TamTam Books News

Saturday, January 31, 2004:

From the current issue of FLAUNT, a review of 'Foam of the Daze.'


FOAM OF THE DAZE: written by Boris Vian (TamTam Books)

Boris Vian writes like a dapper, dilettantish dandy, which is appropriate because that’s what he was. His 1947 novel, newly translated by Brian Harper as "Foam of the Daze" (earlier incarnations include "Mood Indigo" and "Froth on the Daydream"), perfectly reflects this breezy social agenda of elegant aperitifs, whimsical obsessions, and love, love, love. But Vian’s very much a descendent of his dour and decadent French forefathers, learning from the life of leisure that beauty reaps the blood of solitude and pretty girls do, in fact, make graves, so even the book’s blithest banter betrays an echo of the memento mori that is to come. And yet, for all its subtle sadness, "Foam" is fun and cleverly combats life’s fragility with nimble wit and a sardonically deadpan appraisal that’s as unassailable as it is hilarious. Nothing captures Vian’s post-ironic genius as lucidly as his rendering of the fog-shrouded funeral procession for the protagonist’s lovely wife: "it was very sad looking." You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll smirk.

_ Britt Brown, Flaunt Magazine, February 2004

Tosh // 11:33 AM
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