Vian, Boris

Foam of the Daze
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Great book, poor translation
  • WOW
  • Review from the Los Angeles Times (Feb 1, 2004)
Foam of the Daze
Boris Vian
Manufacturer: TamTam Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:
  1. I Spit on Your Graves
  2. Heartsnatcher (French Literature Series (Normal, Ill.).)
  3. Boris Vian's Manual of St. Germain des Pres
  4. Autumn in Peking
  5. L'Ecume Des Jours

ASIN: 0966234634

Book Description

The most poignant love story of our time. [Raymond Queneau] "A kind of jazzy, cheerful, sexy, sci-fi mid-20th century Huysmans. Check it out. There is just no place like France." [Richard Hell] "Foam Of The Daze is a novel like no other, a sexy, innocent, smart and sweet cartoon of a world which then begins, little by little, to bleed real blood until, in the end, the blood turns out to be our own. I read it nearly 30 years ago...and I loved it then; it's still one of my favorite books in t he whole world." [Jim Krusoe]

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Great book, poor translation.......2004-10-31

Beside this English translation I have read two other editions of this book (one in its original language -French- and another in a language other than English). I have to say that, by comparison, this one kinda dissapointed me. A lot of expressions and meanings were lost in the poor translation, some were downright stupid mistakes. "Foam of the Daze"?!? I wonder if this book was typed by dictation, since the correct translation would be "Foam of the Days". It reminded me of the typing on the TV's CC system, or listening to one of Beethoven's symphonies with a quasi-deaf conductor leading the orchestra.
I believe it takes someone with writing talent and command of both languages to translate superior literature like this and retain its original greatness. Yes, the story is very moving, but when it comes to writers like Boris Vian, I'd say there's much more than a story.
I wish I could recommend a better English translation, but so far I've only read this one. All I can do is warn you about the poor quality of the edition presented here.

5 out of 5 stars WOW.......2004-10-01

I will put it in a simple way: I have read and re-read this book in French, in Spanish and now in English more than fifty times and still find it to be the best love story ever told. Vian characters are straight, pure, honest and passionate in a way that we only can dream about. They are so full of life that you can actually cry when they die (I know, sound commonplace, but how often do you really mourn a character?). Vian draws this paradox of life and death better than anyone I know. Oh, you may wonder why I've read this book so many times... well, you know, Vian is actually telling you a different story every time you lay eyes into this book of marvels. Another commonplace would be to say that your life will change dramatically after reading this book. Ok, don't take my word, just go for it yourself. And, if you can, share your thoughts...

5 out of 5 stars Review from the Los Angeles Times (Feb 1, 2004).......2004-06-22

A legend throughout Europe - French musician, translator of Raymond Chandler and seminal science fiction writer, poet, songwriter, novelist and screen actor - Boris Vian remains little known in the United States. Los Angeles-based TamTam Book aims to correct this, having published a paperback edition of Vian's landmark thriller "I Spit on Your Graves" in 2001 and now a new translation of his masterful "Foam of the Daze" (L'Ecume des jours"), with the first translation of "L'Automne à Pékin" to follow.

There have been two previous English translations of "Foam": Stanley Chapman's 1967 British edition, "Froth on the Daydream," and Jon Sturrock's U.S. version, "Mood Indigo," which appeared shortly thereafter. Chapman's is by far the superior, admirably transposing Vian's rhythms into English and finding equivalents for his multi-level puns and wordplay. But Brian Harper's hip new translation, edged toward the modern U.S. reader, may well become the standard.

This is a great novel, mind you. Though on its surface, the simplest of stories - Vian summed it up as "a man loves a woman, she falls ill, she dies" - beneath are a host of ambiguities, digressions, levels of meaning. Not quite beneath actually, for subtexts keep erupting to the surface. It is in many ways a novel built of eruptions.

