Journey to the End of the Night
His first novel, about Ferdinand's adult life. Most readers should start there.
Read our take
Death on the Installment Plan
Céline's shrieking, hilarious portrait of a Belle Époque Paris childhood in the Paris arcades — poverty as opera.
- 1936
- 592
About Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeCéline's second novel goes back before the First World War, to the childhood of Ferdinand, the narrator of Journey to the End of the Night. He grows up in a glass-roofed Paris arcade, where his mother sells lace that no one buys and his father, an insurance clerk, rages at the dinner table. School, apprenticeships, and an English boarding school all end in disaster, until an uncle places him with Courtial des Pereires — inventor, balloonist, editor, and fraud. The style is wilder than Journey's, broken into short bursts by Céline's trademark ellipses, and the misery is played as comedy.
The story, in more detail
After the success of Journey to the End of the Night, Céline wrote about his childhood. Mort à crédit, published in 1936, rebuilds his boyhood in the Passage Choiseul — renamed the Passage des Bérésinas — where his family kept a failing lace shop under the glass roof. Everything is enlarged: the mother's limp, the father's rages, the ruined apprenticeships, the schemes. It is fiction built from his own life, exaggerated into comedy.
The style went further than Journey's. The famous three-dot ellipses arrive here — sentences broken into short bursts, closer to a speaking voice than to written French. Reviewers who had accepted Journey rejected this one, and Denoël published it with blank spaces where passages had been cut, which drew attention to exactly what was missing. Sales disappointed, and Céline took the reception badly.
The verdict has since reversed. Many readers, and many French writers, now consider this rather than Journey his best novel. Under the noise it is a family story: a boy, a failing shop, and parents worn down by small commerce.
The full plot
The novel rebuilds the childhood of Ferdinand, the narrator of Journey, in a glass-roofed Paris shopping passage at the turn of the century. His mother runs a lace shop and drags the family toward respectability; his father, a minor insurance clerk, predicts catastrophe nightly at the dinner table. Every attempt to launch the boy — school, first jobs, apprenticeships — ends in disaster, half through Ferdinand's fault and half through the world's.
Two kinder figures interrupt the failures: Uncle Édouard, the one adult who believes in the boy, and an English boarding school where Ferdinand, sent to learn the language, refuses to speak at all. It is Uncle Édouard who arranges the last act, placing Ferdinand with Roger-Marin Courtial des Pereires — balloonist, inventor, magazine editor, and complete fraud.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Courtial's enterprises collapse one after another: the balloon, a perpetual-motion contest that enrages its entrants, the magazine, and finally a scheme to grow potatoes by 'radio-telluric' waves in the countryside, which produces rotten crops and furious neighbors. Ruined, Courtial shoots himself one winter night, and Ferdinand finds the body. Back in Paris with nothing, and with Uncle Édouard's support, Ferdinand decides to join the army — where the events of Journey to the End of the Night will begin.
Why we recommend it
Courtial des Pereires
The inventor, balloonist, and fraud who employs Ferdinand in the last third of the book is one of the great comic characters in French literature.
The style, fully unchained
This is the book where Céline's broken, three-dot style arrives. The sentences read like a voice, not like prose.
The Belle Époque, de-romanticized
The era's good old days as lived by shopkeepers one bad month from ruin — the opposite of the usual picture of turn-of-the-century Paris.
What this book explores
Bring it to book club
- The narrator's rage at his parents keeps slipping into something like grief. Where did you catch it happening?
- Is Courtial a satire of the era's faith in progress, or its most honest believer?
- Compare this childhood with any conventional memoir's. What does the screaming style make sayable?
Timeline
1936
Céline publishes Mort à crédit with Denoël, a novel built from his own Paris childhood.
1936
Reviewers who had accepted Journey reject the new style, and Denoël prints the book with blank spaces where passages were cut.
1966
Ralph Manheim's English translation is published by New Directions.
Book editions
- Paperback
- New Directions
- 1966
- 9780811200172
- Ralph Manheim
- Ebook
- New Directions
- 9780811223607
- Ralph Manheim
Reader reviews
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Hemingway's Paris, one social class and a few streets away from Céline's.
Read our takeDeath on the Installment Plan: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Death on the Installment Plan?
Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Published in 1936, it was his second novel, after Journey to the End of the Night.
What is Death on the Installment Plan about?
The childhood and youth of Ferdinand, who grows up in a glass-roofed Paris arcade where his mother sells lace and his father rages. After failed schools and apprenticeships, he goes to work for Courtial des Pereires, an inventor and fraud.
How does it relate to Journey to the End of the Night?
It tells the childhood of Journey's narrator, so it takes place first even though it was written second. The style is wilder, with the sentences broken up by Céline's three-dot ellipses.
Is it autobiographical?
Largely. Céline grew up in the Passage Choiseul, where his mother kept a shop, and the novel reworks that childhood into fiction, greatly exaggerated.
Why is the style notable?
This is the book where Céline's signature style arrives: short bursts of spoken French separated by ellipses. It pushed the experiment of his first novel much further.
