There is a nostalgia for a lost paradise. We all feel it, more or less; it connects us to Original Sin and the Fall. This affliction torments pure souls. It lurks and stirs. A quintessential youthful affliction, a romantic folly, this nostalgia lies at the heart of Sébastien de Courtois's novel, * L'ami des beaux jours* (The Friend of Happy Days ).
Frédéric and Sébastien, the two protagonists of Sébastien de Courtois's beautiful novel, are consumed by this nostalgia. It's difficult to say whether they brought it upon themselves. They found each other without seeking it. These elective affinities stem from the same hallucination that animates proud youth, giving it that extra touch of aristocratic polish and its conquering spirit. Nothing seems impossible to them. The two friends sense each other's attraction to this nostalgia, a kind of exuberant and sensational vertigo. Thus, the two friends wreak havoc in the pink city, and the Cathar land returns the favor, instilling in them the spirit of revolt of those who believe themselves oppressed, of those who choose to be oppressed in order to better reveal their invigorating nature. Like any friendship where every second is shared, they will read the same books, discuss the same struggles, and ignite their passions for the same causes, each more orthodox and fundamental than the last… Frédéric and Sébastien become inseparable. Beautiful souls harmonize in friendship like a master piano. The two friends' quest for the absolute continues to swell, but they see only its radiance. One can only truly fall in love with one's own image. They are in harmony, therefore words prove useless. Action becomes the only outlet. Because words, oratorical or physical jousts, always lack something. Since there is nothing true outside of passion taken to its extreme. Since the journey is never enough, only apotheosis can transcend this rare moment, already fading, disappearing as we speak of it: youth, and the spirit that inhabits it. A time of incandescent intensity, a moment when the intensity surpasses understanding, when life reveals its innermost self and compels us to do the same, to pay it the only homage it deserves. Plato prophesied this world, our world, a world of copies, suffocating, incapable of not recognizing an original. Frédéric and Sébastien recognized each other instantly and bonded with the same fierce intensity, but ruling the cafés, ruling the liquor stores, even ruling over the beautiful, seasoned, and talented Sophie, could not be enough. Jules and Jim reeked of decay. The 60s were so lacking in tragedy. Frolicking for the sake of frolicking, laughing for the sake of laughing, strolling for the sake of strolling, a false world heralding bourgeois bohemia, despised by the two friends. Make no mistake, The Friend of Good Times is a modern tragedy, a drama, because Sophocles has put away his tools, which no one can now use without questioning their purpose. The 1990s, in which Sébastien de Courtois's novel takes place, reflect our current world, where all tragic sentiment has been eradicated. An empty shell. The two friends must agree. Neither literature, nor love, nor friendship, nor alcohol, are enough for them anymore. In fact, nothing is enough anymore. Sébastien, a bourgeois lost in this tumultuous life, having found the role of his life, finishes packing his belongings to return to a more peaceful existence, having long since understood the distance he should keep from passion and its trappings. Frédéric, however, cannot bring himself to do it, for he has created his world, he has built it. If his sandcastle melts like snow in the sun before the waves, he must become one with its vanquisher and plunge into the sea. Frédéric can never retreat. Not out of pride, but simply because he doesn't know how. He only knows how to move forward. If he stops, he falls. Retreat would be certain death… A cause presents itself to him as if by magic: the Yugoslav Wars. Frédéric embraces it. He tells Sébastien, “Don't look for me!” But there is nothing left to look for. Except, perhaps, one last thing, to accomplish the revolution: to search for a trace among the stars…
Decades later, Sébastien sets out to investigate and uncover the truth about Frédéric and his warrior and poetic destiny. He finds his friend's trail, his body now asleep forever in a valley near Osijek, Croatia—one of the many unknown soldiers of modern wars. Sébastien, with nostalgia and a touch of reserve, remembers knowing him well, in the lost paradise of his youth.
The Friend of Sunny Days , by Sébastien de Courtois. Stock Publishers. €20
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