How to Pronounce Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Meaning and Context

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, born Louis Ferdinand Destouches in 1894, stands as one of the most pivotal and contentious figures in 20th century French literature. A physician by training, he achieved immediate notoriety and acclaim with his first novel, 'Journey to the End of the Night' (Voyage au bout de la nuit), published in 1932. This work, along with its successor Death on the Installment Plan (1936), revolutionized modernist literature through its pioneering use of a frenetic, colloquial, and highly subjective style that captured the disillusionment of the interwar period. Céline's innovative writing style, characterized by its elliptical syntax, relentless pessimism, and the incorporation of vernacular speech and argot, broke decisively with traditional literary French and exerted a profound influence on French literature, inspiring later movements like the nouveau roman and authors from Jean-Paul Sartre to Charles Bukowski. However, his towering literary legacy is irrevocably marred by his virulently anti-Semitic pamphlets, such as Bagatelles for a Massacre (1937), and his collaborationist activities during the Vichy regime, leading to his exile and condemnation after World War II. This duality makes Céline a perpetual subject of debate regarding the separation of an artist's work from their deplorable personal ideologies.

Common Mistakes and Alternative Spellings

The author's name presents several common points of confusion. The standard and correct spelling is Louis-Ferdinand Céline, with the hyphen between Louis and Ferdinand, an acute accent on the first 'e' in Céline, and the surname often italicized when referring to the author himself to distinguish it from the common female first name Celine. Frequent misspellings and typos include omitting the hyphen ("Louis Ferdinand Céline"), misspelling the surname as "Celine" (without the accent), "Celene," or "Seline." Another common error is the erroneous addition of an accent on the 'i', as in "Céline," which is incorrect for the author, though that spelling is correct for the singer Céline Dion. In non-French contexts, the accent is sometimes dropped entirely. Furthermore, his birth name, Louis Ferdinand Destouches, is less commonly referenced but important for biographical completeness, and may be misspelled as "Destouche" or "Destoushes."

Example Sentences

Scholars continue to grapple with the dichotomy between Louis-Ferdinand Céline's groundbreaking narrative techniques and his reprehensible political tracts.

The visceral, chaotic prose of Journey to the End of the Night offers a scathing indictment of modern society that remains powerfully resonant.

Many contemporary novelists acknowledge a debt to Céline's innovative writing style, even as they condemn his anti-Semitism.

A first-time reader of Céline is often immediately struck by the torrential, breathless quality of his sentences.

Despite his exile and infamy, later works like Castle to Castle demonstrate that Céline's literary ferocity remained undiminished.

The debate over whether to teach Céline in literature courses hinges on the perennial question of separating art from the artist.

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