Les amitiés particulières
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Les amitiés particulières is a 1943 novel by French writer Roger Peyrefitte, probably his best known work today, which won the coveted prix Renaudot. Largely autobiographical, it deals with a homoerotic relationship between two boys at a Roman Catholic boarding school and how it is destroyed by a priest's feelings for the younger boy.
The book was translated into English by Edward Hyams and published in 1958 under the title Secret Friendships in the United States and Special Friendships in the United Kingdom. As of 2005, it is out of print.
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[edit] Plot
The plot revolves around Georges de Sarre, who is sent to a Catholic boarding school in 1920s France. Getting to know the other boys, he is immediately sexually interested in Lucien Rouvière, of whom he is warned by the unsympathetic Marc de Blajan, who cryptically informs him that some of the students "may seem good but are in fact not". Georges is dismayed when he learns that Lucien already has a boyfriend, André Ferron. He befriends Lucien, but filled with envy tries to destroy their relationship, eventually succeeding in getting André expelled in a truly Machiavellian scheme.
When his advances towards Lucien remain fruitless, Georges starts a "special friendship", i.e. a friendship with homosexual overtones, with a younger student, the beautiful Alexandre (Alexander) Motier. The priests which lead the school disapprove of their relationship, even though (at least initially) it does not go beyond a few kisses and love poems. Peyrefitte leaves it to the imagination whether the two eventually also have sex or not, but at any rate the outcome is tragic for the two boys. For despite their air of condemnation for pederasty, the priests harbor the same homoerotic feelings for the boys.
One of them, Father de Trennes, likes to invite boys to join him in his room at night for a few drinks and cigarettes (and supposedly other things). Georges continues his scheming ways (which probably will serve him well in his later life as a diplomat) and gets Father de Trennes expelled by another anonymous letter. However, Father Lauzon, who is secretly also in love with Alexander, learns about their relationship and demands that it be ended immediately.
Lauzon talks Georges into sending back the love letters from Alexander, which at the time the novel is set meant that a relationship was over. Unfortunately, Alexander cannot see that Georges was forced to do this and that his feelings for him are actually unchanged—and commits suicide. When Father Lauzon expresses his condolences to George, he admits the true nature of his feelings for Alexander.
The work has been praised for its elegant style, and the discretion with which the subject is treated. One example is the question which Alexander poses to Georges: "Georges, do you know the things one should not know?"
[edit] 1964 movie adaptation
In 1964, the novel was made into a movie of the same title by director Jean Delannoy starring Francis Lacombrade as Georges and Didier Haudepin as Alexandre as well as Michel Bouquet as Père de Trennes. The film was produced by Christine Gouze-Rénal, whose sister Danielle is the widow of French president François Mitterrand. The filming location for the movie was the 13th-century Royaumont Abbey, some 50 km north of Paris.
The movie is mostly true to the novel, changing only relatively minor plot points such as Alexandre's suicide from poisoning to death by throwing himself from a train. Also, Alexandre in the movie is dark-haired, not blond, which also removes some of the inside jokes between Alexandre and Georges which are present in the book.
On the set of the film, Peyrefitte met the 14-year-old aristocrat Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villele who had been cast as a choir boy and was a big fan of the book. Not only did Peyrefitte sign Alain-Philippe's copy of the book but the two also fell in love, pursuing a stormy relationship that Peyreffite chronicled in some of his later novels such as Notre Amour (1967) and L'Enfant de cœur (1978).
Alain-Philippe Malagnac was later married to Amanda Lear and died in a house fire in 2000 at the age of fifty one, shortly after Peyrefitte's death. It is unknown whether this was a suicide, even though Peyrefitte in his novels describes a "suicide pact" between the two, i.e. their intention to commit suicide if the other one dies.
[edit] Relationship to Peyrefitte's biography and other similar works
The plot is understood to be largely autobiographical, with de Sarre being Peyrefitte's alter ego in the book. As in the book, Peyrefitte had a relationship with a younger student at a Catholic boarding school and as in the book, his love interest eventually committed suicide.
The reader can follow George de Sarre's later life as a diplomat in Greece in Peyrefitte's Les Ambassades, where he also meets Father de Trennes again. Again, this parallels Peyrefitte's life as a diplomat in the 1930s/1940s.
Peyrefitte was on (mostly) friendly terms with Henry de Montherlant, who in his later years wrote a novel (Les garçons, 1969) about a similar relationship. There exists substantial correspondence between the two on, among other things, homosexuality.
[edit] Further reading
- Roger Peyrefitte: Secret Friendships. ISBN 0914301233
[edit] See also
- Pedophilia
- Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in fiction
- Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in films
- Child sexual abuse
