A review by franderochefort
Sueurs Froides by Thomas Narcejac, Pierre Boileau

3.0

Boileau-Narcejac's D'entre les morts deserves better than its minor footnote in history as the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, even if the film is probably inevitably the more notable work - the French writing team's original source material is fascinating for how much more blatant it is with its Orpheus/Eurydice imagery as well as the atmosphere of dread and classically French pessimism and obsession with desire and death that characterize the film in contrast to the breezy American psychosexuality of Hitchcock's reworking. The film does follow the plot surprisingly loyally however, and the book itself even suggests its ultimately cinematic character in a pivotal turning point about halfway in - where the two part ways is mostly in the third act, where D'entre les morts deploys a similar twist ending to that of Les Diaboliques by contrast. Our protagonist in the form of Flavieres is also much more of a shambling neurotic mess, a barely functioning alcoholic petrified of death and clinging to the vision of Madeleine's beauty and purity as a kind of search for immortality. Very oneiric and fascinating work.

________

I read this extensively without any dictionary usage which feels like a huge step up for me in my understanding, especially for how well I was able to follow the events of the book, and by the time I breezed through the last few chapters in the garden I felt pretty confident beyond just finding the book interesting - would have been hard to imagine I'd be up to this point even a few months ago.