The time is February 1949, and the zhdanovshchina--the purge of intellectuals by Stalin's culture hoodul, Andrei Zhdanov--is beginning.

Adjuring Western civilization to eliminate all Jews--men, women, and children--and to eradicate their very shadow from mankind

Céline's private manner and literary work are immersed in a black laughter of Rabelaisian propoirtions.

the pageant and the proximate ordure

It is the sheer weight of Céline's racist vituperations

He glimpses purloined letter where others stare at wallpaper.

Like a dowser, he senses the significant deeps underneath the long-trodden surface.

the truly great scholar becomes as one with his material, however abstruse, however, recondite

Thomas Nevin gives only a summary sketch of this via dolorosa.

this young Jew of the French para-Marxist left came to make a series of approbatory comments on Hitler