{"product_id":"london-2","title":"London","description":"\u003cp\u003eLondon centers on Ferdinand, the protagonist of Celine's\u003cem\u003e London\u003c\/em\u003e who is a gravely injured WWI soldier with a severe wound to his ear and  suffers from both vertigo and the endless noise he can't stop hearing: \u003cem\u003eI caught the war in my head\u003c\/em\u003e. It's locked up inside my head. Ferdinand has earned a reprieve as well as a medal, and he has left France to join his prostitute friend Angele in London. Despite his decoration, he nevertheless fears being sent back to the front and, in semi-hiding, takes up residence in an attic room where his pal Cantaloup runs an intense sex- trafficking operation. Colorful characters populate \u003cem\u003eLondon\u003c\/em\u003e: besides Cantaloup and Angele, there is the generous poor Jewish doctor Yugenbitz, the corrupt cop Bijou, an eccentric English aristocrat, a slew of pimps, a rich variety of whores, and the revolutionary former bomb-maker Borokrom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLondon is also a sweeping, grand-narrative-as-funhouse-mirror of Céline’s own dual profession of medicine and writing: \u003cem\u003eIt’s true I was sick and in a lot of pain and so I was justified. The consolation of having found Yugenbitz and the path, and the way that he’d given me hope to understand his beautiful work, that had sort of intoxicated me, I admit. I’m a little too enthusiastic about things of the mind. I’d have liked I think to cure all human diseases, so they’d never suffer again, the bastards. We’re a strange lot, if we only admit it. Fine.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57573192958325,"sku":"9780811237345","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/london-2","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}