Frédéric Beigbder: Vacances dans le coma (1994)

Frédéric Beigbeder's Vacances dans le coma is his second novel, and I think the best thing about it is the one-and-a-half page Foreword, which he also calls a self-criticism. He considers this his 'best' novel, although he had at the time only published one other, which is called Mémoire d'un jeune homme dérangé (you see the ambition of the comparison with Beauvoir's account of her early life?).

Beigbeder says that he thought of Huis clos and Voyage au bout de la nuit, but those titles had already been taken: he'd of course raised the bar too high, and of course he was young. The novel only takes place in twelve hours, kind of Ulysses thinking: yes, of course. And he was re-published in a poche edition, which he should have refused, like the Groucho Marx example of refusal, etc. Of course.

And what banality, as he says. The best thing I found about the book was the fictional Marc Marronnier being invited by his acquaintance DJ Joss Dumoulin to the new and highly prestigious club Les Chiottes (lit. 'The Shithouse'). Nice name.

Somehow this name seems quite fitting for a book filled with fashion freaks, cokeheads, sad types, and train spotters. Trainspotters?  Yes, this novel is filled with lists: of things forgotten, invited VIPs, a DJ's playlist, etc. In a word, this is a mess.

Links to my other Beigbeder posts:

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Frédéric Beigbeder: Mémoires d'un Jeune Homme Dérangé
Frédéric Beigbeder: 99 Francs

Frédéric Beigbeder: Premier bilan après l'apocalypse
Frédéric Beigbeder: L'Amour dure trois ans | Love Lasts Three Years
Frédéric Beigbeder: Un roman français

Frédéric Beigbeder: L'Amour dure trois ans | Love Lasts Three Years (1997)

Frédéric Beigbeder's L'Amour dure trois ans (translated word for word as Love Lasts Three Years and his third novel), is evidently partly autobiographical, but perhaps more humorous than anything else. The narrator is the protagonist Marc Marronnier, who morphs into Frédéric Beigbeder at the end. Marc has been married to Anne, but they divorce after three years because, well, love only lasts that long, but Anne has also found a photo of Marc's lover Alice in his bag just before they're due to go to Rio: this spells the end.

The break-up also serves to underline the title, which Marc repeats a number of times and even invents a rule:

'The first year you say: "If you leave me I'll KILL myself."

The second year you say: "If you leave me I'll suffer but I'll get over it."

The third year you say: "If you leave me I'll crack open the champagne."'

Much of L'Amour dure trois ans is filled with little sayings such as the above, writing off the shock of being spurned, the horror of loneliness: 'Marriage is caviar with every meal: an indigestion you adore until it sickens you', 'marriage is criminal because it kills mystery', and he remembers a joke a friend tells that the difference between love and herpes is that herpes is forever.

But all this is of course just sour grapes: Anne has dumped him, and Alice can't seem to make up her mind about staying with her husband Antoine and having surreptitious sex with Marc in hotels, leaving her husband for him definitively, or just dumping Marc as Anne has. And Marc, now convinced that Alice is his real true love (well, for three years anyway) suffers deeply, and the self-derision so characteristic of Beigbeder's work continues.

Not, though, that the narrator reserves all the brickbats for himself and his women. There is a wonderful stab at the rich:

'There it is, the spectacle of our society: even the rich no longer make us envious. They are fat, ugly and vulgar, their wives have had facelifts, they go to prison, their children take drugs, they have the culture of hicks, they pose for Gala'. (This is a royalist celebrity magazine of the kind that you find at supermarket checkouts.)

Alice does leave Antoine for Marc, and the brief second part of the novel is set in Formentera three years later, when Marc is writing an autobiographical novel: the sections of this part count down the last days to the supposed three-year limit.

This is a big improvement on his first novel.

