
Journey to the End of the Night
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Narrated by:
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David Colacci
About this listen
Louis-Ferdinand Celine's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every minute 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 public in Europe, and later in America, where it was first published by New Directions in 1952. The story of the improbable, yet convincingly described travels of the petit-bourgeois (and largely autobiographical) antihero, Bardamu, from the trenches of World War I, to the African jungle, to New York and Detroit, and finally to life as a failed doctor in Paris, takes the listeners by the scruff and hurtles them toward the novel's inevitable, sad conclusion.
©1952 Louis-Ferdinand Céline. Translation copyright 1983 by Ralph Manheim. Afterword copyright 2006 by William T. Vollmann (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
In 1913, the Viennese aristocracy is gathering to celebrate the 17th jubilee of the accession of Emperor Franz Josef, even as the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing and the rest of Vienna is showing signs of rebellion. At the centre of this social labyrinth is Ulrich: a veteran, a seducer and a scientist, yet also a man 'without qualities' and therefore a brilliant and detached observer of his changing world.
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An unmatched intellectual epic
- By Delano on 06-23-22
By: Robert Musil
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Disgrace
- A Novel
- By: J. M. Coetzee
- Narrated by: Michael Cumpsty
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Written with the austere clarity that has made J. M. Coetzee the winner of two Booker Prizes, Disgrace explores the downfall of one man and dramatizes, with unforgettable, at times almost unbearable, vividness the plight of a country caught in the chaotic aftermath of centuries of racial oppression.
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Great book - aptly named
- By JOHN on 07-18-10
By: J. M. Coetzee
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Sentimental Education
- By: Gustave Flaubert
- Narrated by: Andrew Wincott
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Upon arriving home in Normandy, Frederick catches his first glimpse of Marie Arnoux, a mysterious and beautiful woman who leaves a lasting impression on him. Eventually they make each other's acquaintance and Marie becomes a symbol of unattainable perfection for Frederick, whose unrequited infatuation leaves him bouncing from one passion to another, falling in and out of love, money and society.
By: Gustave Flaubert
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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 1
- By: Edgar Allan Poe
- Narrated by: Nicholas Stikoski
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A collection of classic works by Edgar Allan Poe, American author, poet, editor, and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
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Poor narration hurts these Poe classics
- By Jeremy C. Kuban on 11-29-12
By: Edgar Allan Poe
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Hunger
- By: Knut Hamsun
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Verging on death, a starving, destitute writer navigates the cold and indifferent city of Kristiania in search of his next meal. Frenzied and fevered, he chews on stale bread, devours scraps of wood, and bites his own finger, sleeping under the stars in old, pungent blankets, until one day he is able to sell an article and buy some food - only for the cycle then to repeat itself....
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Great book great narrator
- By Gunnar on 08-27-20
By: Knut Hamsun
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Fire
- From “A Journal of Love”: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1934--1937
- By: Anais Nin
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 18 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing from the author's original, uncensored journals, Fire follows Anaïs Nin's journey as she attempts to liberate herself sexually, artistically, and emotionally. While referring to her relationships with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and author Henry Miller, as well as a new lover, the Peruvian Gonzalo More, she also reveals that her most passionate and enduring affair is with writing itself.
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Beautiful Woman
- By Michael on 12-25-24
By: Anais Nin
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Tender Is the Night
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Mark Young
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Dick and Nicole Diver are a glamorous couple who rent a villa in the South of France and surround themselves with a coterie of American expatriates. Rosemary Hoyt, a 17-year-old actress, and her mother are staying at a nearby resort. Rosemary becomes infatuated with Dick and becomes close to Nicole.
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great experience
- By C B Murphy on 10-22-23
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The Ghost Writer
- The Nathan Zuckerman Series, Book 1
- By: Philip Roth
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The Ghost Writer introduces Nathan Zuckerman in the 1950s, a budding writer infatuated with the great books, discovering the contradictory claims of literature and experience while an overnight guest in the secluded New England farmhouse of his idol, E. I. Lonoff. At Lonoff's, Zuckerman meets Amy Bellette, a haunting young woman of indeterminate foreign background who turns out to be a former student of Lonoff's and who may also have been his mistress.
