![]() ![]() Is this fiction? Autofiction? It claims it is a novel, but is dedicated to “Thomas Andrieu”, and the character Philippe comes from Barbezieux, the real village where Besson grew up. “Everything reeked of savings… not poverty so much as mediocrity, which struck me as less forgiveable,” he whinges of some poor cousin’s wedding. ![]() But Philippe’s opining gradually becomes unbearable. At first, Philippe is the thoughtful nerd, Thomas the insensitive popular kid. The wretchedness of Thomas’s situation makes him, oddly, the more likeable of the two. Later, Philippe will ruminate on the friends he lost to Aids, but Thomas’s future is a kind of death, too. High-school jocks like Thomas, stuck in provincial 1984 France, just don’t get to be gay. Philippe, a bookish ingénu, is indeed destined to get good grades and move on Thomas, stuck on his family’s farm, knows there is nothing much out there for him, and this lends their affair a terrible sadness. ![]()
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