My other Beigbeder posts:

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Frédéric Beigbeder: Mémoires d'un Jeune Homme Dérangé
Frédéric Beigbeder: 99 Francs
Frédéric Beigbeder: Un roman français
Frédéric Beigbeder: Premier bilan après l'apocalypse
Frédéric Beigbeder: Vacances dans le coma

Frédéric Beigbeder: Un roman français (2009)

As the title of Frédéric Beigbeder's book Un roman français says – in fact twice, as the subtitle is 'roman' – this is a novel. As opposed to an autobiography, although there is a strong amount of autobiographical detail in this. Many novels are full of autobiographical detail of course, although this one has the narrator – the central character – with the same name and exact date of birth as the author, whose parents and whose brother also have the same name as Beigbeder's parents and borther, and Beigbeder (the author) was also arrested for hoovering up coke from the bonnet of a car in the early hours of the morning, etc. But this is definitely a novel, and for instance contains imaginary dialogue between the author's maternal grandparents (who sheltered a family of Jews in World War II), and other dialogue (particularly with the police, for instance) must be invented.

Beigbeder – who claimed still to be an adolescent in the non-fictional work Premier bilan après l'apocalypse, written a few years after this novel – in fact claims here that he grew up (at the age of forty-two) in the tiny, filthy police cell he was put in after the coke incident in which his friend (just called le Poète in the novel but Simon Liberati in real life) was also arrested for the same activity. The novel is a splendid opportunity for Beigbeder – the narrator of course – to release a stream of invective against the primitive prison conditions he has experienced, and he spends a few pages dwelling on the squalor witnessed, although it isn't without humour – such as that found in the occasional camaraderie among others detained there.

As we can expect from Beigbeder, there are a large number of literary allusions, such as from the ununiformed police officer, who mentions – and I suspect not only improbably so to Beigbeder but also to the reader – that Jean Giono first got the idea for Le Hussard sur le toit in prison. This comes after Beigbeder declares (in an equally improbable moment, although improbable for a very different reason) that the coke snorting was a homage to a chapter in Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park, which has Jay McInerney snorting a line from a Porsche hood in Manhattan: he says McInerney claimed that Ellis invented the incident, although Beigbeder believes it is true. Then Beigbeder gives the cop a list of writers who have been imprisoned, tossed off as if he carries the information around in his head, a kind of walking literary Wikipedia.

It isn't the memory he has of writers which is important in this novel, though, but the memory he doesn't have of the first fifteen years of his life. But – in Proustian outpourings – this is essentially what Un roman français is concerned with: unable to sleep, lacking any intellectual stimulation in his cell, Beigbeder cures himself of his amnesia by writing a novel about his and his family's history – but in his head because he might inflict harm on himself if he were allowed to have a writing implement.

So Beigbeder delves deeply within his past, from the little he knows of his great-grandparents, through to his grandparents, his parents meeting in Guéthary in the Basque country (the place where, he mentions, the poet Paul-Jean Toulet is buried), to his slightly older brother Charles, the trauma of their parents' divorce, his own intellectual history, his repetition of broken family histories by getting divorced twice, etc.

I was impressed by the way Beigbeder tries to reinvent Freudian analysis not through the parents but through siblings, in his case through his relationship with his brother, developing an identity by behaving in exactly the opposite way towards ideas and interests as Charles does.

And a sentence about childhood is worth thinking about: 'On n'évolue pas, l'enfance nous définit pour toujours puisque la société nous a infantilisés à vie. ('We don't evolve, childhood defines us forever because society has infantilised us for life').

Yes. A fascinating – and healthily honest – read.

Links to my other Beigbeder posts:

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Frédéric Beigbeder: Mémoires d'un Jeune Homme Dérangé
Frédéric Beigbeder: 99 Francs

Frédéric Beigbeder: Premier bilan après l'apocalypse
Frédéric Beigbeder: L'Amour dure trois ans | Love Lasts Three Years

Frédéric Beigbeder: Vacances dans le coma

Frédéric Beigbeder: Premier bilan après l'apocalypse (2011)

Before Premier bilan après l'apocalypse exploded on my consciousness, I'd only read two of Frédéric Beigbeder's novels: Mémoires d'un Jeune Homme Dérangé (1990) and 99 Francs (2000), both of which I've commented on before on this blog, and both of which I link below.

