Other Literature references


I'm just wondering what book's Malle was reading at 14.

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[deleted]

That's "J'irai Cracher Sur Vos Tombes" (I Will Spit on Your Graves) by musician/writer/actor Boris Vian, who had a heart condition (like Laurent and like Louis Malle himself) and died of a sudden heart attack in 1959, at age 39, in a theatre watching the preview of a movie adaptation of his own novel. The novel is about racism, but there's a lot of raunchy passages in it.

Apart from that, there's "The Story of O", that Laurent discovers his mother is reading.

Many references to Proust, especially that special line from Laurent's brother: "Proust to amuse you, Tintin to instruct you".

Other references to Corneille (Laurent's classmate's homework), Heraclitus (Laurent is reading a text by him in Greek in a private lesson with the priest)...

And there's the recitation of Erlkönig, by Goethe, at the camp, where Laurent and his younger buddy play father and son in a very erotic way.

I'm sure there's more, but right now memory fails me...

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