The will-o'-the-wisp

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The will-o'-the-wisp (French: Le Feu follet) is the title of a short novel by the French writer and intellectual Pierre Drieu La Rochelle , published in 1931 . The subject is human hopelessness and despair. It is widely regarded as one of his most important works.

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The protagonist of the story is thirty-year-old Alain Leroy. After serving in the war and then leading a wild life in the international jet set for a few years, he found himself in a mental hospital due to depression and states of exhaustion . The action begins shortly before his release. Alain has no strength to take his life into his own hands again. However, the attending doctor sees no reason to extend his stay. The effects of a wild life in drug addiction can be cured in the clinic, but afterwards Alain cannot part with the regular life of the clinic. Not being able to separate this is a sign of a final flaring up of his hope in life. Actually, however, he has already finished with his life. The discharge from the clinic confirms that it is right to continue with his plan. In the course of the plot, Alain is given several opportunities to return to life. But his path already seems predetermined. What Alain is looking for is denied him - to feel a touch, the satisfaction of loving someone and being loved. The following day Alain visits some old friends in Paris. The encounters are mostly unsatisfactory because his acquaintances do not understand his situation. The book ends with Alain's suicide in his room in the mental hospital.

background

The novel is based on the suicide of the surrealist poet Jacques Rigaut , with whom Drieu was close friends. Drieu, who also committed suicide sixteen years after Rigaut, had long dealt with the subject of suicide. a. theorized that suicide is the right consequence for people "who could not achieve anything else in their life". The suicide is therefore "a last noble act" and a sign of decency.

Film adaptations

Louis Malle adapted the novel Drieus in 1963 under the same title . Starring u. a. Maurice Ronet (Alain Leroy) and Jeanne Moreau . Malle changed the template in numerous points, so he moved the plot from the 1920s to the present. Maurice Ronet was also well over 30 when filming, which made the subject of the film more that of the midlife crisis . The novel, on the other hand, describes the problem of entering adulthood.

With Oslo, August 31, 2011, Joachim Trier created a film drama that is also based on Drieu's novel.

translation

A German translation by Gerhard Heller was published in 1968 by Propylaen (Ullstein) Verlag in Berlin. From 1941 to 1944, Heller was the special leader and censor for French literature in German-occupied France and personally known to Drieu la Rochelle.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kindler's new literary lexicon (2nd edition): Lemma "Pierre Drieu La Rochelle", p. 867.

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