But Premier bilan is quite something else, and it's difficult to express how much I enjoyed this outrageously self-opinionated, repetitive, wholly original, quirky, bizarre, immensely informative, infuriating, moving, contemptible, cliquish, and quite brilliant book written with both deep sincerity and tongue firmly in cheek.

Beigbeder obviously has deep concerns for the future of the book: not so much that it will be consumed in the flames of a Ray Bradbury-style dystopian Fahrenheit 451, but that we shall move into a paperless society in which print be only be in the form of the virtual word, with no sense of touch or smell, etc, and whose technology may even destroy our literary heritage.

So, here are one hundred books from the (essentially late half of the) 20th century (and just a few more immediately before and after that century) that Beigbeder believes must be saved. As Beigbeder is French it is unsurprising that more than 50% of these books are in that language, and as he has connections with the USA it is unsurprising that more than 25% of the books are of American origin. But barely 10% of the books are by female authors, which would appear to suggest an unfortunate male bias. (Maybe he can be excused just this once.)

It would be churlish (even ignorant) of me to even attempt to mention (in mock anger) the number and quality of the writers Beigbeder has excluded here: this is an idiosyncratic list, a list of those books he loves and considers worthy of survival, and not a list of those works he personally thinks are, er, great works in themselves (if that has any meaning).

But the strength of this book is that it is idiosyncratic, even a little insane – Beigbeder, for instance, includes in his hundred books an album by French rock band Téléphone and contrives to make his number 69 by the very sexually-oriented San-Antonio (OK, Frédéric Dard), the book of choice (En avant la moujik!) being published in the 'année érotique' of 1969. Furthermore, as I'm far from being a fan of much of what passes for good contemporary English literature (by which I mean that produced by English nationals), I am very pleased to find that only five of the 100 entries are by English writers, and that two of those entries are books by J. G. Ballard, whom Beigbeder rates higher than the usual tedious suspects he dismissively mentions: David Lodge, Ian McEwan, Jonathan Coe, and Julian Barnes.¹

I am delighted to note that Beigbeder includes the glorious Jean Rhys, who was born in Dominica to a Welsh father and a white Creole mother of Scottish ancestry; the fact that the chosen book isn't the usual (and atypical of Rhys's better work) Wide Sargasso Sea but Good Morning, Midnight (1939) shows that he knows what he's talking about. But then, going for lesser known works (which are often better in quality and/or are far more interesting) is Beigbeder's forte.

 Premier bilan is no conventional trip through the memory lane of its writer, but a genuine attempt to pinpoint some of missing elements in the conventional lists of 'best' books. As such, it often mentions obscure works, even, perhaps, a few that are almost impossible to find without spending far more than idle curiosity would allow for (such as Alain Pacadis's Un jeune homme chic (1978)). But others are much more accessible (at least for buying online but not necessarily from the point of view of readability), such as Rose poussière (1972) by Jean-Jacques Schuhl. And then there are Les Couleurs de l'infamie by Albert Cossery, Brèves de comptoir by Jean-Marie Gourio and Autoportrait by Edouard Levé.

This is a book I shall consult again and again, just dipping into it, discovering (I'm sure) much more each time.

Premier bilan is an infuriating delight – wouldn't anyone be infuriated by someone trying to convince you that writers such as Bret Easton Ellis  or Jay McInerney are way up there among the best in the world? – but it's the way that he says it. And he says things so well (if in a slightly exaggerated fashion). (Smiley definitely required there.)

I'll translate a few gems:

'As with all of [Cossery's] books, he praises laziness, condemns the rich with their possessions, and only respects beggars, outsiders, the poor. For him, these are the only free humans. [...] [L]et's stop classing the unemployed as handicapped when they are gods!'

