Fable for Another Time

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.

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.