Simply, then, this is a tale of two couples: Colin, a rich and rather superfluous man, and Chloe, a woman dying from a lily growing in her lung; Chick, whose life is ruined by his collecting of Jean-Sol Partre's books and memorabilia, and Alise, who tries to save Chick from himself by murdering Partre. As the lily grows in Chloe's lung, Colin does all he can to keep her alive. But her bed sinks closer to the ground and the room grows ever smaller. Because Colin has no money left to pay for burial, Chloe's coffin is simply thrown out the window.

In Vian's world, nothing is simple, nothing may be taken for granted. Because people they love have died, mice persuade diffident cats to kill them; bells detach themselves from doors to come and announce visitors; neckties rebel against being knotted; some broken windowpanes grow back overnight while others darken from breathing difficulties; a piano mixes cocktails to match the music being played upon it; armchairs and sausages must be calmed before use. When Colin puts Duke Ellington's "The Mood to Be Wooed" on the phonograph, the O's on the record label cause the corners of the room to become round.

In Vian's books, the world becomes ineluctably strange, the world as a child or a madman might see it. And that's the recipe for "Foam of the Daze," a novel with paradox at its heart, as critic David Meakin has observed: one part light-hearted fantasy, one part tragedy. Add wordplay and romance to taste. Your heart will be broken. You will be confused and confounded. You will laugh aloud. And at least for a time, however hard you try, your own world will refuse to be what you think it is.

Here is Colin in church after Chloe's death:
"Why did you have her die?" asked Colin.
Oh... said Jesus, drop the subject.
He looked for a more comfortable position on his nails.
She was so sweet, said Colin. Never was she bad, neither in thought, nor in action.
That has nothing to do with religion, mumbled Jesus, yawning. He shook his head a little to change the slant of his crown of thorns.
I don't see what we've done, said Colin, we don't deserve this.

He lowered his eyes... Jesus's chest was rising softly and regularly, his features breathed calm, his eyes had closed and Colin could hear a light purr of satisfaction coming from his nostrils, like a sated cat."

Vian died June 23, 1959, at 39 as he sat watching a film version of his thriller "I Spit on Your Graves." He'd neglected to take his heart medications that morning and as the first frames ticked by on screen, he is said to have uttered, "These guys are supposed to be American? My ass!" and collapsed.

Vian's was a short, very full, very strange ride, like that of his ever-youthful characters in "Foam of the Daze."

James Sallis, Los Angeles Times Book Review (Sunday, February 1, 2004).
Boris Vian's Manual of St. Germain des Pres
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Boris Vian's Manual of St. Germain des Pres
  • Groovin' in St Germain
  • beutiful
  • History as it happened
  • Curious and delightful artifact of postwar bohemian Paris
Boris Vian's Manual of St. Germain des Pres
Boris Vian
Manufacturer: Rizzoli International Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0847826589
Release Date: 2005-10-18

Book Description

Rizzoli is pleased to present the first English-language translation of Manual of St-Germain-des-Près by beloved French author Boris Vian. Paris in the fifties was an incredible place and time: with the end of the war, everything seemed possible. Vian's book, a guided tour of the left bank cafés, galleries, underground jazz clubs, theaters, and apartment salons captures the transformative culture of the existentialist and post-surrealistic circles. The list of luminaries he ran with includes Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, Alberto Giacometti, Juliette Greco, Raymond Queneau, Jacquês Prevert, Miles Davis, and, of course, Jean-Paul Sartre. Manual of St-Germain-des-Près is a chronicle of a period, a place, a circle, and a lifestyle, highlighted in this volume with sumptuous photographs by Georges Dudognon that illustrate Vian's words. A broader cultural context for Vian's work is provided in the introduction.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Boris Vian's Manual of St. Germain des Pres.......2007-05-16

1st class service all the way. Thanks.

5 out of 5 stars Groovin' in St Germain.......2007-03-20

Capturing the verve, vitality and creativity of St Germain at it's richest peak, this book seduces, subjects and forces one to submit to all that St Germain was in its artistic heydey! Take me back, take me back!!!

3 out of 5 stars beutiful.......2007-03-12

the book has a very unique design and a lot of nice photos, while the content is absolutely magnificent.
i bought it as a present along with the Duke Elington masterpieces box set since Vian was inspired by Indigo Mood while writing his masterpiece Foam of the Day.
I am thinking to order another copy of the book for myself.