'...celebrity, the new opium of the people...'

'[Ned Roram's] most beautiful sentences are those which we don't completely understand but feel deeply: they are addressed to the soul more than the head.'

'The film Breakfast at Tiffanys was absolutely charming but all the same it was an act of high treason. [Blake Edwards] turned a satire that could have been called 'The Fall of an Escort Girl' into a romantic moral comedy.'

'[Guillaume] Dustan cleverly synthesises the four most modern strands of contemporary literature: new realism (Houellebecq / Ravelec / Despentes), autofiction (Donner / Angot / Doubrovsky), experimental 'dandy rock' writing (Schuhl / Pacadis / Adrien),  and gay porn (Renaud Camus / Hervé Guilbert / Vincent Borel).'

'When I was an adolescent – I still am, but no matter...' (Beigbeder was 48 when this book was published.)

Beigbeder knows a great deal about literature, he loves it, he's immensely pretentious (that's one of his great strengths: he's a joker), he's still way too laddish, he'll never grow up (also one of his greatest strengths), but after reading Premier bilan I wanted to ring him up and talk about this book (that's a reference to something he says) because I loved it, because of its brilliance and because of its superb arrogance. Beigbeder has a self-deprecation which, paradoxically, can only come from conviction of his great worth. No, of course I don't take this book seriously: it's too vital for that.

Another translation of mine from this book:

'I'm frightened of LSD (I've often been offered it but never wanted to try it). I don't sleep with minors (that's bad). But I love it when books allow me to know things I don't have a knowledge of.'

That, of course, is what reading should be all about. This is a human, wonderful – and wonderfully annoying – book. It easily makes my one hundred, all-time list.

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¹ In Coe's defence, he wrote a brilliant biography of B. S. Johnson; Barnes's interest in Félix Fénéon and Alphonse Daudet are to be commended; Lodge is very good when talking about modernism; but McEwan, er... but then isn't he a friend of the dreadful Martin Amis?<sup>2

2</sup> I noticed Philippe Djian (Beigbeder's number 18 with Maudit ménage  and 95 with Clémence Picot) says (with apparent glee) in a magazine somewhere that the semi-colon is dead; oh no it's not.

My other Beigbeder posts:

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Frédéric Beigbeder: Mémoires d'un Jeune Homme Dérangé
Frédéric Beigbeder: 99 Francs
Frédéric Beigbeder: Un roman français
Frédéric Beigbeder: L'Amour dure trois ans | Love Lasts Three Years
Frédéric Beigbeder: Vacances dans le coma

Frédéric Beigbeder: 99 Francs (2000)

The importance of 99 Francs (which was the original price of the book, but now the title is the same as its price in euros, and of course it changes accordingly in translations) is in its satire. Octave is a 'child of the millennium': he's in advertising, or 'novelty terrorism' as he terms it, and he's the central character in this novel, which begins as a professional suicide note so he can get the sack ('I don't have the balls to resign') and claim unemployment insurance. He hates his life and hates himself.

Octave is overpaid and lives in a world where coke snorting is the norm, and when you ditch your chick you go to a high-class hooker – everyone and everything can be bought, we are all prostitutes: 'Don't look at the straw in your brother's nostril but the beam in your own pants':

'I'm in advertising: oh yeah, I pollute the universe. I'm the guy who sells you shit. Who makes you dream of things you'll never have. Sky always blue, babes never ugly, perfect happiness, makeover by PhotoShop. [...] I'm three fashions in front, and I'll always make sure you're frustrated. [...] In my profession no one wants you to be happy, because happy people don't consume.'

His firm has a saying: 'Don't treat people like twats, but don't forget that they are twats.' The logos have replaced the Logos. And it's taken 2000 years to get there. To emphasize his point, Beigbeder even introduces mock adverts between the sections of the book, (which are each narrated in different personal pronouns). Example: three Jamaicans are lying beneath a coconut palm after smoking enormous spliffs: smashed out of their skulls. A huge black woman tells them to get back to work. They don't move. She screams at them to get back to work. They don't move. In desperation she waves a tub of Danette chocolate cream dessert at them, and they spring awake singing Bob Marley's 'Get Up Stand Up', dancing around the beach 'tasting the product'.

