Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
[Kbh.] Hans Reitzel, (1974) 158 s.
Description
The world of Mood Indigo is a stained-glass cartoon kind of a place, where the piano dispenses cocktails, the kitchen mice dance to the sound of sunbeams, and the air is three parts jazz. Colin is a wealthy young aristocrat, a slim, innocent creature who loves easily. The instant he sees Chloe, bass drums thump inside his shirt, and soon the two are married. Typically generous, Colin gives a quarter of his fortune to his best friend Chick so he can marry Chloe's friend Alyssum.But a lily grows in Chloe's lung, and Colin must spend his remaining fortune on the only available treatment: surrounding her daily with fresh flowers. Chick squanders his share of Colin's money on rare editions of Jean Pulse Heartre, and Alyssum decides her only recourse is to murder the philosopher whose books are ruining her husband. Chick and Colin's money woes force them to sacrifice their carefree lives to soul-crushing work, and even the suicidal mice wear themselves out trying to restore the lustre to the kitchen tiles.Published initially in French as L'#65533;cume des jours, originally translated as Froth on the Daydream, Mood Indigo is a surreal cult classic that is now a a major movie directed by Michel Gondry starring Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris.… (more)
Media reviews
— 1 more
La Repubblica-L'Almanacco dei libri
La schiuma dei giorni, una straziante storia d'amore, in parte autobiografica
Le vite vissute da Boris Vian
Gira e rigira, anche rileggendo La schiuma dei giorni di Boris Vian a tantissimi anni dalla prima volta, bisogna dare ragione a Queneau: è il più straziante dei romanzi d'amore. Ma non è
La storia è semplice. Colin (diminutivo di Nicolas, ma in francese significa anche merluzzo) è un giovane ricco, nullafacente, con tanto di cuoco coltissimo che cita Gouffé e prepara anticipazioni di cucina futura (la salsa alla crema di mango e ginepro cucita dentro involtini di tessuto di vitello). Nella casa ci sono topi parlanti, ma non bisogna formalizzarsi. Nella premessa al libro Vian dichiara: «La storia è interamente vera, perché io me la sono inventata da capo a piedi». Non lavora, Colin, ma ogni tanto inventa qualcosa, come il pianococktail. Ha un amico, Chick, che spende tutti i risparmi (e anche i prestiti di Colin) nell'acquisto di opere di Jean Sol Partre ("Il vomito", rilegato in pelle di puzzola, "Il tanfo", ma nel parossistico e devastante finale anche pipe, pantaloni del filosofo esistenzialista). Il buffo è che, nelle mille cose della sua breve vita, Vian ha avuto Jean Paul Sartre come direttore (a Temps modernes ). Colin s'innamora di Chloé, la sposa, ma nel viaggio di nozze verso il Midi Chloé comincia a tossire, s'ammala. Le sta crescendo una ninfea nel polmone destro.
Quel fiore mortale può essere combattuto solo dal profumo di altri fiori. Sempre innamoratissimo, ma anche sempre più povero (i fiori costano) e disperato, Colin accetta i lavori più pesanti e impensabili. Cova canne di fucile, che si sviluppano solo col calore del corpo umano. Ma viene licenziato perché il suo amore sforna canne che terminano con una rosa d'acciaio. Fa il messaggero di cattive notizie con un giorno d'anticipo, finché vede il suo indirizzo nel lavoro da sbrigare e capisce che Chloé morirà il giorno dopo. Le ultime pagine, il funerale da poveri che fa da contrappunto angoscioso al matrimonio da ricchi, con gli stessi protagonisti, sono per me tra le più belle del libro, insieme all'appartamento di Colin e Chloé che si restringe progressivamente e non lascia passare il sole man mano che la morte di Chloé s'avvicina e la calda pienezza dell'amore si consuma.
E sarà anche per questo lirismo scoperto, per questo canto all'incanto totale dell'amore, che La schiuma dei giorni è così letto dai giovani. Pure, alla sua prima apparizione non andò oltre le 1.500 copie. Boris (sua madre Yvonne, melomane, l'aveva chiamato così pensando a Boris Godunov) fu un genio parzialmente compreso e un uomo affamato di vita, consapevole che una grave malattia di cuore non gli avrebbe lasciato il tempo di invecchiare. Alla luce di questi dati si potrebbe anche leggere La schiuma dei giorni in chiave autobiografica (il polmone come il cuore, l'appartamento che si restringe) e d'altra parte le chiavi di lettura sono tantissime in rapporto al tantissimo che Vian è stato. Trombettista, ingegnere, traduttore, giornalista (solo di scritti sul jazz, con l'anagramma di Bison ravi, Bisonte estasiato, 696 pagine), giallista-scandalo con lo pseudonimo di Vernon Sullivan, drammaturgo, attore, chansonnier (oltre 500 canzoni, la più famosa resta Le déserteur ), autore teatrale, poeta, direttore di casa discografica. Nelle foto ha l'aria di un signore serio che sta per mettersi a fare le boccacce. "Pauvre Boris" cantava Jean Ferrat, quanto successo postumo. La miglior chiave di lettura per La schiuma dei giorni è non averne, o buttarle via tutte. Basta leggerlo, e si resta felicemente feriti.
