Les amitiés particulières

For the film of this name, see Les amitiés particulières (film).
Les amitiés particulières book cover, 1973)

Les amitiés particulières is a 1943 novel by French writer Roger Peyrefitte, probably his best-known work today, which won the prix Renaudot. Largely autobiographical, it deals with an intimate relationship between two boys at a Roman Catholic boarding school and how it is destroyed by a priest's will to protect them from homosexuality.[1]

The book has been translated into English by Felix Giovanelli (1950) and Edward Hyams (1958), both times under the title Special Friendships, and the latter was reissued in the United States as Secret Friendships.[2] As of 2011, they are out of print. In 1964 a film adaptation, Les amitiés particulières, was made, directed by Jean Delannoy.

Plot summary

The plot revolves around Georges de Sarre, a fourteen-year-old boy who is sent to a Catholic boarding school in 1920s France. Getting to know the other boys, he is immediately interested in Lucien Rouvière, of whom he is warned by the unsympathetic Marc de Blajan, who cryptically informs him that some of the students "may seem good, but are in fact not". Georges is dismayed when he learns that Lucien already has a boyfriend, André Ferron. He befriends Lucien, but filled with envy, tries to destroy their relationship, eventually succeeding in getting André expelled in a Machiavellian scheme.

When his advances towards Lucien remain fruitless, Georges starts a "special friendship", i.e. a friendship with homosexual overtones, with a twelve-year-old student, the beautiful Alexandre (Alexander) Motier. The priests who lead the school disapprove of these relationships, even though it does not go beyond a few kisses and love poems, with no sexual connotation.

Despite their air of condemnation of these special friendships, some of the priests harbour sexual feelings for the boys. One of them, Father de Trennes, likes to invite boys to join him in his room at night for a few drinks and cigarettes. Georges continues his scheming ways and gets Father de Trennes expelled by an anonymous letter. However, Father Lauzon, who is a friend of Alexandre's family and wants to protect him, learns about their relationship and demands that it be ended immediately.

Lauzon talks Georges into giving back the love letters from Alexander, which at the time the novel is set meant that a relationship was over. Unfortunately, Alexander cannot see that Georges was forced to do this and that his feelings for him are actually unchanged—and commits suicide.

The work has been praised for its elegant style, and the discretion with which the subject is treated. One example is the question which Alexander poses to Georges: "Georges, do you know the things one should not know?"

Relationship to Peyrefitte's biography and other similar works

The plot is understood to be largely autobiographical, with de Sarre being Peyrefitte's alter ego in the book. As in the book, Peyrefitte had a relationship with a younger student at a Catholic boarding school and, as in the book, his love interest eventually committed suicide.

The reader can follow George de Sarre's later life as a diplomat in Greece in Peyrefitte's Les Ambassades and La Fin des ambassades, where he also meets Father de Trennes again. Again, this parallels Peyrefitte's life as a diplomat in the 1930s/1940s.

Peyrefitte was on (mostly) friendly terms with Henry de Montherlant, who in his later years wrote a novel (Les Garçons, 1969) about a similar relationship. There exists substantial correspondence between the two on, among other things, love for boys and young men.

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ The phrase "les Amitiés particulieres" appears to have been coined in 1724 by the Jesuit priest Father Joseph-François Lafitau (1681-1746) in his study Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains, comparées aux moeurs des premier temps (Paris 1724, vol. 1, pp. 603-09): "L’Athenrosera, ou les Amitiés particulières [sic] entre les jeunes gens [. . .]" In the translation by W. N. Fenton & E. L. Moore as Customs of the American Indian compared with the customs of primitive times. (See vol. 1, Toronto, 1974, pp. 361, 364.) "The Athenrosera, or particular friendships, between young people which prevail almost in the same way from one end of America to the other.[...] Among the North American Indians these relationships of friendship carry no suspicion of apparent vice, although there is or may be much real vice. They are very ancient in their origin, very clear in their constant usage, sacred, if I dare say so, in the union which they form, the knots of which are as closely tied as those of blood and nature and can be broken only if one of them, making himself unworthy by cowardly acts which would dishonour his friend, [should] force him to renounce his alliance.[...] The parents are the first to encourage these friendships and to respect their rights [...] the two become companions in hunting, warfare, and good or bad fortune; they are entitled to food and shelter in each other’s lodging."
  2. ↑ Both of these translations are slight abridgements, frequently omitting anything from a few words to several sentences or a whole paragraph.

External links

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