[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 175 KB, 600x866, journey1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6790422 No.6790422 [Reply] [Original]

Thinking of picking this up is there any translation I should avoid


Also anything I should read first

>> No.6790451

>>6790422
>translation

>> No.6790510

Why would you buy a book with a cover like that? Who puts different sized urinals on the cover of their book?

>> No.6790559 [SPOILER] 
File: 59 KB, 318x468, 1436248260493.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6790559

>>6790510
At least it's better than bad-horror-movie cover

>> No.6790570

The Ralph Manheim translations are about as good as you are going to get, although with Celine you will miss out on much of his argot without the original French. Journey was his first book, although I personally think Death on Credit was better. There are a few biographies of him out, but the main thing in his life that made him controversial was his endorsement of the Holocaust.

>> No.6790697
File: 40 KB, 540x327, Louis-Ferdinand-Céline.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6790697

>>6790570
According to a Vonnegut intro, Celine is better in translation because so much of the argot is obscure and dated to French speakers. I do not claim to know whether this is true. I have only read him in English translation. His end of the war/postwar trilogy (Castle to Castle, North, and Rigadoon) is an amazing look at Europe at the end of WW2. Also, I don't know if I would say he endorsed the Holocaust, but he predicted before the war that the Jews would claim that it happened. He was tried and found guilty of collaboration and served time for it. It is important to remember that his writing was fiction and not historical. Also, he considered Journey to be his only "good" book. Everything else he wrote was for the money. He was a medical doctor and practiced his profession whenever possible.