Guerre by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Abstract

Reviewed by: Guerre by Louis-Ferdinand Céline Jane E. Evans CÉline, Louis-Ferdinand. Guerre. Gallimard, 2022. ISBN 978-2-07-298322-1. Pp. 191. Literary scholars contend that the term "autofiction" better captures the nature of life-writing than the term "autobiography," with the former allowing for the enhancement and downplaying of certain events by the writer for a variety of reasons, modesty, lost memories, and creativity, among them. Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel, Guerre, exemplifies autofiction as it interweaves fact with fantasy. Based on his 1914 experiences in the Great War, Céline's first-person account was composed twenty years later. The narrator, "Louis-Ferdinand," "Ferdinand," or "Loulou," compelled to share his war experiences, declares early in the story, "J'ai attrapé la guerre dans ma tête. Elle est enfermée dans ma tête" (26). His words convey the effects of having been bombed, both literally and figuratively: his head reverberates from the explosions and the deafness in his left ear; he also expresses the idea that sharing his experiences will be psychologically beneficial. While he leads people to believe that he was shot in the head as well as in the arm, his concussion resulted from falling against a tree during the bombardment. If he later adds, "Mais faut que je raconte tout" (34), he refrains from promising accuracy. Rather, he addresses the reader as follows, "J'ai appris à faire de la musique […] et, vous le voyez, de la belle littérature aussi, avec des petits morceaux d'horreur arrachés au bruit qui n'en finira jamais" (28). Thus, events documented by letters from the French Army to Louis-Ferdinand's father regarding his son's "héroïsme" (97) towards his fellow soldiers and grave injury to his right arm appear alongside romanticized elements, such as the eagerness of nurse L'Espinasse to gauge the wounded soldiers' potential for recovery according to how well they respond to her manual stimulation of their genitals. In real life, Loulou's nurse, Alice David, struck up a friendship with him and behaved like a big sister (14). The narrator's receipt of a military medal of valor, another verifiable occurrence, contrasts sharply with the fantasized verbal altercations between Céline's wardmate, Bébert, and his prostitute wife, Angèle, that purportedly end their marriage. Additional instances of diverting the truth include modifications of real names in Part Two of his récit: "Bébert" becomes "Cascade" while the narrator's mother, "Célestine" in Part One, is renamed "Clémence" in the subsequent section. These changes attest to creativity on the narrator's part, although he does not explain why. He does, however, caution the reader about the fallibility of memory with the passage of time: "À tant d'années passées le souvenir des choses, bien précisément, c'est un effort. Ce que les gens ont dit c'est presque tourné des mensonges. Faut se méfier. C'est putain le passé, ça fond dans la rêvasserie" (117). This avowal underscores the imaginary nature of his characters' dialogues once again. At the end of Guerre, the narrator claims to have left the French hospital in Peurdu-sur-la-Lys to continue his convalescence in London directly, although the truth is that Louis-Ferdinand spent several months in a Parisian hospital before making his way to England (169). [End Page 224] Jane E. Evans University of Texas, El Paso Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French