Louis-Ferdinand Céline / Courtesy of New Directions

It would not be an exaggeration to consider Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s (1894–1961) works, particularly Journey to the End of the Night (1932), among the best and most striking works of war literature of the twentieth century. Few writers were able to depict the harrowing experience of war with such bitterness, brutality, and contempt but also in such a playful and absurd way. Céline’s war does not necessarily linger on the battlefield. In London, his recently discovered 1934 novel now translated into English by Charlotte Mandell (New Directions, 2026), Céline follows the life of Ferdinand through the streets of London where soldiers, deserters, prostitutes, and pimps drift through a city that is as hostile and disorienting as the war raging in Europe.

Céline’s war does not necessarily linger on the battlefield.

Set during the early years of the First World War, the narrative focuses on Ferdinand, a wounded French soldier who has gone to London after his injuries, which have resulted in a constant humming in his ear. Staying at a boarding house on Leicester Street, he becomes entangled with a shady group of small-time pimps, prostitutes, deserters, criminals, and informers led by a French pimp named Cantaloup and his woman, Ursule. Ferdinand himself remains attached to Angèle, a former prostitute who is living with a wealthy Englishman named Purcell. As the protagonist becomes increasingly involved in the group’s shenanigans, orgies, and misfortunes, their alcohol-induced world of violence and petty crime is exposed to police investigations, betrayal, and the ever-present threat of being sent back to the front.

London is the second of Céline’s long-lost manuscripts, following War (1934), published in France in 2022. The manuscript resurfaced after having disappeared when Céline fled Paris in 1944. London functions as a sequel to War and, together with Death on Credit (also translated as Death on the Installment Plan, 1936), can be read as part of the trilogy that follows the life of Ferdinand, Céline’s alter ego, who appears in many of his works. The autobiographical similarities are evident here, as in his other novels. As Ferdinand reveals early in the novel, the story is set in 1915 when he is twenty-two years old, a period during which Céline himself was in London and allegedly embarked on adventures within the city’s underworld. Although much of what happens to Ferdinand consists of episodes, incidents, and escapades unrelated to Céline’s biography, there are also hints at what would happen to the author later in life, especially his pursuit of medicine, as Ferdinand acknowledges his early interest in becoming a medical doctor when he says, “If I’d been given some guidance I think I'd have made a nice career in medicine. There’s no doubt I had a gift for it.” 

Since the surviving manuscript was an early draft of the novel, there are several moments when the translator, Charlotte Mandell, explains sudden changes in the names of the characters and other discrepancies in the text, and notes missing or illegible words, or scribbling found in the original manuscript that may be of interest. As a result, the footnotes are also an interesting aspect of the book, allowing us to better understand the novel and its process of writing. Céline’s diction is notoriously unique and difficult, with his “often cryptic slang,” and Mandell does a great job of creating a coherent narrative that captures the essence of Céline’s writing, with its seemingly vulgar language and uncensored depictions of low-life pimps, their wild orgies, fights, and unhinged views of life and, especially, women.

What makes the novel compelling is the combination of Céline’s familiar pessimistic, self-mocking views on life, human nature, and society, and his moments of wandering in and around London.

What makes the novel compelling is the combination of Céline’s familiar pessimistic, self-mocking views on life, human nature, and society, and his moments of wandering in and around London. As for the former, Ferdinand and his gang—or “little pimps and us other crooks,” as he describes them—are at the lowest tier of life in London, not only engaging in every vice one could imagine but also confronting the harsh realities of life in those years. This provides a fitting backdrop for the narrator to reflect on “the tragedy of existence” in between his half-remembered accounts of what happened to him there. The reader gets a taste of Céline’s funny but bleak observations of people throughout the book, as he expresses what man is: a “Pretty Piece of Shit, that’s the name of Man,” and that “there’s a monster in each of us,” as we are “trapped in a delirium of lies and hatred.” Whenever he expresses his disgust at man, it always has a self-deprecating aspect as well, as he says early on: “He stank, did Bijou, really stank of shit. But I could sense that I was cast from the same mold.”

The city of London itself acts as a character in the novel. As briefly mentioned, it is through Céline’s descriptions of the city and its streets that we get a sense of what life was like in early twentieth-century Britain. Ferdinand does not say much directly about the details of the war itself, but there are several mentions of “zeppelin” air raids in London, including one that falls on a church and another raid that had firefighters “rushing one end of the night to the other in gusts [. . .] like the last judgment.” There are also constant reminders of the deserters in the city, including Ferdinand himself, who stays in London beyond the validity of his medical papers, as well as descriptions of newspapers covering the “war, and the king and the new allies.” 

The fog seems to reflect the uncertainties and anxieties engulfing Europe as a whole.

Additionally, a significant aspect of the narrative is the recurring presence of fog in London. The fog seems to reflect the uncertainties and anxieties engulfing Europe as a whole. There are several instances when characters get lost in the fog and require help to navigate their way. The fog is “treacherous and makes colds last longer,” as Ferdinand notes. Throughout the novel, Ferdinand and his friends are always cold, even during the hotter months of the year, as the weather appears to serve as a reminder of the time in which they are living. The fog, with its coldness and eeriness, also gives Ferdinand a vague sense of comfort, when he muses that “when we’ve become dead and content as the dead must be, maybe we'll stroll all around the world from one winter to the next, from one fog to the next oblivion.”

London might read like an early draft that would have benefited from further editing by the author, yet it remains a rewarding read for those familiar with and deeply interested in Céline’s writings, as the narrative contains many of the qualities that make his works so distinctive: his musings on human nature, his vulgar but quirky sense of humor, and his depiction of war and its effects on people. The novel offers another unique glimpse into the ideas and experiences that shaped both Ferdinand, the character, and Louis-Ferdinand, the author.

Sapienza Università di Roma