Boris Vian, "Foam of the Days"
Upon opening this book, the reader is directly confronted with the game of inversions which sustains the global perspective: in an absurd, very strange world, the narrator presents us a character that is particularly ordinary and indefinite.
Thus, Colin is a very easy-going young man who loves jazz music, girls and who hates work and violence. He finds the love of his life in the person of Chlo, a crazy love which will make him lose everything he holds dear. Chlo's illness will force him to work for the very first time in his life: his first job would be that of manufacturing weapons and his second job, that of guarding a goldmine and crying out loud when he sees a thief.
Chlo is the epitome of beauty and womanhood. She's the perfect woman for Colin: young, pretty, sweet and attractive, but fragile. Her name comes from a piece played by Duke Ellington called "Chlo."
Chick is Colin's best friend. He is mad about Jean-Sol Partre's philosophy even if he doesn't understand it at all. Because of this obsession with Partre he sometimes acts selfishly. Unlike Colin, he has to work in order to survive. He is also Alise's boyfriend, but he loves Partre more than her.
Alise is a sentimental, friendly young lady. She is madly in love with Chick and full of compassion towards Chlo, but she sometimes thinks her life would have been much easier if she had married Colin.
Nicolas is Alise's uncle, and Colin's cook. He doesn't belong to the same social class as the other characters. He is at the same time a loyal friend of Colin's and Isis's lover.
Isis is part of the high society and is the only one who has a family; she is in love with Nicolas, and she knows how to enjoy life's pleasures.
Another character in this novel is the funny, adorable gray mouse with dark mustache.
As far as the friendship between Colin and Chick is concerned, we can notice its development all through the novel. They admit at the beginning of the book that they see each other as unique persons. Colin is aware of his friend's poor financial situation, and therefore invites him to dine with him every Monday evening. Chick also regards Colin as a very kind, true friend, who can help him get all the books from Partre's collection.
In fact, Jean-Sol Partre's books are the only passion Chick has. It's a very popular author, and Chick is simply obsessed with acquiring all of his books. But his engineer wages and the money he gets from his uncle are not enough for him to enrich his collection. Because of that, he constantly borrows money from his generous and rich friend Colin.
Nonetheless, Chick seems to take advantage of Colin's hospitality and generosity. He never hesitates to ask him for money. In fact, he doesn't even ask "could you lend me some money?" but instead he uses the imperative: "lend me some money." Colin accepts, of course. Apart from that, he also gives Chick 25 000 doublezons in order for him to marry Alise. But Chick uses that money amount to complete his Partre book collection. So Chick does not honestly take advantage of the money Colin had given him. So he is left with only one doublezon. He also misses to pay his taxes. In addition to that, all through the novel, Chick does not have a single moment for Colin, he doesn't help him when Chlo is sick, when Colin is also short of money.
Therefore, Chick is nothing but a very superficial person, who does not get attached to anyone but a single obsessive thing: Jean-Sol Partre, and his successful books. This will lead him to the road of perdition. He does not, under any form or circumstance, share Colin's friendship and warm feelings of sympathy towards him.
Apart from all these, the novel charms the reader through its fantastic imagery and descriptions, through its strange, sometimes adorable, sometimes cruel humor. It is an absurd world where the inanimate tends to replace the animate, where humans tend to be replaced by objects and machines, or to transform themselves in machinery. In all, it's a book worth reading.
