A Reading of the Notion of the Stranger in Boris Vian’s L’Écume des jours

Abstract

In this paper it is our goal to approach L'Ecume des jours by Boris Vian. Along the way of life which the author suggests to the reader there is an underlying rejection of values, in particular with regards to religion, work, old age and death. Perhaps this is an indicator of discontent in the way the author perceives society and, in particular, in relation to literature and criti-cism of the period it portrays. It is this kind of reading of the subversive ques-tioning of the world, loaded with huge satirical and absurd underpinnings, that we try to associate with the perception of the individual who, after all, feels like a stranger in the world he lives.