Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection

This brief chapter introduces what will grow into a five-chapter analysis of Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s novels. Kristeva asserts early that “today’s universe is divided between boredom (increasingly anguished at the prospect of losing its resources, through depletion) or (when the spark of the symbolic is maintained and the desire to speak explodes) abjection and piercing laughter” (133). In other words, 20th-century life is absurd and contradictory. Céline’s work falls decidedly in the realm of abjection, and Kristeva identifies the reader’s experience as the “miracle” of Céline’s novels. Kristeva asks why Céline’s work continues to challenge readers, finally concluding that it is because the honesty and poignancy of his writing break through to the inner being of the reader. Despite his belief “that death and horror are what being is” (134), he nonetheless exposes the world with laughter and grief.

Kristeva addresses two important controversies surrounding Céline: he supported the Nazis during World War II and openly expresses antisemitism in his writing. She argues that his works are both realistic and grotesque, listing among other themes she will address in the next chapters, “horror, death, madness, orgy, outlaws, war, the feminine threat” (137). She closes the chapter with a reference to