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Turning Sentences Around
- By Darwin8u on 01-28-17
By: Philip Roth
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The Trial
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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If Max Brod had obeyed Franz Kafka's dying request, Kafka's unpublished manuscripts would have been burned, unread. Fortunately, Brod ignored his friend's wishes and published The Trial, which became the author's most famous work. Now Kafka's enigmatic novel regains its humor and stylistic elegance in a new translation based on the restored original manuscript.
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We are all the straw that breaks a camel's back
- By Dan Harlow on 10-14-13
By: Franz Kafka
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The Sound and the Fury
- By: William Faulkner, Casey Cep
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner, Gabra Zackman
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
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Hang in
- By W.Denis on 07-11-05
By: William Faulkner, and others
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The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
- By: Franz Kafka
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In the bizarre world of Franz Kafka, salesmen turn into giant bugs, apes give lectures at college academies, and nightmares probe the mysteries of modern humanity’s unhappiness. More than any other modern writer in world literature, Kafka captures the loneliness and misery that fill the lives of 20th-century humanity.
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Great assortment of stories
- By Himanshu Modi on 08-20-18
By: Franz Kafka
what a shame
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This was an audio book read by David Colacci. His reading is excellent. He captures the spirit of the character, good intonation through out. I'd buy another book read by him.
The book. For me the book was great while I was listening, but it didn't stick with me when I wasn't lisentening. I enjoyed it while I was listening, but didn't think about it much when I wasn't. When I'd return to it, I'd think this is really good, why am I not listening every night. Then I'd wake up and not think about it. The character is interesting but I'm not sure he grows much, and I feel that he has no clear direction. I think perhaps this is the author's idea, and he clearly does it well.
The plot, or lack there of, is what hurts the novel the most in my opinion. The character moves from scene to scene from thing to thing without much connection to each other. Then there is Robinson, who pops up all the time and is the one other character that binds the book together. I would have like to have realized what the central conflict of the novel was. Was it man learning about self, about death? What?
Recommended: as an audio book, yes. I think it is good enough to be entertaining. I found myself thinking as I listened, wow that's kind of deep. But then I'd forget about it later.
A meandering Plot!
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The ending is like a great painting that I will never forget. I find myself replaying that last chapter in awe as it pulls all the threads together into a cohesive whole.
The Ending is memorable
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Hysterical
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Classic absurdism
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Trauma of war
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"A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word." Ralph Waldo Emerson
From Journey to the End of the Night:
The sadness of the world has different ways of getting to people, but it seems to succeed almost every time.
****
I cannot refrain from doubting that there exist any genuine realizations of our deepest character except war and illness, those two infinities of nightmare.
This 1932 novel follows the wayfarings of French antihero Ferdinand Bardamu in and after World War I through war-ravaged Europe, the African jungles and post-World War I New York City and Detroit, then back to France where he became an unsuccessful medical doctor after setting up a practice in a poverty-stricken Paris suburb. Celine's impetus to writing this book largely came from the trauma he suffered while serving in World War I. Celine was a continual and consistent cynic who no doubt loathed what he viewed as a society full of hypocrisy and folly.
The gloomy narrative is replete with vulgar slang, sardonic jocosity, incessant agonies and pessimism, with heavy use of exaggerations and ellipses to reflect the flow of Bardamu's dialogue. He seems preoccupied to the point of mania with, or to gaining serial self-gratifications by, ferociously hurling vituperations at society, human nature and life generally, and by vilifying all human institutions and Jews.
In short, Journey to the End of the Night, and each word of it, constitute the literary equivalent of dark chocolates for those seeking to maintain maximum melancholia and perfect a plenary pessimistic perspective.
A black cloud followed me for a week after reading this.
"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin." H. L. Mencken
Miserable Ride with Cynic Supreme
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Riotous, Political Incorrectness!!
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The translation here seems pretty solid, but this work is probably best appreciated in its native language, as Céline wrote in a style that was extremely jarring for the time.
This book is hard to follow. There are a ton of digressions, a lot of asides about the nastiness of human nature, and what appears to be a threadbare plot tying it loosely together. Broadly, it's about a very angry and cynical man who is going nowhere in life.
The narrator delivers each line with a kind if sneering contempt that enhances the prose.
A classic, but not for the faint of heart...
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Hilarious
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