Los mandarines

After the war and the general shipwreck that it has meant, the Parisian psychoanalyst Anne Dubreuilh, now in her late thirties, tries to put her life back together. Her husband is a famous writer much older than her and Henri Perron, her closest friend, lives his creative fullness and his work is about to be unanimously acclaimed by the public. All of them have participated in the resistance during the occupation. Actually, the novel begins with a party at the apartment of Paule, Henri's wife, in December 44, when the war has not ended yet. We soon realize that what has begun as a celebration is but the threshold of a time of new tears and crises. Now that freedom is palpable, almost real, after a long period of asceticism it would seem natural that fear and misery give way to illusion and dreams and that long-postponed projects should be reborn with force. But nothing is going to be that easy and, secretly, a deep sadness is going to install itself in the lives of each of the protagonists, a symbol of the whole of French society.