Le vite vissute da Boris Vian
Gira e rigira, anche rileggendo La schiuma dei giorni di Boris Vian a tantissimi anni dalla prima volta, bisogna dare ragione a Queneau: è il più straziante dei romanzi d'amore. Ma non è
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solo un romanzo d'amore. Dentro ci si ritrovano tanti ingredienti del cocktail-Vian (irripetibile, non c'è dubbio): i giochi di parole, il surrealismo, l'amore per il jazz e la patafisica del suo carissimo Jarry, una forte irrisione della morale corrente, un antimilitarismo coltivato negli anni della breve vita di Vian (1920-1959) in cui la Francia era spesso in armi (seconda guerra mondiale, Indocina, Algeria).La storia è semplice. Colin (diminutivo di Nicolas, ma in francese significa anche merluzzo) è un giovane ricco, nullafacente, con tanto di cuoco coltissimo che cita Gouffé e prepara anticipazioni di cucina futura (la salsa alla crema di mango e ginepro cucita dentro involtini di tessuto di vitello). Nella casa ci sono topi parlanti, ma non bisogna formalizzarsi. Nella premessa al libro Vian dichiara: «La storia è interamente vera, perché io me la sono inventata da capo a piedi». Non lavora, Colin, ma ogni tanto inventa qualcosa, come il pianococktail. Ha un amico, Chick, che spende tutti i risparmi (e anche i prestiti di Colin) nell'acquisto di opere di Jean Sol Partre ("Il vomito", rilegato in pelle di puzzola, "Il tanfo", ma nel parossistico e devastante finale anche pipe, pantaloni del filosofo esistenzialista). Il buffo è che, nelle mille cose della sua breve vita, Vian ha avuto Jean Paul Sartre come direttore (a Temps modernes ). Colin s'innamora di Chloé, la sposa, ma nel viaggio di nozze verso il Midi Chloé comincia a tossire, s'ammala. Le sta crescendo una ninfea nel polmone destro.
Quel fiore mortale può essere combattuto solo dal profumo di altri fiori. Sempre innamoratissimo, ma anche sempre più povero (i fiori costano) e disperato, Colin accetta i lavori più pesanti e impensabili. Cova canne di fucile, che si sviluppano solo col calore del corpo umano. Ma viene licenziato perché il suo amore sforna canne che terminano con una rosa d'acciaio. Fa il messaggero di cattive notizie con un giorno d'anticipo, finché vede il suo indirizzo nel lavoro da sbrigare e capisce che Chloé morirà il giorno dopo. Le ultime pagine, il funerale da poveri che fa da contrappunto angoscioso al matrimonio da ricchi, con gli stessi protagonisti, sono per me tra le più belle del libro, insieme all'appartamento di Colin e Chloé che si restringe progressivamente e non lascia passare il sole man mano che la morte di Chloé s'avvicina e la calda pienezza dell'amore si consuma.
E sarà anche per questo lirismo scoperto, per questo canto all'incanto totale dell'amore, che La schiuma dei giorni è così letto dai giovani. Pure, alla sua prima apparizione non andò oltre le 1.500 copie. Boris (sua madre Yvonne, melomane, l'aveva chiamato così pensando a Boris Godunov) fu un genio parzialmente compreso e un uomo affamato di vita, consapevole che una grave malattia di cuore non gli avrebbe lasciato il tempo di invecchiare. Alla luce di questi dati si potrebbe anche leggere La schiuma dei giorni in chiave autobiografica (il polmone come il cuore, l'appartamento che si restringe) e d'altra parte le chiavi di lettura sono tantissime in rapporto al tantissimo che Vian è stato. Trombettista, ingegnere, traduttore, giornalista (solo di scritti sul jazz, con l'anagramma di Bison ravi, Bisonte estasiato, 696 pagine), giallista-scandalo con lo pseudonimo di Vernon Sullivan, drammaturgo, attore, chansonnier (oltre 500 canzoni, la più famosa resta Le déserteur ), autore teatrale, poeta, direttore di casa discografica. Nelle foto ha l'aria di un signore serio che sta per mettersi a fare le boccacce. "Pauvre Boris" cantava Jean Ferrat, quanto successo postumo. La miglior chiave di lettura per La schiuma dei giorni è non averne, o buttarle via tutte. Basta leggerlo, e si resta felicemente feriti.
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User reviews
LibraryThing member Widsith
Wow, this book destroyed me. Beautiful, oneiric, sexy, deadpan, linguistically inventive – and then in the end remorselessly tragic.
You know what reading this book is like? It's like you're sitting there having fun, the sun's shining – and who do you see bouncing towards you but the most
Aw, look! It's the Andrex puppy! C'mere, little fella! And he bounds over to you, his little tail wagging away, birds tweeting in the background, ah the warm sun on your face.
