Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Little is known about this trip except that it was unsuccessful. He was sent to the Cameroons and returned to France in 1917. In 1916 Céline set out for Africa as a representative of the Sangha-Oubangui company. He returned to France, where he began working at a variety of jobs. In September, his arm wounds were such that he was declared unfit for military duty and was discharged. While in London he married Suzanne Nebout but they divorced one year later. In March 1915 he was sent to London to work in the French passport office. (He was not wounded in the head, contrary to a popular rumor that he perpetuated.) For his bravery, Céline was awarded the médaille militaire in November, and appeared one year later in the weekly l'Illustré National (November 1915, p16). Near Ypres, during his attempt to deliver the message, he was wounded in his right arm. On 25 October 1914, Céline volunteered to deliver a message, when others were reluctant to do so because of heavy German fire. The beginning of the First World War brought action to Céline's unit. However, he adapted, and eventually attained the rank of Sergeant. At first he was unhappy with military life, and even considered deserting. In 1912 Céline began a three-year enlistment in the 12th Cuirassier Regiment stationed in Rambouillet. This was a time in France when, following the Moroccan crisis of 1911, nationalism reached 'fever pitch' – a period one historian described as 'The Hegemony of Patriotism' (1911–1914), particularly affecting opinion in the lycées and grandes écoles of Paris. In 1912, in what Céline described as an act of rebellion against his parents he joined the French army, two years before the start of the First World War and its mandatory French conscription. It was around this time that Céline started to want to become a doctor. Although he was no longer being formally educated, he bought schoolbooks with the money he earned, and studied by himself. He often found himself working for jewellers, first, at eleven, as an errand boy, and later as a salesperson for a local goldsmith.

From the time he left school until the age of eighteen Céline worked in various jobs, leaving or losing them after only short periods of time. Between 19 his parents sent him to Germany and England for a year in each country in order to acquire foreign languages for future employment. In 1905 he was awarded his Certificat d'études, after which he worked as an apprentice and messenger boy in various trades.

His father was a middle manager in an insurance company and his mother owned a boutique where she sold antique lace. The family came originally from Normandy on his father's side and Brittany on his mother's side. The only child of Fernand Destouches and Marguerite-Louise-Céline Guilloux, he was born Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches in 1894 at Courbevoie, just outside Paris in the Seine département (now Hauts-de-Seine).

Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline