Gary, Romain - G. MERMIER and F. COHEN

G. MERMIER and F. COHEN

Romain Gary's La bonne moitié is a dramatic comedy in two acts; it is a play of the absurd, subtle, tragic and amusing, very much in the vein of Emile Ajar's La vie devant soi, linguistically speaking. The author plays with his culture, with his language and with the syntax, and that precisely because he is in full possession of each.

This is a perfectly balanced work, light and serious, deep and absurd and written with remarkable finesse. Children of executed World War II French Résistance fighters are taken care of by Theo Vanderputte, himself a former member of the Résistance turned informer for the Gestapo. Is this turncoat a traitor or a martyr? How is this half-buffoon and half-tragic hero going to be judged by his peers? According to the number of Germans he killed or to the number of Résistance figures he betrayed? The four adolescent children, next to Theo's duplicity, represent, on the contrary, objectivity,...

[The entire page is 299 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the: