Foam of the Daze

Boris Vian

This Thing: Is the newest translation of Vian's 1947 L'Ecume des Jours, a sort of existential Alice in Wonderland by way of Bernie Wooster.

Best Bit: The unbelievably strange and charming turn-table cake. Jean-Sol Partre. Jazz and pretty girls.

Worst Bit: Vian's female characters were a little flat, and, to be bitchy, if you're going to include as many annotations as this translation does, it would be cool to have them as footnotes instead of all clumped together in the back of the book.

Couldn't Believe: How startling and how startlingly effective the shift in tone about halfway through is. How huge this book's reputation is in France in comparison to its relative obscurity over here.

I Guess: I can't understate the complete reversal this book's tone undergoes from the first pages to the last while maintaining a consistent voice. It goes from a totally charming and adorable literary dessert to one of the most wrenching and brutal conclusions I've read in a long, long time, without seeming contrived or obvious. Vian and translator Brian Harper both deserve the hugest of props. Read this.