And then – just as you open your arms to give him a big hug – suddenly you realise that there's a slightly rabid look in his eye. And just as you start to press his cuddly little body into yours, OH SHIT WHAT THE FUCK his sharp little teeth are ripping into the soft flesh of your throat, WHAT ARE YOU DOING ANDREX PUPPY and he's growling away, claws slashing, AAAUGH arterial blood is spurting all over the grass and the daisies and OH MY GOD YOU'RE DEAD.
YOU WERE KILLED BY THE ANDREX PUPPY, THE CUTEST CREATURE ALIVE.
Well fuck you, Boris Vian! And fuck everyone else that wrote reviews making this sound like a cuddly love-fest! Did you all stop reading after 150 pages, or what??
What makes this book so deeply affecting is that the world it offers you is the most charming and wonderful fictional environment I've encountered for years. After fifty pages I wanted to curl up and live in it. The laws of physics are different here: everything is soft and yielding and in tune with your moods. It is like a sort of magic realism avant la lettre, only less irritating and laboured: what it really reminds me of most of all is the fluid, anything-can-happen creativity of Through the Looking-Glass. This is a world where you go on a date, and things like this happen:
They walked, following the first pavement they came to. A little pink cloud came down from the sky and approached them.
‘May I?’ it suggested.
‘Go ahead!’ said Colin; and the cloud surrounded them.
Inside, it was warm and it smelled of cinnamon sugar.
‘No one can see us any more!’ said Colin. ‘But we can see them.’
‘Be careful,’ said Chloé, ‘it's a little transparent.’
—
Ils marchaient, suivant le premier trottoir venu. Un petit nuage rose descendait de l'air et s'approcha d'eux.
— J'y vais? proposa-t-il.
— Vas-y ! dit Colin, et le nuage les enveloppa.
À l'intérieur, il faisait chaud at çs sentait le sucre à cannelle.
— On ne nous voit plus ! dit Colin... Mais nous, on les voit.
— C'est un peu transparent, dit Chloé, méfiez-vous.
And they walk along in their own little cloud, watching the other passers-by and looking in the shop windows.
On another occasion, guests at a dinner-party eat eel that was caught by the butler in his bathroom tap. One of the diners later complains to Colin about how unlikely this seems. ‘I was up all night fishing in my own taps to see if I could catch one too,’ he says the next day. ‘But round our place, you only get trout.’ In the middle of the table, Colin has a centrepiece ‘consisting of a jar of formaldehyde in which two chicken embryos appeared to be miming the Spectre de la Rose, in the choreography of Nijinsky’.
It is incredibly hard to pull this sort of thing off without seeming twee or annoying, and Vian just doesn't seem twee or annoying. I've stared at some of these passages till I was cross-eyed and I still don't understand how he manages it, but it works; I believe everything he says.
This is a very funny book; it owes a debt to PG Wodehouse, not least in the character of Nicolas the butler, who in my head was played by 90s Stephen Fry. It's also sexy as hell, Vian managing to succeed in that very continental tradition of respectful objectivisation, a neat oxymoron to pull off – the girls are adorable and everybody (at least at first) seems young and beautiful and comfortably-off. The latent sexiness creeps into the narrative voice in all kinds of ways: at one point a door clicks shut ‘with the sound of a bare hand on a bare bottom’ (avec le bruit d'une main nue sur une fesse nue).
But what is actually going on here? Is it really just an extended adult fairy-tale? As the book goes on, you gradually realise – in my case, with a terrible sense of regret – that what Vian is really doing is setting up an Edenic picture of young love only to stress the awfulness of what comes after. You'd better have the most acrobatic sex and the most delicious meals of your life while you're still young (this novel says), because before you know it you're going to have to go out there and earn a living, and then your whole life will stop being about creativity and start being about where the money is coming from. (‘It's horrible,’ Colin says at one point about work. ‘It reduces man to the ranks of machinery.’)
An old man in a white shirt with bushy hair was reading a manual behind a desk....
‘Good morning sir,’ said Colin.
‘Good morning sir,’ said the man.
His voice was cracked and thickened with age.
‘I've come about the job,’ said Colin.
‘Oh?’ said the man. ‘We've been looking for someone for a month without any luck. It's quite hard work, you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Colin. ‘But it's well paid.’
‘Good Lord,’ said the man, ‘it wears you out, you know, and it might not be worth the money – but it's not for me to denigrate the administration. At any rate, you can see I'm still alive.’
‘Have you been working here long?’ said Colin.
‘A year,’ said the man. ‘I'm 29.’
He ran a trembling, wrinkled hand across the folds of his face.
It's the novel of someone in their twenties facing the looming prospect of adult life. In keeping with the hyperbole of the book in general, respectable adulthood isn't just a chore – it's the apocalypse. Forget about wistful, wishy-washy endings – in this one all your favourite characters end up wasting away, burning to death, getting shot, having their hearts cut out, or committing suicide. Welcome to France, population: miserable.
The violence is actually there from the very beginning, in a cartoony kind of way, and Vian has a very artful way of allowing you to realise that those cartoon injuries are in fact bleeding real blood. I'd be lying if I said part of me wasn't hoping for a more life-affirming ending, but it's hard to object when you're being played so expertly. This book is like nothing you've read: a blend of Wodehouse, Huysmans, Faulkner and Lewis Carrol, all set to a pounding soundtrack of Vian's beloved boogie-woogie and blues music. It is the dream of being young and the nightmare of getting old. I fell in love with it. And I will never trust the Andrex puppy again.
You know what reading this book is like? It's like you're sitting there having fun, the sun's shining – and who do you see bouncing towards you but the most
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adorable, cute little character you can imagine. The Andrex puppy, say—Aw, look! It's the Andrex puppy! C'mere, little fella! And he bounds over to you, his little tail wagging away, birds tweeting in the background, ah the warm sun on your face.
And then – just as you open your arms to give him a big hug – suddenly you realise that there's a slightly rabid look in his eye. And just as you start to press his cuddly little body into yours, OH SHIT WHAT THE FUCK his sharp little teeth are ripping into the soft flesh of your throat, WHAT ARE YOU DOING ANDREX PUPPY and he's growling away, claws slashing, AAAUGH arterial blood is spurting all over the grass and the daisies and OH MY GOD YOU'RE DEAD.
YOU WERE KILLED BY THE ANDREX PUPPY, THE CUTEST CREATURE ALIVE.
Well fuck you, Boris Vian! And fuck everyone else that wrote reviews making this sound like a cuddly love-fest! Did you all stop reading after 150 pages, or what??
What makes this book so deeply affecting is that the world it offers you is the most charming and wonderful fictional environment I've encountered for years. After fifty pages I wanted to curl up and live in it. The laws of physics are different here: everything is soft and yielding and in tune with your moods. It is like a sort of magic realism avant la lettre, only less irritating and laboured: what it really reminds me of most of all is the fluid, anything-can-happen creativity of Through the Looking-Glass. This is a world where you go on a date, and things like this happen:
They walked, following the first pavement they came to. A little pink cloud came down from the sky and approached them.
‘May I?’ it suggested.
‘Go ahead!’ said Colin; and the cloud surrounded them.
Inside, it was warm and it smelled of cinnamon sugar.
‘No one can see us any more!’ said Colin. ‘But we can see them.’
‘Be careful,’ said Chloé, ‘it's a little transparent.’
—
Ils marchaient, suivant le premier trottoir venu. Un petit nuage rose descendait de l'air et s'approcha d'eux.
— J'y vais? proposa-t-il.
— Vas-y ! dit Colin, et le nuage les enveloppa.
À l'intérieur, il faisait chaud at çs sentait le sucre à cannelle.
— On ne nous voit plus ! dit Colin... Mais nous, on les voit.
— C'est un peu transparent, dit Chloé, méfiez-vous.
And they walk along in their own little cloud, watching the other passers-by and looking in the shop windows.
On another occasion, guests at a dinner-party eat eel that was caught by the butler in his bathroom tap. One of the diners later complains to Colin about how unlikely this seems. ‘I was up all night fishing in my own taps to see if I could catch one too,’ he says the next day. ‘But round our place, you only get trout.’ In the middle of the table, Colin has a centrepiece ‘consisting of a jar of formaldehyde in which two chicken embryos appeared to be miming the Spectre de la Rose, in the choreography of Nijinsky’.
It is incredibly hard to pull this sort of thing off without seeming twee or annoying, and Vian just doesn't seem twee or annoying. I've stared at some of these passages till I was cross-eyed and I still don't understand how he manages it, but it works; I believe everything he says.
This is a very funny book; it owes a debt to PG Wodehouse, not least in the character of Nicolas the butler, who in my head was played by 90s Stephen Fry. It's also sexy as hell, Vian managing to succeed in that very continental tradition of respectful objectivisation, a neat oxymoron to pull off – the girls are adorable and everybody (at least at first) seems young and beautiful and comfortably-off. The latent sexiness creeps into the narrative voice in all kinds of ways: at one point a door clicks shut ‘with the sound of a bare hand on a bare bottom’ (avec le bruit d'une main nue sur une fesse nue).
But what is actually going on here? Is it really just an extended adult fairy-tale? As the book goes on, you gradually realise – in my case, with a terrible sense of regret – that what Vian is really doing is setting up an Edenic picture of young love only to stress the awfulness of what comes after. You'd better have the most acrobatic sex and the most delicious meals of your life while you're still young (this novel says), because before you know it you're going to have to go out there and earn a living, and then your whole life will stop being about creativity and start being about where the money is coming from. (‘It's horrible,’ Colin says at one point about work. ‘It reduces man to the ranks of machinery.’)
An old man in a white shirt with bushy hair was reading a manual behind a desk....
‘Good morning sir,’ said Colin.
‘Good morning sir,’ said the man.
His voice was cracked and thickened with age.
‘I've come about the job,’ said Colin.
‘Oh?’ said the man. ‘We've been looking for someone for a month without any luck. It's quite hard work, you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Colin. ‘But it's well paid.’
‘Good Lord,’ said the man, ‘it wears you out, you know, and it might not be worth the money – but it's not for me to denigrate the administration. At any rate, you can see I'm still alive.’
‘Have you been working here long?’ said Colin.
‘A year,’ said the man. ‘I'm 29.’
He ran a trembling, wrinkled hand across the folds of his face.
It's the novel of someone in their twenties facing the looming prospect of adult life. In keeping with the hyperbole of the book in general, respectable adulthood isn't just a chore – it's the apocalypse. Forget about wistful, wishy-washy endings – in this one all your favourite characters end up wasting away, burning to death, getting shot, having their hearts cut out, or committing suicide. Welcome to France, population: miserable.
The violence is actually there from the very beginning, in a cartoony kind of way, and Vian has a very artful way of allowing you to realise that those cartoon injuries are in fact bleeding real blood. I'd be lying if I said part of me wasn't hoping for a more life-affirming ending, but it's hard to object when you're being played so expertly. This book is like nothing you've read: a blend of Wodehouse, Huysmans, Faulkner and Lewis Carrol, all set to a pounding soundtrack of Vian's beloved boogie-woogie and blues music. It is the dream of being young and the nightmare of getting old. I fell in love with it. And I will never trust the Andrex puppy again.
Show Less
LibraryThing member baswood
I have never read a book quite like L'écume des jours, but then again I have never read a book quite like Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery and so reading these two in parallel was quite a strange experience, because in some aspects they are similar. [Le Petit Prince] was published in
L'écume des Jours tells the story of Colin a wealthy young man who loves jazz and has no need to work, he lives in an apartment with Chick his best friend. Chick is obsessed with the literature of Jean Sol-Patre (Jean-Paul Satre in the real world) and has little money himself. The apartment is also home to Nicholas who is both chef and chauffeur to Colin and a couple of mice who all live happily together. Nicholas introduces Colin to his cousin Chloé and Chick meets her friend Alise. Both men fall in love with the two girls and Colin marries Chloé who moves into the apartment. He lends some money to Chick who instead of marrying Alise spends his dublazons (it is an alternative world) on the works of Sol-Patre who seems to be publishing books and articles almost every week. Chloé becomes ill with a growth in her lung and Colin finds a doctor who treats her with new techniques. The treatment is expensive and Colin spends all his money on treatments and flowers, believing that cut flowers in Chloé's sick room will help her recovery (cut flowers are an expensive item in France). Chloe does not recover, Colin is impoverished and searches for work and Chick spends the last of his money on a pair of old trousers previously owned by Sol-Patre.
This is a tragi-comedy love story shot through with satire, magic realism and naivety. It is told in short chapters that have a certain grip on the real world then lurch into parody, this reader was continually wrong footed when at the start of the novel, but quickly learn't to go with the flow. The first chapter introduces us to Colin and describes his toilette in some detail and we meet Chick and Nicholas and then rather bizarrely in the cuisine are the mice who are dancing happily in the rays of the sunshine and Colin in passing by to see what is cooking caresses them lovingly. There is much talk about food and jazz as the first chapter comes to the end. From then on the chapters increasingly become a little more surreal until we are in another world which seems an awful parody of this one. There are some great moments (or little chapters) in the book: Nicholas takes Colin and Chloe for a drive and to avoid traffic they take a short cut on unmade roads through a copper mining area with open foundries and Chloe is frightened by the workers and the destroyed landscape, there is the strange hospital of Professor Mangemanche, there are the efforts of Colin to raise money by selling his pianococktail and invention that mixes drinks when a tune is played on the keyboard, the burning of the libraries and the murder of Sol-Patre and finally the tragedy of Chloés sick room
In this surreal world which becomes more tragic Boris Vian takes aim and satirises religion, celebrity status, fine dining, the medical profession, discrimination and it seems many other aspects of contemporary life. The frothy good natured approach that Vian takes in his writing only starts to slip a little in the final chapters, but it is a book with its own unique style and as such succeeds wonderfully. Funny and sad at the same time and a five star read.
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1943 and Boris Vian's first novel hit the streets in 1947, both scenario's take place in a sort of parallel universe and its easy to believe that Vian was thoroughly familiar with The Petit Prince when he wrote L'écume des jours which takes his parallel world out of the reach of children and into a world of tragedy and satire. L'écume des Jours tells the story of Colin a wealthy young man who loves jazz and has no need to work, he lives in an apartment with Chick his best friend. Chick is obsessed with the literature of Jean Sol-Patre (Jean-Paul Satre in the real world) and has little money himself. The apartment is also home to Nicholas who is both chef and chauffeur to Colin and a couple of mice who all live happily together. Nicholas introduces Colin to his cousin Chloé and Chick meets her friend Alise. Both men fall in love with the two girls and Colin marries Chloé who moves into the apartment. He lends some money to Chick who instead of marrying Alise spends his dublazons (it is an alternative world) on the works of Sol-Patre who seems to be publishing books and articles almost every week. Chloé becomes ill with a growth in her lung and Colin finds a doctor who treats her with new techniques. The treatment is expensive and Colin spends all his money on treatments and flowers, believing that cut flowers in Chloé's sick room will help her recovery (cut flowers are an expensive item in France). Chloe does not recover, Colin is impoverished and searches for work and Chick spends the last of his money on a pair of old trousers previously owned by Sol-Patre.
