Louis-Ferdinand Céline was a French author. He suffered from insomnia. The line I know why you are tired is a reference to that. His insomnia is what prompted him to write. I realize they refer to Céline as a woman, but that may just be BOC using "artistic license" to allow the sonet to flow. In his book Death on the Installment plan, he offers a profound vision of the nature of individual human existence, rooted in suffering and inertia. The anti-heroic genius of Ferdinand's search for a livable life in 20th century Paris forms a direct literary metaphor for modern humanity: to search and search again for happiness and meaning in a complex world and to often come up empty. Or more precisely, to find words, stories, experiences, and ideas that stretch the boundaries of consciousness while providing little or no structure with which to assign any meaning to life as a whole. Life becomes merely a subjective personal experience in the midst of madness and savagery. It is considered beautiful in itself but with overtones of profound suffering and a lack of moral prerogatives, always at the mercy of the strange human forces that are both within and without. To Céline, we become our own history and our own suffering. As such we live, accumulating the pain, confusion, and death that life allows us to have on installment. Which verifies this stanza.
Love is like a gun
In the hands of someone like you
I think it'd kill
But oh what a thrill
Oh what a thrill.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was a French author. He suffered from insomnia. The line I know why you are tired is a reference to that. His insomnia is what prompted him to write. I realize they refer to Céline as a woman, but that may just be BOC using "artistic license" to allow the sonet to flow. In his book Death on the Installment plan, he offers a profound vision of the nature of individual human existence, rooted in suffering and inertia. The anti-heroic genius of Ferdinand's search for a livable life in 20th century Paris forms a direct literary metaphor for modern humanity: to search and search again for happiness and meaning in a complex world and to often come up empty. Or more precisely, to find words, stories, experiences, and ideas that stretch the boundaries of consciousness while providing little or no structure with which to assign any meaning to life as a whole. Life becomes merely a subjective personal experience in the midst of madness and savagery. It is considered beautiful in itself but with overtones of profound suffering and a lack of moral prerogatives, always at the mercy of the strange human forces that are both within and without. To Céline, we become our own history and our own suffering. As such we live, accumulating the pain, confusion, and death that life allows us to have on installment. Which verifies this stanza.
Love is like a gun In the hands of someone like you I think it'd kill But oh what a thrill Oh what a thrill.
Life is a thrill.