterful Journey to the End of the Night. Its settings are an African colony, a New York theatre, a placeless League of Nations office, and a Parisian bar-turned-clinic, and the cast of characters is enormous (plenty of them have great names: Mr. Pistil, Flora Bonjour, Gologolo, Miss Baboom). Celine manages to mock and insult just about everyone on the planet, but he does so in his lyrical, outrageous, slang-riddled style, which is delicious. Recommended for lovers of absurd black humor, admirers of the great French writer, or those looking for an entryway into his work.
* * * * * * * * *
He can't stand me, you know. If he could, he'd demote me . . . But it can't be done . . . if it could, Tandernot would've done it long ago . . . but there isn't a stripe beneath mine. They'd have to invent one for me . . . a tiny one.
Oh! You know how it is. When you look at it all from a distance, everything seems perfectly clear, but when you're close up, it's like everything else: you don't see so well.
In Hygiene . . . concerning causes of death . . . they still don't know if they're going to recommend the adoption . . . (She reads with some difficulty) of the three following terms: "born dead" . . . "dead-born" . . . and . . . "child born not alive" . . . to be referred to the experts . . . .
Committees, you see, are like love! They become excited, they discuss everything they can, they believe it will last forever, and then, all of a sudden, when the end comes, it's welcome. And any end will do. Happy and blessed is he who provides it! After that, everything collapses. We are tranquil . . .
And as for that Tandernot . . . Oh boy! You guys don't know him and you're not missing nothing. The guy's a real shit! And you can put that down in my file, too! I had to look at him for twenty years, as true as I am standing here today. I didn't tell him "Goodbye," but I did tell him "Fuck off!" It was the best thing I ever did in my life. Yessir!
* * * * * * * * *
He can't stand me, you know. If he could, he'd demote me . . . But it can't be done . . . if it could, Tandernot would've done it long ago . . . but there isn't a stripe beneath mine. They'd have to invent one for me . . . a tiny one.
Oh! You know how it is. When you look at it all from a distance, everything seems perfectly clear, but when you're close up, it's like everything else: you don't see so well.
In Hygiene . . . concerning causes of death . . . they still don't know if they're going to recommend the adoption . . . (She reads with some difficulty) of the three following terms: "born dead" . . . "dead-born" . . . and . . . "child born not alive" . . . to be referred to the experts . . . .
Committees, you see, are like love! They become excited, they discuss everything they can, they believe it will last forever, and then, all of a sudden, when the end comes, it's welcome. And any end will do. Happy and blessed is he who provides it! After that, everything collapses. We are tranquil . . .
And as for that Tandernot . . . Oh boy! You guys don't know him and you're not missing nothing. The guy's a real shit! And you can put that down in my file, too! I had to look at him for twenty years, as true as I am standing here today. I didn't tell him "Goodbye," but I did tell him "Fuck off!" It was the best thing I ever did in my life. Yessir!
July 10, 2024
Satire célininen précurseur du voyage au bout de la nuit
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October 13, 2020Not really about religion or church but a satire theatrical play on the false pretensions of the hygienical service of the United Nations (what Now would be the WHO) where Céline worked as a young man in the 1920's.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews