Reading Order
L'Écume des joursL'Écume des jours Reading Order
L'Écume des jours (Froth on the Daydream, 1947) by Boris Vian is the most beloved French novel of the postwar period outside the existentialist canon — a surrealist love story set in a world of playful inventions (a pianocktail that makes cocktails corresponding to the music played, a cooking newspaper, eel-filled pipes) in which Colin and Chloé fall in love and Chloé develops a disease caused by a water lily growing in her lung, and the entire bright playful world contracts as her illness progresses until the novel ends in poverty and death. Vian was the most versatile and least classifiable figure in the immediate postwar Parisian literary scene: he was simultaneously a jazz trumpeter, a novelist, a playwright, a singer-songwriter, a critic, and the pseudonymous author of J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (1946), an American-style roman noir that he claimed was a translation from an American author — Vernon Sullivan — and which caused a scandal when his authorship was discovered. L'Écume des jours remains his masterpiece; he died of a heart attack at 39 in 1959, watching the film of J'irai cracher sur vos tombes.
Where to start
Read L'Écume des jours in a single reading — the contraction of the world as Chloé's illness progresses requires continuous reading to feel the cumulative weight of the diminishing. Then read L'Automne à Pékin (1947) for the absurdist comedy, and L'Herbe rouge (1950) for the more melancholy late novel. Read J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (1946) for the noir experiment.
Complete L'Écume des jours Book List
- 1Buy
L'Écume des jours
Boris Vian·1947·Start here — the masterpiece; read in one sitting to feel the world contracting; Colin and Chloé; the water lily; the only Vian that can break your heart - 2Buy
L'Automne à Pékin
Boris Vian·1947·Autumn in Peking — the absurdist comedy; a train to Pékin that never arrives; the playful Vian in full flight; read after L'Écume des jours - 3Buy
L'Herbe rouge
Boris Vian·1950·Red Grass — the more melancholy late novel; a machine that travels into the past; Vian's most formally interesting experiment after the masterpiece - 4Buy
J'irai cracher sur vos tombes
Boris Vian·1946·I Spit on Your Graves — the American-style roman noir written pseudonymously as Vernon Sullivan; the scandal and the noir experiment; read for the range of Vian - 5Buy
Les Bâtisseurs d'empire
Boris Vian·1959·The Empire Builders — the late play; a family fleeing upward through a building while a mysterious creature pursues them; Vian as playwright at his most Beckettian
L'Écume des jours — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the pianocktail?
The pianocktail is the most famous of Vian's playful inventions in L'Écume des jours: a piano that, as it is played, mixes a cocktail corresponding to the emotional and musical character of the piece — a Bach fugue produces something precise and architectural, a blues produces something melancholy and smoky. The pianocktail is a joke, an homage to jazz (Vian was a serious jazz musician and critic, deeply connected to the New Orleans musicians who came to Paris after the war), and a symbol of the novel's vision of a world in which art and pleasure are directly linked. The playful inventions of the first half of the novel are the form taken by Colin and Chloé's happiness; as the novel darkens, they disappear.
Who was Boris Vian?
Boris Vian (1920–1959) was the most versatile figure in immediate postwar French literary culture. He was simultaneously: a jazz trumpeter and critic who was one of the most important intermediaries between American jazz and French audiences; a novelist of surrealist playfulness (L'Écume des jours, L'Automne à Pékin); a playwright; a chansonnier whose songs (Le Déserteur, Je suis snob) were important popular cultural documents; and the author of several roman noir novels pseudonymously attributed to 'Vernon Sullivan.' He died of a heart attack at 39, watching the film of J'irai cracher sur vos tombes. He was in contact with Sartre, De Beauvoir, and the Saint-Germain-des-Prés existentialist world, but his work is fundamentally anti-existentialist — playful where they were serious, surrealist where they were phenomenological.
What is the significance of L'Écume des jours in French culture?
L'Écume des jours has a peculiar status in French culture: it is simultaneously the bestselling French novel of the postwar period that is not by a canonical author (Sartre, Camus, Beauvoir, Duras) and the novel most likely to be cited by French readers as their favourite. Its popularity is partly generational — it is discovered in adolescence, when the mix of playfulness and heartbreak is most powerful — and partly cultural — the jazz, the Saint-Germain-des-Prés atmosphere, the inventions all capture the specific postwar Parisian world. The title comes from a Duke Ellington composition ('Froth on the Daydream' in the English translation by Brian Stableford) — the title is an homage to jazz as the form of art that Vian loved most.
What is the disease that kills Chloé?
Chloé's disease is caused by a water lily (a nenuphar) growing in her lung — an entirely fantastical disease that has no medical equivalent. The treatment is to surround her with fresh flowers (which counteract the lily) and this requires Colin to spend all his money on flowers, which he does until the money runs out and the world contracts to the single flower he can no longer afford. The disease is one of Vian's most perfectly realized inventions because it is simultaneously absurd (a water lily in a lung), beautiful (the imagery of flowers), and devastating (the mechanism by which it destroys everything). The fantastic disease is the novel's central metaphor: beauty and death are the same thing, and the most beautiful things destroy you.
What is J'irai cracher sur vos tombes?
J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (I Spit on Your Graves, 1946) is a roman noir that Vian published pseudonymously as 'Vernon Sullivan,' claiming it was a translation from an American author. It sold extremely well and caused a scandal when Vian's authorship was discovered — the novel was accused of obscenity and racism (it concerns a light-skinned Black man who passes as white in the American South to avenge his brother's lynching) and was eventually banned. The experiment shows the range of Vian's talents — the novel is a technically competent roman noir — and also his tendency to provocation, which made him a difficult figure for the French literary establishment to accommodate.
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