Journey to the End of the Night

Ranked #6 in French, Ranked #13 in Francesee more rankings.

Louis-Ferdinand Celine's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every page of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in raw, colloquial language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism. This book shocked most critics when it was first published in France in 1932, but quickly became a success with the reading public in Europe, and later in America where it was first published by New Directions in 1952. The story of the improbable yet convincingly... more

Reviews and Recommendations

We've comprehensively compiled reviews of Journey to the End of the Night from the world's leading experts.

Neil Strauss Bestselling Author[Neil Strauss recommended this book in the book "Tools of Titans".] (Source)

Rachel Kushner This novel taught me, early on, about hyperbole … I took it as a lesson and challenge, about description, accuracy, truth, and the powers of exaggeration to produce humour. (Source)

David Downie I was particularly fascinated by Céline’s portrait of the city because Paris is one of the characters in the book. You get a real sense of what Paris looked like. (Source)

Quentin Hardy @p1lonn Terrible human, but that's a great book. (Source)


Rankings by Category

Journey to the End of the Night is ranked in the following categories:


Similar Books

If you like Journey to the End of the Night, check out these similar top-rated books:


Learn: What makes Shortform summaries the best in the world?