Froth on the Daydream

Froth on the daydream (in French, L'Écume des Jours) is a novel written by French author Boris Vian, and published in 1947.

It has been translated several times into English, under different titles. Stanley Chapman's translation was titled Froth on the Daydream; Brian Harper's was titled Mood Indigo, Foam of the Daze (TamTam Books).

Plot summary

The protagonist, Colin, is a wealthy young man with a resourceful and stylish man-servant, Nicolas, as well as a fantastic olfactory-musical invention: the pianocktail. With dizzying speed, Colin meets and weds Chloe in a grand ceremony. Generously, Colin bequeaths a quarter of his fortune to his friends Chick and Alise so they too may marry.

Happiness should await both couples but Chloe falls ill upon her honeymoon with a water lily in the lung, a painful and rare condition that can only be treated by surrounding her with flowers. The expense is prohibitive and Colin soon exhausts his funds. Meanwhile, Chick's obsession with the philosopher, Jean-Sol Partre, causes him to spend all his money, effort and attention upon collecting Partre's literature. Alise hopes to save Chick financially and renew his interest in her by persuading Partre to stop publishing books. She kills him when he refuses and seeks revenge upon the booksellers. Colin struggles to provide flowers for Chloe to no avail and his grief at her death is so strong his pet mouse commits suicide to escape the gloom.

Characters

• Colin – a wealthy young man
• Nicholas – Colin's man-servant
• Chloe – who Colin marries
• Chick – Colin's closest friend, who depends on Colin for financial support
• Alise – a friend of Colin who dates Chick
• Jean-Sol Partre – a philosopher whom Chick idolises (satirizing Jean-Paul Sartre)

Philosophical ideas

As noted above, in the original French version of the novel, Jean-Pulse Heatre is known as Jean-Sol Partre, satirizing the French Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. Throughout the novel, there are references to various works by Sartre, but like the philosopher's name, Vian plays with words to make new titles for these works by "Partre". Sometimes he uses a synonym, such as Le Vomi (Sartre's original, La Nausée), and sometimes he uses a homonym, such as La Lettre et le Néon (The Letter and Neon), a pun on L'Être et le Néant (Being and Nothingness).

Adaptations

L'Écume des Jours was made into a film released in 1968. English title: Spray of the Days. Directed by Charles Belmont, it stars Jacques Perrin, Marie-France Pisier, Sami Frey, Alexandra Stewart, Annie Buron, and Bernard Fresson.

It was made into an opera under the same title by the Russian composer Edison Denisov in 1981.

It was also adapted as a Japanese film, released in 2001. English title: Chloe. Directed by 利重 剛 (Go Riju), it stars 永瀨正敏 (Nagase Masatoshi) with cinematography by 篠田昇 (Shinoda Noboru). It was selected for competition at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival.

See also

• Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century