Normance
The direct sequel — Normance's bombing night begins from the psychological world Féerie establishes.
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Fable for Another Time
Louis-Ferdinand Céline's 1952 novel — the first volume of his postwar Féerie sequence, a feverish mixture of prison, memory and grievance.
- 1952
About Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeThe first volume of Céline's postwar Féerie sequence turns his Danish imprisonment and threatened prosecution in France into a feverish mixture of memory, accusation, fantasy and catastrophe. The imprisoned narrator feels abandoned, prosecuted and betrayed. He addresses the reader directly, rages against his enemies, worries about his books and repeatedly returns in memory to his apartment on rue Girardon in Montmartre. One of his obsessions is Jules, a painter and former friend whom he believes has betrayed him.
The story, in more detail
Céline speaks from the psychological world created by his Danish imprisonment and the threat of prosecution in France. He insists on his isolation, attacks former associates and repeatedly tries to justify himself to the reader.
His recollections shift toward Montmartre before his flight from France. Jules becomes a central figure in his sense of betrayal. Everyday events expand into hallucination and nightmare. Ghosts, fantasies and imagined conspiracies appear beside recognizable memories, so the novel increasingly resembles an extended delirium rather than realistic autobiography.
The full plot
There is no stable border between present and past. Prison, wartime Paris, dreams, ghosts, imagined persecutions and literary grievances continually intrude upon one another.
Jules — a painter and former friend Céline believes has betrayed him — becomes an obsessive figure. Céline addresses the reader directly, complains about his books, worries about his enemies and returns again and again to his rue Girardon flat in Montmartre.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
There is no conventional conclusion to this first volume. Its memories and obsessions flow directly into the second, Normance, published two years later.
Themes and analysis
An address from confinement
Confinement does not produce a private confession here. As Julie Boulanger observes, Ferdinand not only addresses his reader but supplies that reader with words, often in an accusing voice. The apparent conversation is already partly controlled by the person making the complaint. This gives the address an uneasy force: we are invited into the scene while being assigned a position within it. Reading critically means noticing that assignment rather than accepting it. The narrator's demand for attention can be powerful without making his account of persecution a reliable explanation of the events behind it.
The room that memory will not leave
Ferdinand's remembered enemy also sustains the energy of his narration. Boulanger draws attention to the inventiveness of his insults against Jules and to the pleasure he seems to take in elaborating the figure he condemns. Hostility does not simply remove Jules from a sympathetic picture of the past; it keeps bringing him back into view. The remembered world is shaped by that disproportionate attention. Reading the portrait this way shifts the question from whether every accusation is justified to how grievance gives a narrative its momentum, crowding out the distance a calmer recollection might allow.
Why we recommend it
The Danish prison, in his own voice
The novel is the direct response to Céline's Copenhagen imprisonment and threatened French prosecution — grievance, memory and delirium in one uninterrupted torrent.
Before the German trilogy
Féerie and Normance are the postwar experiments that led Céline back to the coherence of the German trilogy. Reading them first shows the voice that Castle to Castle then disciplined.
Read with Normance
The two Féerie volumes are one continuous work. Normance concentrates the bombing night that Féerie I sets up in memory; they should be read together.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Ferdinand
The narrator. Céline in imagined prison, addressing the reader directly and returning obsessively to his Montmartre flat and to the friend he believes has betrayed him.
Lili
The narrator's wife, Céline's real companion Lucette Destouches. She appears in the Montmartre memories and continues into Normance's bombing night.
Jules
A painter and former friend whom the narrator believes has betrayed him. Jules becomes the central figure in Féerie's obsessive sense of grievance, and returns in Normance as an imagined orchestrator of the bombing.
Bébert
The cat. He accompanies the narrator across the two Féerie volumes as he did across the German trilogy.
Timeline
1946–1947
During Danish imprisonment and exile, Céline develops manuscript material that leads toward the Féerie project.
1952
Gallimard publishes Féerie pour une autre fois.
1954
Normance appears as the second volume of the sequence.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Dalkey Archive Press
- Mary Hudson
Paperback
- Paperback
- Gallimard
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
Castle to Castle
The German trilogy's first volume; the discipline Céline brings to Sigmaringen memory rests on the experiments of Féerie.
Read our take
Journey to the End of the Night
The debut whose narrator is here again, twenty years and one war older.
Read our take
Death on the Installment Plan
Céline's second novel; the childhood autofiction that stands as the counterpoint to the postwar mode of Féerie.
Read our takeFable for Another Time: frequently asked questions
What is Fable for Another Time about?
The first volume of Céline's postwar Féerie sequence turns his Danish imprisonment and threatened French prosecution into a feverish mixture of memory, grievance and fantasy. An imprisoned narrator addresses the reader directly, rages against his enemies, and returns obsessively to his Montmartre flat and the friend Jules he believes has betrayed him.
When was Féerie pour une autre fois published?
Gallimard published Féerie pour une autre fois in 1952; the second volume, Normance (Féerie pour une autre fois II), followed in 1954. The English translation Fable for Another Time appeared from Dalkey Archive Press.
How is Féerie related to Normance?
They are one two-volume work. Féerie I establishes the psychological world — prison, memory, grievance, imagined betrayal by Jules — and Normance takes the same world into one long night of bombing over Montmartre.
Is Féerie difficult to read?
Yes. It is deliberately fragmented; the border between present and past dissolves, and ghosts, fantasies and imagined conspiracies appear beside recognizable memories. Many readers approach it after Céline's earlier novels rather than as an entry point.
Who is Jules?
Jules is a painter and former friend the narrator believes has betrayed him. He is the central figure in Féerie's sense of grievance and returns in Normance as an imagined orchestrator of the destruction.
Where does Féerie I end?
It does not have a conventional ending. Its memories and obsessions flow directly into the second volume, Normance, published two years later.
If you like Louis-Ferdinand Céline
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Fable for Another Time, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1« Vous avez joui ! » Les déflagrations de Féerie pour une autre fois
EssaysPostures, 9, pp. 19–31, 2007Used forAttributed critical reading of first-volume passages; the article covers both volumes, but no Normance episode is added here.
2Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Romans IV: Féerie pour une autre fois I & II (Normance) — with editorial apparatus, esp. pp. 1115–1170 and 1202 (Féerie I) and p. 1203 (Normance)
EssaysGallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1993Used forPublished analysis and historical context used in preparing the Fable for Another Time page.
3Céline (biography) — esp. p. 484 (Normance), p. 486 (Féerie), pp. 489–490 and 495
BiographyGallimard, 2011Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to Fable for Another Time.
4The Selected Correspondence of Louis-Ferdinand Céline
PeriodicalThe Brooklyn RailUsed forContemporary reporting or criticism used to document the historical reception and context of Fable for Another Time.
5Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) — Encyclopædia Universalis
WebsiteEncyclopædia UniversalisUsed forUsed to verify Louis-Ferdinand Céline's bibliography and place Fable for Another Time within the broader chronology of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's career.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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