This is a tragi-comedy love story shot through with satire, magic realism and naivety. It is told in short chapters that have a certain grip on the real world then lurch into parody, this reader was continually wrong footed when at the start of the novel, but quickly learn't to go with the flow. The first chapter introduces us to Colin and describes his toilette in some detail and we meet Chick and Nicholas and then rather bizarrely in the cuisine are the mice who are dancing happily in the rays of the sunshine and Colin in passing by to see what is cooking caresses them lovingly. There is much talk about food and jazz as the first chapter comes to the end. From then on the chapters increasingly become a little more surreal until we are in another world which seems an awful parody of this one. There are some great moments (or little chapters) in the book: Nicholas takes Colin and Chloe for a drive and to avoid traffic they take a short cut on unmade roads through a copper mining area with open foundries and Chloe is frightened by the workers and the destroyed landscape, there is the strange hospital of Professor Mangemanche, there are the efforts of Colin to raise money by selling his pianococktail and invention that mixes drinks when a tune is played on the keyboard, the burning of the libraries and the murder of Sol-Patre and finally the tragedy of Chloés sick room
In this surreal world which becomes more tragic Boris Vian takes aim and satirises religion, celebrity status, fine dining, the medical profession, discrimination and it seems many other aspects of contemporary life. The frothy good natured approach that Vian takes in his writing only starts to slip a little in the final chapters, but it is a book with its own unique style and as such succeeds wonderfully. Funny and sad at the same time and a five star read.
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LibraryThing member Judiex
Originally published in France in 1947, MOOD INDIGO is not quite a science fiction but not a straight novel either. Surreal would be more accurate. Rooms and people change shapes. People get sick with strange illnesses and doctors have healing weird techniques. Romance blooms, and as do blossoms,
Boris Vian, as translated by Stanley Chapman, likes puns and Spoonerisms. That is quite evident in the names of some of the characters and references: Wry-Tangle, Jean Pulse Heartre, ffroydde, Father Phigga, High-Pottinuices. Religion, particularly Catholicism, gets hit pretty hard.
Colin, the main character, is independently wealthy. He is also very generous, especially to his friend, Chick, whose main interests in life, in order of importance to him, are collecting works by and property of Jean Pulse Heartre (Jean Paul Sartre, who was a friend of Vian’s) and his girlfriend, Alyssum. Chick doesn’t have enough money to marry her and working is not high on his list of priorities.
Colin and Chloe are also in love and looking forward to a long life together. Soon after their marriage she becomes ill and everything changes.
Viams words, often chronicling absurdity, demonstrate his observation ability, his sense of the ridiculous as and his outlook on life, particularly work, medicine, and religion.
Examples:
Early in the story, Colin describes and uses one of his inventions: The clavicocktail: The drink is created musically. For each note played there is a corresponding relationship with a drink, with or without alcohol. The length of time the note is held, the tempo, the number of measures, and the chords control the quantities.
Colin ...stood on the corner of the square, waiting for Chloe. The square was perfectly round...”
“He pushed the door, which pushed him equally roughly back, so we went into the shop window without any further argument.”
“The wind blew a path between the leaves, took it, and came out on the other side of the trees loaded with the perfume of buds and flowers.”
Discussion with a pharmacist: “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
“Make up this prescription.”
“The chemist snatched the sheet of paper, drew a pair of eyes, nose and mouth on it, and then applied eyeshadow powder and lipstick to them.
“That’s done,” he said, “blacking one of the eyes with a rubber stamp proclaiming his name and address.”
“At any rate, it's stupid to do work that machines could do just as well.”
“Those machines have still got to be made and who's going to that.”
...
“No it's not their fault. It's because they've been taught that work is holy, good, and beautiful. It counts above everything else, the workers alone will inherit the earth. Only things have been arranged so that they have to spend all their time working and there's no time left the rest of it to come true.”
“But it's not their fault that they think work is so terrific, is it.”
“Well they must be stupid then!”
“Yes, of course they are stupid that's why they agree with those people who want them to think that work is the best possible thing for them. It stops them thinking for themselves and trying to reach a state they would need to work anymore.”
There are not many reviews posted for MOOD INDIGO. Several writers said they preferred the movie. Others liked a different translation. On the whole, people either thought it was brilliant or didn’t like it very much. It wasn’t the type of book I usually read but was lured to it by a review by someone I admire.
