LITERATURE – Louis Ferdinand Celine: Prose and Nihilism

Hoy en la políticamente correcta y chauvinista Francia, se les niega un modesto homenaje a unos de sus más grandes escritores de la última centuria.  Estamos hablando de Celine.  De los pocos libros que me han impactado en esta vida y a su vez me han enseñado algo sobre la condición humana, sin duda alguna este es el terrible libro de Celine, Viaje Al Fin De La Noche.  Es el único que lo ha conseguido.  Diría que es como una Biblia en la que me sumerjo como un naufrago.  Lo que siempre me gusto de Celine fue su prosa nihilista y amarga.  Llena de un salvaje lirismo, un genio del estilo literario, inventor de un lenguaje inimitable en estos mediocres días.  El estilo de Celine esta subordinado a su percepción del mundo.  A través de este estilo ágil que parece descuidado, incorrecto, apasionado, vivo, brota y palpita la real riqueza de la cultura francesa.

Celine era sin duda, un escritor realista debido a su estilo delirante y desmitificador de la sociedad que le toco vivir.  Una alma absoluta de destrucción selectiva de todo lo importado y falso que hay en la vida.  Las reflexiones sobre la condición humana son amargas en todas sus obras, en especial cuando llega a escribir esto, “Los hombres se aferran a sus cochinos recuerdos, a todas sus degracias, y no se les puede sacar de ahí.  Con eso ocupan el alma, se vengan de la injusticia de su presente revolviendo en su interior la mierda del porvenir.”  Sin duda su prosa estaba llena de un discurso pesimista, frenéticamente atroz.  Todo en sus escritos destilaba una melancolía agonizante.  Pues su propósito era sumergir al lector en la más profunda desolación.

Llego a escribir en su panfleto antisemita, “Los judíos, estériles, vanidosos, devastadores, monstruosamente megalomaniacos, puercos, consolidan ahora bajo el mismo estandarte, su conquista del mundo, el aplastamiento monstruoso, envilecimiento, aniquilamiento sistemático y total de nuestras emociones más naturales, de todos nuestros artes esenciales, instintivos, música, pintura, poesía, teatro.  Reemplazan la emoción aria por el tambor de esclavos negros.”  Para mí sencillamente un lenguaje estremecedor.  Les dejo  con este pasaje doloroso, “Rencorosos, dóciles, violados, robados, con las tripas fuera y siempre jodido. Hemos nacidos fieles y así morimos.”  El don literario de Celine no le exime por supuesto de su enloquecido y nauseabundo antisemitismo, mas su prosa, quedara para la posteridad.

Today in the politically correct and chauvinistic France, even a modest homage has been denied to one of its greatest writers in the last century.  We are talking about Celine.  Of the few books that have impacted this life and at the same time teaching me something about the human condition, without a doubt it has been the terrible book of Celine, Journey to the End of Night.  It is the only thing that he has achieved.  I would say that it is a Bible in which I have submerged myself like a shipwrecked person.  What I have always liked about Celine is his nihilistic and bitter prose.  It is filled with savage lyricism, a genius of literary style, inventor of an inimitable language during these mediocre days.  The style of Celine has been subordinated to his world view.  Through this agile style which seems careless, incorrect, passionate, lively, the real richness of French culture has sprouted and throbbed with life.

Celine was without doubt a realistic writer due to his delirious and demystifying style of the society in which he was living.  An absolute soul of selective destruction of everything that is imported and false that exists in life.  The reflections about the human condition are bitter in all of his works, especially when he wrote the following, “Men hold on to their filthy memories, all their misfortunes, and they have no way of extracting them from there.  With these they fill their souls; they seek vengeance against injustice of their present moment while the shit of the future turns in their stomachs.”  Without doubt his prose was filled with a pessimistic discourse, frenetically atrocious.  All of his works ooze with an agonizing melancholy.  Well his purpose was to submerge his reader in the most profound desolation.

He had also written in his anti-Semitic pamphlet, “The Jews, sterile, vain, devastating, monstrously megalomaniac, swine, consolidate now under their same banner, their world conquest, the monstrous crushing, the degradation, systematic and total annihilation of all our emotions that are most natural, of all our essential arts, instincts, music, painting, poetry, theatre.   They substitute the Aryan emotions with the drums of the Black slaves.”  For me, these are chilling words.  I will leave you with a painful passage, “Bitter, docile, violated, robbed, with the stomach turned inside out and always damned.  We were born faithful and this is how we will die.”  The literary talent of Celine, of course, does not absolve him of his crazy and nauseating anti-Semitism, on the contrary his prose will live on in posterity.