4 out of 5 stars History as it happened.......2006-08-12

There is coverage of Paris in the 1890's, and Paris in the 1920's, but coverage of the 40's and 50's, the era of the existentialists, is pretty sparse. To the media, existentialists meant both real philosophers, like Sartre and Camus, and, to make lurid copy, anyone who hung out in the infamous jazz and poetry cellar-clubs of St. Germain. Vian's book, however, is devoid of media-hype. It is, as the editor says, "a snapshot of history as it happens."
I happened to be there for some of it, like hanging at the Cafe de Flore that Sartre and de Beauvoir had established as the current literary scene; while across the street at Le Lipp I found a vestige of an older one: a dude who was still a surrealist. And I hung at Chez Inez, with jazz musicians and ex-pats from Harlem, a club owned by a zanzy black American woman; and at bars with people like Orson Welles' ex-girlfriend, and Juliette Grecko, who played in Cocteau's Orpheus and claimed she almost married Miles Davis.
For me, too naive to realize it, it was a time like none other. Fortunately, Boris Vian nailed it down.

4 out of 5 stars Curious and delightful artifact of postwar bohemian Paris.......2006-04-07

A silly, very tongue-in-cheek user's guide and hymn to 1940's Paris' ground zero for jazz, artists, existentialists, hipsters, wanna-be's, stars, and hangers-on: the neighborhood of St Germain des Pres. Written by a Germanopratin and one of France's most unique postwar novelists, it's riddled throughout with big, beautiful period photos of locales, principal denizens, and famous slummers (Sidney Bechet, Prevert, Sartre and Beauvoir, Juliette Greco, even Garbo, Faulkner and Orson Welles, to name a few). The real attraction is the photos, but the content is pretty entertaining--part ethnography of a strange nocturnal and extinct species of Parisian scenester (both mocking and affectionate), part screed against the popular press' charicature of the neighborhood's inhabitants and habitues, it's funny, fascinating, and full of curious information. Did you know, for example, that the stereotypical existentialist's uniform included brightly colored Converse allstars and a plaid shirt unbuttoned to the navel?
I Spit on Your Graves
Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • Uncomfortable book not helped by flawed printing
  • Sadistic fantasies of Boris Vian
  • A Real Oddment for Aficionados of the Hardboiled
  • A Worthless Unimaginative Read
  • high on shock low on content...
I Spit on Your Graves
Boris Vian
Manufacturer: TamTam Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 096623460X

Book Description

Published in Paris in 1946 as a hardboiled thriller loaded with sex and blood, allegedly censored in the US and 'translated' into French - I Spit On Your Graves was both a pure mystification, and direct home to, American literature and movies, from a young author. More deeply, it was a violent attack on racism by a jazz fan who had already befriended many black musicians and was to become the closest French friend of Ellington, Davis and Parker. Find out why this outstripped sales of Malraux, Camus, Sartre and De Beauvoir when it appeared in France...and continues to scandalize today.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars Uncomfortable book not helped by flawed printing.......2006-02-13

There isn't a whole lot to say about this book that hasn't been mentioned in previous reviews: It's about a black man who looks/poses as white to infiltrate a white town and avenge his brother by embarassing and killing two aristo-white girls.

The novel follows his narration from entering the town to socializing with the locals and preparing his revenge. I was surprised that I was not shocked, disturbed or offended by any of the content in this book, though I can certainly see how it would affect people the way that it did, particularly in the time when it was published. Vian, a staunch supporter of African American culture, as well as an acerbic cynic, was a huge fan of taking this sort of material and rubbing *Our* noses in it.

However, at this point I would dare say that the book is only mildly disarming and that anyone who has ever read anything by hardboiled authors such as (aforementioned) Jim Thompson, or Paul Cain, or beat poets like Bukowski, should not be offended by the text - at least on the surface. The language is simple and concise. The sex scenes included are just shy of explicit and the violence scarcely described.