The writing is very good but the story
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and eventually die. Individuals are replaceable in the society with little consideration given to them as people; they are treated more like cogs in a gear.Boris Vian, as translated by Stanley Chapman, likes puns and Spoonerisms. That is quite evident in the names of some of the characters and references: Wry-Tangle, Jean Pulse Heartre, ffroydde, Father Phigga, High-Pottinuices. Religion, particularly Catholicism, gets hit pretty hard.
Colin, the main character, is independently wealthy. He is also very generous, especially to his friend, Chick, whose main interests in life, in order of importance to him, are collecting works by and property of Jean Pulse Heartre (Jean Paul Sartre, who was a friend of Vian’s) and his girlfriend, Alyssum. Chick doesn’t have enough money to marry her and working is not high on his list of priorities.
Colin and Chloe are also in love and looking forward to a long life together. Soon after their marriage she becomes ill and everything changes.
Viams words, often chronicling absurdity, demonstrate his observation ability, his sense of the ridiculous as and his outlook on life, particularly work, medicine, and religion.
Examples:
Early in the story, Colin describes and uses one of his inventions: The clavicocktail: The drink is created musically. For each note played there is a corresponding relationship with a drink, with or without alcohol. The length of time the note is held, the tempo, the number of measures, and the chords control the quantities.
Colin ...stood on the corner of the square, waiting for Chloe. The square was perfectly round...”
“He pushed the door, which pushed him equally roughly back, so we went into the shop window without any further argument.”
“The wind blew a path between the leaves, took it, and came out on the other side of the trees loaded with the perfume of buds and flowers.”
Discussion with a pharmacist: “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
“Make up this prescription.”
“The chemist snatched the sheet of paper, drew a pair of eyes, nose and mouth on it, and then applied eyeshadow powder and lipstick to them.
“That’s done,” he said, “blacking one of the eyes with a rubber stamp proclaiming his name and address.”
“At any rate, it's stupid to do work that machines could do just as well.”
“Those machines have still got to be made and who's going to that.”
...
“No it's not their fault. It's because they've been taught that work is holy, good, and beautiful. It counts above everything else, the workers alone will inherit the earth. Only things have been arranged so that they have to spend all their time working and there's no time left the rest of it to come true.”
“But it's not their fault that they think work is so terrific, is it.”
“Well they must be stupid then!”
“Yes, of course they are stupid that's why they agree with those people who want them to think that work is the best possible thing for them. It stops them thinking for themselves and trying to reach a state they would need to work anymore.”
There are not many reviews posted for MOOD INDIGO. Several writers said they preferred the movie. Others liked a different translation. On the whole, people either thought it was brilliant or didn’t like it very much. It wasn’t the type of book I usually read but was lured to it by a review by someone I admire.
The writing is very good but the story
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LibraryThing member hbergander
One of the cult books of my adolescence. With all ingredients essentially attractive to a young man: Love, sex, death. And jazz at a place of desire like New Orleans.
LibraryThing member Miguelnunonave
Surreal and absurd. An unengaging love story, where the character study is too light-weight for my taste. Lacking in depth. OK, I understand the bold genre, I even agree that the writing is tremendously original, but it simply is not my cup of tea...
LibraryThing member WorldInColour
Once upon a time, a younger version of this lovely reviewer went to a theater somewhere in the north of France and was witness of a French reproduction of 'L'écume des jours'. The show was a marvellous mix of conversations between cats and mice, flowers, hilarious church services and
A few years later I find myself reading the paper version of 'L'écume des jours'. I had almost forgotten about the theater I once saw. But I must admit that the book is, in many ways, the same thing. A collection of marvels that still, I do not fully understand. But how essential it all seems! There's something special that happens when Chloé is stricken by her amazing illness; a flower is growing inside her lungs. (Seriously though - this is reason enough to read the book.)
'L'écume des jours' is a crazy contemplation, but above all, a very rhythmical and spontaneous representation of love, responsibility and god knows what else. As I've already said, this book isn't meant to be understood. One can solely admire the intensity it brings to the table and say, bravo monsieur Vian, bravo.
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heartwrenching romance. The thing was, though, that I didn't feel like I understood what I had just seen. My French was lacking at the time, but even so, I felt like I had witnessed something special.A few years later I find myself reading the paper version of 'L'écume des jours'. I had almost forgotten about the theater I once saw. But I must admit that the book is, in many ways, the same thing. A collection of marvels that still, I do not fully understand. But how essential it all seems! There's something special that happens when Chloé is stricken by her amazing illness; a flower is growing inside her lungs. (Seriously though - this is reason enough to read the book.)
'L'écume des jours' is a crazy contemplation, but above all, a very rhythmical and spontaneous representation of love, responsibility and god knows what else. As I've already said, this book isn't meant to be understood. One can solely admire the intensity it brings to the table and say, bravo monsieur Vian, bravo.
