James Mustich's 1000 Books to Read Before You Die discussion

Author discussion : https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Has anyone started this? I'm hoping to get to it by the end of the month (fingers crossed)

I have it in my immediate TBR stack. I've been kind of bogged down lately, so it probably won't happen till later in the month, but it's definitely in my near future

Marlise wrote: "Has anyone started this? I'm hoping to get to it by the end of the month (fingers crossed)"

I've started it. I'm on page 107, I'm reading it before I go to bed so it takes me longer than normal.

I relly didn't care for this book. I found it somewhat depressing and to satiric for me.

Journey to the End of the Night byLouis-Ferdinand Céline

I forgot to mention that I started this the other day.

I started out liking it quite a bit, when he was still involved in the war. That was pretty brief, though, and a lot of the stuff that followed has been a little too outlandish for me (a flea-counter?).

Right now, Bardamu has returned to France, got his doctor's certificate, and is living in the poor neighborhood. Like I'd ever let this quack treat me, even if I was poor.

Last hundred pages or so left...I'm really on the fence about this one.

I think I can understand why it was popular when it first came out--what a blow to conventionality! I think Céline overdoes it, but there's no tidy moral here, nothing uplifting. I would imagine that in the period between the wars, Céline's no-holds-barred approach was kind of bracing in a way. It probably felt like a dose of honesty.

I think some of the shock value has lost its bite, though, over time (not all, though--this is still pretty shocking at times.)

Well, I hope to finish today--some day in the future I may read Death on the Installment Plan, but I won't be in a rush.

I'm about 80 pages in and I actually like it quite a bit so far. I could relate quite a bit from my own deployment experience to our main character's wartime attitide/fear and that sense of feeling expendable.

Marlise wrote: "I'm about 80 pages in and I actually like it quite a bit so far. I could relate quite a bit from my own deployment experience to our main character's wartime attitide/fear and that sense of feeling..."

I kind of wish Celine had stayed with the war part of the story. I thought was one of the best parts of the book.

I am about halfway through. I seem to only find time to read this in bits and pieces. I am still enjoying it and it has parts where I laugh out loud. I feel like I get our Bardamu, he's my inner pessimist. I guess I'll see how I feel at the end.

I've made 29 highlights in the first half of this book which is a record for me.

I liked this sentence... "There’s no tyrant like a brain." For us overthinkers.

Okay done! Took me a while but I'm glad I didn't rush. I found a lot of writing to highlight, insights I appreciated or wording I found beauty in.

my thoughts...
I found Céline's writing to be very jarring and yet very beautiful. I didn't find the book to be depressing at all, I just felt like I was there with Ferdinand the whole "journey", on his level. I was committed to the story 100%, come what may. One of my favorite reads so far this year!

Early in the book, I highlighted this quote... "Men are the thing to be afraid of, always, men and nothing else."

Of course we see by the end, the women are right there doing dirt alongside the men.

I feel like this is a book I will reread again in the future and get more from the second time around.

I have to say that I am with Bryan in a lot of what he says. I also loved the wartime parts of the book. That really had me hooked and I couldn't stop reading. But then things tapered off and I really slowed down to the point I was forcing myself back into it. But then once again, in the last 50 pages or so I couldn't stop reading again. The climax and ending were very good.

I also think that the shock factor was pretty... well... shocking throughout. And it was probably even more shocking when it was written. I can see why it caught people's attention the way it did.

Overall, I did like the book. Even when forcing myself to pick it up again, I did find a lot that I liked and I also laughed out loud quite a few times.

Btw, posting this almost two months late because there is one copy of this in the entirety of San Diego County and Public Libraries and I waited 9 weeks for it to be my turn. Now there is 6 more people waiting after me and the libraries are closed. Who knows when the next person will get it despite my effort to finish it timely for their sake.

Thanks for your thoughts Sean! I didn't realize you were so close to me. I'm in Riverside county. This whole thing is crazy right now. I've had to stop seeing my customers because I'm non essential. Ugh!

I lived in Chula Vista back in the 80s. I really liked it there--I miss California, but I imagine what I miss is being young in California.

I miss being young in California too. But being old in California isn't horrible. Lucky for me I get to keep working.... woohoo! [/sarcasm]