Novel
Mood Indigo
L'Écume des jours
Boris Vian · 1947
Synopsis
Colin is twenty-two and has enough money to do nothing; he lives between his servant, Nicolas, and his friend Chick. At a party, he meets Chloé, falls in love with her and marries her at once. During the honeymoon, Chloé falls ill: a water lily has begun to grow in her lung, and only flowers, with which she must be constantly surrounded, can cure her.
Context
The novel was published by Gallimard in 1947, under its author's real name, and not under the pseudonym that had by then made his reputation. It sold poorly and went almost unnoticed. Steeped in jazz, it openly mocks Sartre in the guise of a philosopher named Jean-Sol Partre. It has been adapted for the screen several times, most recently by Michel Gondry in 2013, and it has had several English translations since the first, in 1967.
Who it is for
A short novel whose language invents its own words; the reader must accept not understanding everything.
Prizes and reception
In English, it has appeared under the titles Froth on the Daydream, in Stanley Chapman's translation, in 1967, then Mood Indigo, in John Sturrock's, reissued in 2014.