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LibraryThing member Paulagraph
Strange novel (my edition has a different cover, by the way). Written in the forties, it reminds me a bit of "teenage tragedy songs" popular in early 60s that usually featured the death of the male of a couple of teenage lovers. Here it's the female (Chloe) of the young, self-absorbed lovers who
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dies of a strange malady of the lungs (the disease is a water lily, a disease that seems to only be ameliorated by other flowers, especially expensive lilies). There are actually 3 pairs of lovers in the novel: Colin (who starts out very rich & ends up destitute) & Chloe; Chick (Colin's best friend, who is obsessed with Jean-Sol Partre & spends all the money Colin gives him to get married on purchasing expensive editions of Partre's books & ephemera) & Alise; and Nicolas (Colin's personal chef) & Isis. The novel features much word play, many neologisms & sly references to existentialist philosophy, literature & especially the jazz of Duke Ellington. There are science fiction elements such as strange machines like the "pianocktail" which produces cocktails flavored according to the jazz tunes played on it; an "arrache-coeur, which is a kind of hook that rips out a victim's heart, & a half live rabbit-half machine that fabricates pills at the pharmacy. There is much casual violence. People are killed & swept aside with no feeling & under a variety of circumstances throughout. Rooms shrink & hallways tip. There is a pet mouse with loves, plans & suicidal sacrifices of his own. Nicolas & Isis are really the only survivors, as far as we know. Show Less
LibraryThing member pathogenik
This is a VERY intelligent book, very imaginative. I appreciate it, i really do. but i couldn't finish it because surrealism ruined it for me. I don't like fantasy/surrealist books, i can never relate and fully lose myself in the book. But again, as I said, Boris Vian is very clever :)
LibraryThing member bodachliath
A seriously bizarre surreal fantasy - part love story, part word game, part reflection on jazz, life, death, work and Sartre (or should I say Jean Pulse Heartre), fed through the prism of a translator who seems to have imbibed too much of the psychedelic atmosphere of late 60s London.
According to
According to
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the blurb, the translator Stanley Chapman was a member of Oulipo, and having read a little about that, the translation appears to follow some of Oulipo's rules. Without reading the French original, it is difficult to know how much this affects the text, but there are a few 60s cultural references that seem anachronistic for a book written in 1947. Show Less
LibraryThing member eyelit
fantastically bizarre novel
LibraryThing member thorold
By Vian's standards, this is a surprisingly simple story: Colin and Chloe are destroyed by a universe that can't stand to see anyone that happy; Chick and Alise by Chick's uncontrollable addiction to collecting artefacts connected with megastar-philosopher Jean-Sol Partre (author of Le vomi, La
With Vian in charge, Colin and Chick start off with the blissful innocence of Bertie Wooster and Bingo Little, generating harmonious mixed drinks by inputting Duke Ellington tunes into Colin's pianocktail machine and being served superb meals by his impeccable manservant Nicolas, but by the end of the book they have moved into something more like Kafka's version of The picture of Dorian Gray. Medics, priests, a pharmacist, employers, booksellers and an avant-la-lettre SWAT team have all taken what they can get; even Colin's wonderful modernist apartment has developed a weird malaise that makes it turn slowly into a crumbling garret.
The whole thing is peppered with Vian's unforgettable twists of logic — even the ones we'd prefer to forget, like the trained cyber-rabbits in the pharmacy that produce those wonderfully even round pills, as rabbits do... But, under the comedy, there's real anger and sadness about the arbitrary cruelty of the world we live in, some of it avoidable and man-made, most not.
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lettre et le néon, and hundreds of other immortal texts). Sophocles would already have known what to do with a plot like that, but of course it wouldn't have turned out anything like as bizarre in his hands.With Vian in charge, Colin and Chick start off with the blissful innocence of Bertie Wooster and Bingo Little, generating harmonious mixed drinks by inputting Duke Ellington tunes into Colin's pianocktail machine and being served superb meals by his impeccable manservant Nicolas, but by the end of the book they have moved into something more like Kafka's version of The picture of Dorian Gray. Medics, priests, a pharmacist, employers, booksellers and an avant-la-lettre SWAT team have all taken what they can get; even Colin's wonderful modernist apartment has developed a weird malaise that makes it turn slowly into a crumbling garret.
The whole thing is peppered with Vian's unforgettable twists of logic — even the ones we'd prefer to forget, like the trained cyber-rabbits in the pharmacy that produce those wonderfully even round pills, as rabbits do... But, under the comedy, there's real anger and sadness about the arbitrary cruelty of the world we live in, some of it avoidable and man-made, most not.
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LibraryThing member slplst
I've got no doublezoons left
Awards
Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1947
Physical description
158 p.; 21 cm
ISBN
8741247639 / 9788741247632
Local notes
Omslag: Ole Vedel
Omslagstegning: Henry Miller
Omslaget viser nogle ansigter
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra fransk "L'écume des jours" af Lone Teglskov
Omslagstegning: Henry Miller
Omslaget viser nogle ansigter
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra fransk "L'écume des jours" af Lone Teglskov
Similar in this library
Pages
158
DDC/MDS
| 813 |