Archive for Louis Ferdinand Céline
books of the year²⁵
Posted in Books, pictures with tags 2025, Bansky, Banu Mushtaq, BD, book list, book reviews, fantasy, Far North, goodreads, India, Louis Ferdinand Céline on January 11, 2026 by xi'an
mentalité de petite instit’ bornée [bienvenue à l’Académie!]
Posted in Books, Kids with tags Académie française, Alain Fournier, Albert Camus, France Inter, hussards de la République, interview, Libé, linguistics, Louis Ferdinand Céline, Marcel Pagnol, misogyny, primary school, sexism, tribune on December 23, 2025 by xi'an
a journal of the most-chaotic-of-all year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags anachronism, ancillary justice, Ann Leckie, book review, book reviews, Chinese artichokes, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Dublin, Gaza, Guerre, Guinness, hotels, India, Indian food, Jerusalem artichoke, Journal of the Plague Year, Kerala, Lebanon, London, Londres, Louis Ferdinand Céline, miso, populism, Republic of Ireland, resort, Russian invasion, Sudan, Ukraine, Ukrainian resistance on January 25, 2025 by xi'an
Read plenty of books during my Indian trip, finishing Translation State, by Ann Leckie. Just brilliant. This is indeed a complex and fascinating book, set in the same universe as the Ancillary books, and it takes some (rewarding) effort to get engaged into the different perspectives on the event, as well as the imprecise genders, but this is ultimately flourishing. (Albeit the three central characters are way too nice and positive!) And the recently rediscovered Londres, by Louis Ferdinand Céline. Ghastly in its exposure of the lowest floors of the human soul . But also with more of a scenario and story tension than Guerre. This second book comes as a sequel to Guerre and is in the same spirit, although the main character, Ferdinand, is less sell-shocked than in the first book. The story is somewhat more constructed and the progression (or regression) has more tension. But the main characteristics of Céline’s style and pessimistic views of humanity remain, with a bleak representation of the collection of crooks, pimps, war profiteers, and desertors that people the book. And Les Eaux de sous le Monde by Stéphane Platteau, an interesting, short, side-story linked to the fantastic Les Sentiers des Astres, if on the light side, at least scenario-wise, as the story centres on a male mage trying to stop a spectre from destroying a convent (or two). Apart from him, all characters are female and some play central enough roles that he would have failed otherwise. And A Man With One of Those Faces, by Caimh McDonnell, a comic detective story, very funny but with a definite suspension of (dis)belief in the resolution of the Razpunzel unsolved mystery and possibly an overdose of Irish-ness. And Guinness! The comic side makes the day, though, along with multi-dimension characters. Part of a rather long series of books and novellas. Finished, painfully, Letter from the Dead, by Jack Gatland, a terrible detective story set in London with caricaturesque characters and situations all the way. Surprisingly a best-seller! (And followed by 21 volumes!)
Harvested and cooked so-called Jerusalem and Chinese artichokes (in French, topinambourg and crosnes, resp.) for Xmath, which didn’t suit everyone at the table. But which I liked, despite the annoying harvesting of crosnes, small and highly dispersed roots. Did not cook anything while India but indulged in the infinite variety of new dishes found in the different hotels & resorts we stayed at.
Chose chaos as the most suited of the horsemen for the coming year, with the number one disruptor (re)entering the White House, wars still raging in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, …, the lack of a stable majority in the French parliament, and the rise of populism in Europe. And elsewhere.
a journal of the chaos, conquest, guerre, famine, and death year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, Wines with tags book review, Canada, Céline, collaboration, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Folio, green tomatoes, Guerre, Han Kang, Jacques Tardi, jam, Journal of the Plague Year, Louis Ferdinand Céline, marmalade, Nobel Prize in Litterature, Pétain, preserve, Russian invasion, Sigamaringen, South Korea, Ukraine, Voyage au Bout de la Nuit, WW II on November 9, 2024 by xi'anRead Guerre (War) by Louis-Ferdinand Céline (with a cover by Tardi, as for the other books of his in the Folio collection), a recent recovery of a 1934 manuscript that had been stolen from his Paris apartment in 1944 when he fled to Sigamaringen along with the collaborationist Pétain government. As described (with much whining and cynicism) in D’un château l’Autre (Castle to Castle). If Voyage au Bout de la Nuit is to be considered as one of the strongest anti-war novels ever, Guerre sounds like the original, uncensored , unedited—a few words and the earlier pages are missing—, version of this book, despite being written later. A short but intense 150 pages raw fall into the mindset of a surviving WWI soldier that feels like treading a sewer but offers an in-your-face testimony on the unlimited amorality of war and men, with no heroes… As mentioned earlier, I also read Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, which is another kind of shell-shocking journey in three mindsets around the central figure of the sister fasting herself to death, whose perspective is barely heard. Raw, again, with introspection and returns to childhood trauma, impressive in many respects and so original!
Made jars and jars of green tomato jam as the tomato plants had started to rot due to the enormous volume of rain we got in September and October. Also made a pie with chestnuts and chocolate and the very last raspberries, after my attempt at chestnut butter did not prove successful. With a sprinkle of matcha to substitute for sugar. (Figs are also almost done for the season, after a massive harvest that I mostly shared with my Dauphine colleagues.)