I started out wanting to hate this book, expecting general emptiness, style triumphing over substance, verbal fireworks without meaning, one joke lasting the whole 282 pages, but it's hard to deny the central premise: advertising is the new terrorism, and consuming is the new colonialism, the new God.

However, it is much too long for what it's trying to say, the excursions to Senegal, Miami and Cannes are tedious, and the senseless murder and the embezzlement sub-plot (ending on Ghost Island) merely add to the distractions rather than enhance the anti-advertising message.

Some of the internet jokes are distinctly unfunny too:

'Allez, e-ciao.
– bye-bye.com!'

Nevertheless this is clever stuff, and Beigbeder can also be very funny, although his writing is far too unruly for its own good.

Below are links to other Beigbeder book reviews I wrote:

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Frédéric Beigbeder: Mémoires d'un Jeune Homme Dérangé
Frédéric Beigbeder: Premier bilan après l'apocalypse

Frédéric Beigbeder: Un roman français
Frédéric Beigbeder: L'Amour dure trois ans | Love Lasts Three Years
Frédéric Beigbeder: Vacances dans le coma

Frédéric Beigbeder: Mémoires d'un Jeune Homme Dérangé (1990)

Mémoires d'un jeune homme dérangé ('Memoirs of a Deranged Young Man') (1990) was Frédéric Beigbeder's first novel, and the first part of the 'Marc Marronnier' trilogy, the other two being Vacances dans le coma ('Holidays in a Coma') (1994) and L'amour dure trois ans ('Love Lasts Three Years') (1997), and Beigbeder is a kind of younger, hirsute, upmarket, dandyish, tormented version of Will Self when he was his former self.

The novel is a pun on Simone de Beauvoir's Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée (Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (1958)). The book is full of puns, and this is by no means the only literary pun: for instance, one section is called 'Les paradis superficiels' after Baudelaire's Les paradis artificiels, and another 'Jours tranquilles à Neuilly' after Henry Miller's Jours tranquilles à Clichy.

The following two paragraphs give a good idea of the content:

'One evening, Jean-Georges and I were watching television. There was a program about alcoholism. A writer was talking about the ravages that alcohol had brought to his life: his wife had left him, his talent too.

'"How many ice cubes in your scotch?" Jean-George asked me.'

Jean-Georges is Marc's friend, a person with whom, until near the end of the book, he shares his clubbing, drinking, drug-taking, and generally crazy lifestyle of the dissolute of the twentysomethings who are surviving on daddy's money, a world of frequent international travel to attend alcohol- and drug-fueled functions, where pop cultural references and brand names are strewn all over the place.

But Marc leaves Victoire, the girl with the multi-millionaire father, for Anne, with whom he finds complete bliss: it's a joy just to be with her, no longer to go out, and he'll never want to take up with another woman as Anne is so many different women at different times of the day - who could ask for anything more?

Until the day when Marc walks into the kitchen and – for no apparent reason – shoots her dead. So he really is deranged.

Oh, no, wait a minute, that's completely false! They really will live an eternally happy existence, and have lots of children, etc. Oh, that's OK then! But is it? Isn't that a really bizarre joke to have made? And we know he's bought a gun, and he says he killed his cat with it, or was that a sick joke too?

Maybe the next two books in the trilogy will reveal more. Maybe.

Below is a link to another Beigbeder book review of mine:

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Frédéric Beigbeder: 99 Francs
Frédéric Beigbeder: Premier bilan après l'apocalypse

Frédéric Beigbeder: Un roman français
Frédéric Beigbeder: L'Amour dure trois ans | Love Lasts Three Years
Frédéric Beigbeder: Vacances dans le coma