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Chien de Printemps

Decent Essays

‘The narrator of Chien de printemps could not have chosen a more mysterious and elusive subject for his biographical project than Francis Jansen.’ Discuss. This novel opens up with the simple straightford lines « J’ai connu Francis Jansen quand j’avais dix-neuf ands, au printemps de 1964, et je veux dire aujourd’hui le peu de choses que je sais de lui. » the author’s intent is to put down in black and white all his memorys of jansen. He wants to catagorise, and organize his memories and by making them tangiable he feels that in doing this they will be reaffirmed. His time spent with jansen was so brief, yet significant and he wants to validate his memories to try and gain some closure from this elusive mentor figure that he had known …show more content…

Unfortunately both of these people died in circumstances unbeknownst to us and it is clear that jansen has never been the same since. In losing these people he lost what he cares about most in the world. Jansen slips into a form of depression and isolation which he describes as ‘trous noires.’ He loses interest in the world and doesn’t even like contact from other people- no phne calls, no answering the door. Jansen is a very private person and has few friends so it is no surprise then, that the author finds so it so difficult to get jansen to open up to him. Jansen is the polar opposite to ‘la lumiere natural qui baignait chacune de ses photos’ as he himself is shorouded in mystery. We can, however gain many clues into this ambiguous character through thorough examination of the text. Jansen’s atelier provides many clues about this character. His décor is minimalistic with only a few sofa’s and pictures in the room, whether this minimalism is by choice or by lack of money we are never told. He has no whiskey left to offer the author a drink which would suggest that he does not have much money, although later in the novel we learn that he frequently checks into a hotel for nights at a time which would cost a lot! This shows that once we think we are on track for discovering a bit about jansen and being able to pin him down in our minds, something else will be uncovered which will discredit our theory entirely. In

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