This essay, which considers Céline as the most important French novelist of the 20th century alongside Proust, concentrates on his place in literary criticism. A great deal of tension coming from opposite fronts is involved in the matter. On the one hand is Sartre and the philo-sartrian approach which is reflected through the critical line of thought of "catastrophe and representation" in which the most important element is the duty to never forget the Holocaust. This excludes Céline ipso facto from the land of the righteous. On the other hand are the more recent critics which unlike the Temps Modernes followers, have bravely rehabilitated the author of the Pamphlets, in the journal Tel Quel. The questions that are put forward here are ones that necessarily conjure up Plato and Book III of The Republic.
Céline; Nouvelle Critique; Nouvelle Vague; Plato