Guignol's Band

New Directions has just published a translation of Guignol's Band, third novel of Louis-Ferdinand Celine. This contemporary French author is unknown to the majority of American readers, but in Europe he is one sort of successful writer: the controversial kind. At a time when it is difficult to be truly Avant-garden, he qualifies, and his followers consider him a permanent figure in French letters.

Since Guignol's Band is written in the difficult form of "stream of consciousness," it deserves to be considered as an experimental work, rather than a book which can be read, enjoyed, understood, and put back on the shelf. Guignol's Band makes extremely difficult reading.

Celine writes as the mind is purported to think: in fragments. His narrator is a wounded veteran from the French army of World War I who goes to live in London, among "pimps, prostitutes, a pawnbroker, an arsonist, and a magician." The action shifts from place to place, almost at random, and the transitions are so violent as to be unintelligible. Unintroduced characters appear and drop out, but they are not missed. At the close of the work the narrator catches a bus. The book is finished, and the narrator forgotten.

There is no story here. What Celine attempts is not a story but a panoramic sweep of impressions which will present the human being in time of crisis. In the literal sense the crisis is war, but Celine really aims at portraying the unending crisis of living.

Celine's language, however, makes a crisis seem monotonous. Note his description of a bombardment scene: .". . .Rraapl. . . Whah!. . . Rrango!. . . Whah!. . . Rroong!. . . That's about the noises made by a real molten torpedo. . . the most enormous! In the heart of a black and green volcanol. . . What a burst of fire!. . . Another bomb grazing us! goes exploding right into the current. . . The blast rocks us. . . Your guts all ripped out. . . Your heart popping into your mouth!"

More damaging than tiring language is Celine's cold approach to life. The characters, including the narrator, are inspired by a bitterness that verges on a hatred for the whole business of living. There is not one character with whom the reader can identify himself. At the end one is left with impressions, and the question is: So what? Couldn't there be impressions and a story too?

The answer in the case of 'Guignol's Band is yes. The reader cannot become involved with the characters of the book because there is nothing sympathetic about them, and the action adds nothing to what the reader retains. The impressions are vivid, and in the impressions association is possible; but one wonders whether a chapter is not long enough to convey the tragedy of human beings lost and alone in the world.