The most frightening ingredient of the book is of course the implication it makes regarding racism and tolerance in American culture. The disgust towards black people indicated in the text is particularly raw. However, it is interesting to note at this point in the review that Vian had never set foot in America. Like Kafka and (now) von Trier, his perception of the American mindset is thusly a little skewed.

The borderline material in the book is incredibly ruined due to embarassingly poor editing, specifically in the formatting department. There are several simple grammatical errors involving quotation marks and the like, but the most glaring problems are present in line breaks and new paragraphs in the middle of a given sentence. These issues come to surface in the later half of the book and I found rather tedious. This sort of sloppy editting is inexcusable, particularly with something so simple.

1 out of 5 stars Sadistic fantasies of Boris Vian.......2006-01-28

"I Spit on Your Graves" cannot be interpreted as an accusation of racism. In reality the plot is only a pretext for explicit depictions of sadistic, even bestial crimes, without the slightest compassion for the victims. It would be a perfect book for all readers who have hidden sadistic tendencies as they could enjoy the cruel scenes without remorse, convinced that their pleasure is justified because the hero is just taking revenge in the name of his lynched brother. Nothing, however, justifies such sickening, unnecessary cruelty. Boris Vian's book appeals to the worst human instincts and to the most appalling fantasies. Let me take the example of one of the murdered girls: she is not only killed in a cruel and utterly humiliating way, but also subjected to sadistic torture. An extremely disgusting and dangerous book because it celebrates sadism in a hypocritical way.

4 out of 5 stars A Real Oddment for Aficionados of the Hardboiled.......2005-04-08

If you've read James M. Cain and David Goodis and Jim Thompson and Charles Williford and like the dark, tough-as-nails paperback original fiction of the forties and fifties, pick this up. It's a postwar Frenchman's take on the dark underside of America, a place he'd never been-- so his imaginary America is even more corrupt than the stuff the Americans were writing. It's sleazy "realism" (that is: fantasy), with all the teenaged girls panting nymphos and all the men racist pigs. The jargon is just "off" enough to raise a smile (though the translation is probably fine-- I read it in English), and the behavior of our "hero"-- a black man passing as white named Lee-- is completely reprehensible. He hates _everybody_. Due to the odd nature of its authorship and its aspirations, this is an entertaining read: not necessarily a good novel, but an intriguing and entertaining one.

2 out of 5 stars A Worthless Unimaginative Read.......2004-12-04

This over-rated book doesn't have much going for it except controversy created by some French Puritans in the 1950's who called it "pornography" and had it banned, thereby fueling its popularity. It's rather tame by today's standards, and very outdated and silly, not to mention dull. Most of the writing style is flat, drawn out prose, an imitation of Jack Keroauc and 1940's film noir crime novels, which the author translated. I find most of the scenes incredulous and there's a lot of "sex" going on, which doesn't seem very plausible in the novel. It deals with a black man who actually looks white who goes on to plot some type of revenge against "whitey".

3 out of 5 stars high on shock low on content..........2002-02-22

This is a fascinating book, all its back history making it more so, and remarkable to think it was written in 1946.

For its time it is truly shocking and extremely graphic. Even by today's standards it is pretty explicit.

However, for all that there really isn't much to this novel. It only takes a couple of hours to read and as such is a 'pleasant' diversion but the book lacks substance. It only took 10 days to write as a bet and that shows in places. Having said all that it is a worthwhile read and a real eye opener.

Glad I read it, wouldn't go back to it, won't make it onto my all time list but conditionally recommended.
Heartsnatcher (French Literature Series (Normal, Ill.).)
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • An Allegory of Protection unto Death
  • Great French Classic
  • Utterly fascinating
  • "Somebody perfectly free has no urge to do anything at all."
Heartsnatcher (French Literature Series (Normal, Ill.).)
Boris Vian
Manufacturer: Dalkey Archive Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1564782999

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars An Allegory of Protection unto Death.......2007-06-23

This allegory of good, bad and over-concern is narrated by a psychiatrist named Timortis (Timor Mortis) who comes upon this unknown village in an unknown country in an unknown time. Somethings in the village are familiar but many are not and assumptions have to be made as to who is what and what is who. Timortis enters a house in the village in which a woman is about to give birth (she has three sons: a set of twins named Joel and Noel and a single named Alfa Romeo). He ends up staying with the family for years (maybe eight, it hard to say) but only psychoanalyses the nanny who thinks the word is a euphemism for sex.

