The story of my life

[circean0circle]

can be captured in these lines:

Les petits morts dans l’âme, c’était une nécessite, parce qu’il fallait déchirer les illusions avant que les événements s’en chargent. Quand est-ce qu’on en aurait fini de gâcher la vie pour sauver toujours un monde déchiré? (André Dhôtel, "La maîtrise des va-nu-pieds", Idylles, 1961

Comments

[relique]

.......... doesn't "les petits morts" have a double meaning most of the time????????

[circean0circle]

Yeah, Freud talked about "the little death" as a euphemism for orgasm. You raise an interesting point because the title of this collection of short stories, Idylles comes from the Greek idyllium, which means a tender and chaste amorous adventure. This would suggest that nothing sexual is implied by "les petits morts". But there are erotic moments within the story, for example when the boys (the "va-nu-pieds") notice Anne-Marie's "beautiful breasts in plain evidence" beneath her shirt, so I guess there's a tension between childhood naivete and adolescent sexual desire.

[nicoli_dominn]

I don't know if you're familiar with this, but what I've heard from several people who studied French is that the phrase "petit mort," which you translated to be 'little death,' is an idiom that stands for orgasm. Maybe they lied to me, and maybe not, but I figured I'd point it out just in case.

[pyralid]

That's wonderful.

[aerodrome1]

Brilliant quote.