THE WONDERFUL CLOUDS

With her fifth novel, it looks as if the enfant terrible of the younger French writers has put away childish things. No longer writing as a prodigy, the author of Bonjour Fristes presents a disturbingly accurate picture of a neurotic marriage between Alan, a young American millionaire, and Jose, his sensitive, unstable French wife. Talented, handsome and intelligent, Alan also lacks conviction or purpose. Enervatingly, he feeds off his young wife who is so exhausted by her husband's possessiveness, his jealousy and his narcissism that she submits. In this world of Paris cafe society, the arena is the bedroom and it is here that Jose and Alan spar, using sex as an escape from boredom, as a toy, and as a weapon, but rarely as an expression of love. The scope of this short novel is limited, but Franc Sagan draws from it its full potential of poetic and dramatic meaning.