There are odd going ons in the town such as an "Old People's Market" and a church at which the Priest has a curate who is a devil and they battle for the amusement of the villagers. But all this is an afterthought to the trials and tribulations of the mother, whose only thoughts are how to protect her children from everyday problems that escalate up to how to protect them from meteorites.

The book is a study of the ends to which love can drive people and how love cannot only be stifling, it can be downright dangerous.

5 out of 5 stars Great French Classic.......2007-05-13

Another Boris Vian even better than all the rest. Broaden your horizons and read this!

5 out of 5 stars Utterly fascinating.......2005-07-19

Sometimes funny, often disturbing, thoroughly unique, and utterly fascinating. A psychoanalyst goes looking for desires to analyze because he lacks any of his own. He settles in a very bizarre and rather brutal village where shame is forbidden, horses are crucified, old folks auctioned, and a woman makes love at long distance with the blacksmith via a robotic spitting image of herself. Very weird, but not in the usual way. It's all presented so matter of factly, with such a straight face, that the effect is unlike any other literature of its kind.

"He propelled himself towards some particular piece of debris that was floating on the top and picked it up expertly between his teeth. It was a tiny hand. Covered with inkstains. He climbed back on board again. 'Tut, tut,' he said when he looked at it. 'Old Charlie's boy's been refusing to do his homework again."

4 out of 5 stars "Somebody perfectly free has no urge to do anything at all.".......2004-01-08

In descriptions so richly imagined that he sometimes has to invent new words, Boris Vian brings to life the strange world discovered by a wandering traveler, Timortis, a psychiatrist who has been born an adult and has no memories of his own. An "empty vessel," he believes that if he can learn everything there is to know about someone through psychoanalysis, he can bring about a transferrence of identity and make his own life more complete. When he hears the cries of Clementine, a village woman giving birth to triplets, he stops to give aid and ends up delivering her sons--Noel, Joel, and Alfa Romeo.

Though the birthing scene is humorous, the full satirical flavor and the allegorical construction of this novel do not unfold until Timortis travels into the village. There he discovers that he has arrived just in time for the Old Folks Fair, at which old people are auctioned off like cattle and treated like them. Later Timortis visits a shop where he sees a child being worked to the verge of death, then revived with icewater. Farm animals, however, are given days off when they behave themselves and allowed to hitchhike if they need rides. A scapegoat, named Glory Hallelujah, retrieves putrid, decaying things from a blood-red stream with his teeth, his job being to "swallow the shame of the whole village." The vicar announces that "God is not utilitarian. God is a birthday present...a luxury, a tasseled cushion made of beaten gold." A horse is crucified for his sexual depravity. Additional bizarre episodes abound, leaving the reader to ponder the meaning of the non-stop action, at the same time that s/he is whisked along by the speed of Vian's prose to new and still more surprising events.

Puns, word play, and literary inventions fill the novel, even as Vian's often lyrical sentences and vibrant descriptions set the scenes. Satirizing the existing world for some of its most obvious faults, Vian presents a remarkably open-ended allegory, which makes the reader think at the same time that s/he often laughs at the absurdities and winces at the truths. But this is no full-blown alternative universe created to illustrate a serious and specific political or social agenda. Here Vian symbolically smiles at the reader as he leads Timortis through this strange community from episode to episode, illustrating his own opinions in a more or less random way, having fun all the time, while making some serious points. Not scholarly, though highly literate, this is a book for which one must buckle up, sit back, and just enjoy the ride. Mary Whipple
Autumn in Peking
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • A must read
Autumn in Peking
Boris Vian
Manufacturer: Tam Tam Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0966234642
Release Date: 2006-01-25

Book Description

Boris Vian was a jack of all trades - although unfortunately his name was Boris and "Boris of all trades" never took off as a turn of phrase. But nevertheless Vian was a great songwriter, playwright, singer, jazz critic and, of course novelist so it should have been Boris instead of Jack. Vian's 1947 novel Autumn in Peking (L'Automne à Pékin) is perhaps Vian's most slapstick work, with an added amount of despair in its exotic recipe for a violent cocktail drink.

