Word: dutourd
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...TAXIS OF THE MARNE, (244 pp.) -Jean Dutourd-Simon & Schuster...
France is the Sick Woman of Europe. Diagnoses of her ailments are plentiful, with blame falling on practically anything, including the parliamentary system, the Gallic spirit, absinthe, existentialism, contraceptives, conservatism, radicalism, modern art, the unreasonable insistence on reason, the undigested principles of the French Revolution. Brilliant Satirist Jean Dutourd (A Dog's Head, The Best Butter) will have little to do with any of these explanations. He refuses to see history in terms of abstract ideas, cycles or forces. He sees it in terms of men-weak or strong, good or bad. wise or stupid, to be judged...
Concerning your Aug. 27 review of Jean Dutourd's Five AM.: both T.S. Eliot and Jean Dutourd describe subjective and objective symptoms which they have experienced in the early morning hours, such as sweating, fear, fright, and a depressing and pessimistic outlook on life. Your review rightfully states "a man's lifetime is invariably more than the sum of what he thinks and feels in the small, black hour...
...moon. Fernand has lost all hope of heaven, but retains a superstitious fear of hell. His sole deity is the "phenobarbitone-God." Only two passions dominate him: laziness and cigarette smoking. He lies on his bed by the hour looking at the wall. Indeed, the only decision Novelist Dutourd puts to his hero in the whole course of this Novel is whether or not to get up and go to the bathroom. Fernand doesn...
...exactly a new philosophy, but it is a valid one. However, in Ecclesiastes it is a philosophy to live by, enhancing the precious value of life's passing moments. In Five A.M., it is interpreted as degrading life to the level of a futile, nihilistic charade. Author Dutourd writes as dry ice feels, but his chilling message is only half true. A man's lifetime is invariably more than the sum of what he thinks and Feels in the small, black hour...