The story takes place in the imaginary desert called Exopotamie where all the leading characters take part in the building of a train station with tracks that go nowhere. Houses and buildings are destroyed to build this unnecessary structure - and in Vian's world waste not, make not.

In Alistair Rolls' pioneering study of Vian's novels, "The Flight of the Angels," he expresses that Exopotamie is a thinly disguised version of Paris, where after the war the city started changing its previous centuries of architecture to something more modern. Yes, something dull to take the place of what was exciting and mysterious.

Vian, in a mixture of great humor and unequal amount of disgust, introduces various 'eccentric' characters in this 'desert' adventure, such as Anne and Angel who are best friends; and Rochelle who is in love and sleeps with Anne, while Angel is madly in love with her.

Besides the trio there is also Doctor Mangemanche; the archeologist Athanagore Porphyroginite, his aide, Cuivre; and Pipo - all of them in a locality similar to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, where there is a tinge of darkness and anything is possible, except for happiness.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars A must read.......2007-05-13

This book is totally awesome. I have read all Boris Vian's books in French and this translation is good. Some of his books are a little out-there for some people but I would highly recommend reading this book to everyone.
L'ecume des jours
Average customer rating: Not rated
    L'ecume des jours
    Boris Vian
    Manufacturer: Union Generale D'Editions
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Mass Market Paperback

    All French BooksAll French Books | French | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
    ASIN: B000I3TNTS

    Product Description

    Novel in French
    L'Ecume Des Jours
    Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    • Une histoire triste
    • A fresh and poignant tale
    • Exquis, magnifique, superbe verbe et texture
    • Exquis, magnifique, superbe verbe et texture
    • searing, unmissable love story
    L'Ecume Des Jours
    Boris Vian
    Manufacturer: Librairie Generale Francaise
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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    ASIN: 2253140872

    Customer Reviews:

    5 out of 5 stars Une histoire triste.......2005-04-11

    This brilliant work of fiction, akin to a fairy-tale, combines science-fiction, surrealism, absurdism, lyricism...
    One of the highlights of post-war French litterature, it has become somewhat of a cult favourite for teenagers, as it relates the lives of yound adults who refuse to accept the responsabilities of adulthood, preferring to live according to principles eerily similar to those held by hippies, refusing to temper idealism with the demands of reality.

    5 out of 5 stars A fresh and poignant tale.......2003-09-01

    It is a pity that Boris Vian has no name recognition in the anglo-saxon world. Much to blame is probably the uniqueness of his language and unconventional writing approach. This refreshing tale encompasses youth, love and the fleeting aspect of all that is precious in life.

    5 out of 5 stars Exquis, magnifique, superbe verbe et texture.......2002-07-18

    Ce livre est un chef-d'oeuvre que l'on déguste du début à la fin et que l'on apprécie de plus en plus à chaque relecture. J'adore Boris Vian et l'aurait marié sans même y penser après avoir lu ce qui coule de sa plume. Les mondes qu'il crée sont fascinants, et celui-ci est le plus beau de tous.

    5 out of 5 stars Exquis, magnifique, superbe verbe et texture.......2002-07-18

    Ce livre est un chef-d'oeuvre que l'on déguste du début à la fin et que l'on apprécie de plus en plus à chaque relecture. J'adore Boris Vian et l'aurait marié sans même y penser après avoir lu ce qui coule de sa plume. Les mondes qu'il crée sont fascinants, et celui-ci est le plus beau de tous.

    5 out of 5 stars searing, unmissable love story.......2002-02-19

    L'Ecume des Jours (or, John Sturrock's translation, Foam of the days) tells us a story of Colin and Chloé and their love.
    Of love that - however pure, serene and (perhaps) unbelievable it may appear to our everyday eye - is very much innocent. Like the one that, at least some of us, have always wished to experience.
    The whole story has, unfortunatelly, a tragical end. But then, it wouldn't be one of the nicest books I have ever read. Only to express myself better through similarity, it is Jamiroquai's "Falling" that makes me think of Collin's falling in love with Chloé - except that Collin's love is 'returned' - they both love each other dearly and very much.
    The whole story is divided in two parts - two worlds where love stays the same (even grows!) only the encompassing world undergo (terrible) changes. It's the careless world of Colin's and Chloe's love before they get married, full of warmness that only two suns may produce, and of the world after their wedding. The moment they say final yes at their wedding, Chloe gets ill and the whole preceding atmosphere suddenly changes from "happy" to "gloomy." As I said, the love stays, even gets greater, but the whole story then leads to an inevitable tragical end...
    In Vian's own words it's a history that is "...entirely true as I made it up from the beginning to the very end." ["...entierement vraie, puisque je l'ai imaginée d'un bout a l'autre"] I would not quite say it is wholly made up although it's only my opinion. Yes, the story is a bit unreal, perhaps exaggerated, but I think it needs to be in order to let us feel and (hopefully) realize, that as 'panta rei' (as Time flows by) we should pauper our friendships and, when being loved and loving ourselves, then we should love sincerely and happily.
    Blues for a Black Cat and Other Stories (French Modernist Library)
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Blues for a Black Cat and Other Stories (French Modernist Library)
      Boris Vian
      Manufacturer: Bison Books
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

      ContemporaryContemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
      GeneralGeneral | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
      FrenchFrench | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
      Similar Items:
      1. Autumn in Peking
      2. I Spit on Your Graves
      3. Heartsnatcher (French Literature Series (Normal, Ill.).)
      4. Boris Vian's Manual of St. Germain des Pres
      5. Repetition: A Novel

      ASIN: 0803296096

      Book Description

      "[This collection] displays Vian's range from gallows humor to verbal fireworks, and happily serves to give visibility to this important writer."- Publishers Weekly. "Ultimately, Blues for a Black Cat is a collection of moral fables, albeit fables told in a cynical, mocking voice and set in a skewed version of the real world. Under the surface absurdity and verbal play, they offer serious indictments of human weakness and pretensions. Further, they reveal the spiritual emptiness just beneath our civilized façade. Vian's blues are not only for a black cat, but for a society without meaning."- Manoa. "[Blues for a Black Cat] brings back the nimble Vian in a collection of his short fiction, initially published as Les Fourmis in 1949. The work has the unmistakable flavor of the time and place, Claude Abadie's jazz band, the coded and absurdist messages of rebellion, the wistful fables, verbal riffs and goofy anarchic encounters; the mise-en-scene includes an expiring jazzman who sells his sweat, a cat with a British accent and a piano that mixes a cocktail when "Mood Indigo" is played."-Boston Globe. Boris Vian (1920-59), a trained engineer and jazz trumpet player, was a major literary figure in World War II France. Julia Older is the author or editor of many works. Her stories, translations, and poems have appeared in New Directions, the New Yorker, and many other journals.
      Chroniques de jazz
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        Chroniques de jazz
        Boris Vian , and Lucien Malson
        Manufacturer: LGF
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Mass Market Paperback
        ASIN: 2253145351
        Escupire Sobre Vuestra Tumba
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          Escupire Sobre Vuestra Tumba
          Boris Vian
          Manufacturer: Edhasa
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Paperback

          ContemporaryContemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
          SpanishSpanish | Foreign Language Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
          ContemporáneaContemporánea | General | Literatura y ficción | Libros en español | Formats | Books
          ASIN: 8435015882

          Authors:

          1. Vidal, Gore
          2. Diane Villano
          3. Villaurrutia, Xavier
          4. François Villon
          5. Villon, François
          6. Vinge, Joan D.
          7. Vinge, Vernor
          8. Virgil
          9. Vitruvius
          10. Volkman, Karen

          Authors

          Authors