Les amitiés particulières
Les amitiés particulières is a 1943 novel by French writer Roger Peyrefitte, probably his best known work today, which won the coveted prix Renaudot. Largely autobiographical, it deals with a homoerotic relationship between two boys at a Roman Catholic boarding school and how it is destroyed by a priest's feelings for the younger boy.
The book was translated into English by Edward Hyams and published in 1958 under the title Secret Friendships in the United States and Special Friendships in the United Kingdom. As of 2005, it is out of print.
Plot
The plot revolves around Georges de Sarre, a fourteen-year-old boy who is sent to a Catholic boarding school in 1920s France. Getting to know the other boys, he is immediately sexually interested in Lucien Rouvière, of whom he is warned by the unsympathetic Marc de Blajan, who cryptically informs him that some of the students "may seem good but are in fact not". Georges is dismayed when he learns that Lucien already has a boyfriend, André Ferron. He befriends Lucien, but filled with envy tries to destroy their relationship, eventually succeeding in getting André expelled in a truly Machiavellian scheme.
When his advances towards Lucien remain fruitless, Georges starts a "special friendship", i.e. a friendship with homosexual overtones, with a twelve-year-old student, the beautiful Alexandre (Alexander) Motier. The priests which lead the school disapprove of their relationship, even though it does not go beyond a few kisses and love poems. Peyrefitte leaves it to the imagination whether the two eventually would have had sex later or not, but at any rate the outcome is tragic for the two boys. For despite their air of condemnation for pederasty, some of the priests harbor the same homoerotic feelings for the boys.
One of them, Father de Trennes, likes to invite boys to join him in his room at night for a few drinks and cigarettes (and supposedly other things). Georges continues his scheming ways (which probably will serve him well in his later life as a diplomat) and gets Father de Trennes expelled by an anonymous letter. However, Father Lauzon, who is secretly also in love with Alexander, learns about their relationship and demands that it be ended immediately.
Lauzon talks Georges into sending back the love letters from Alexander, which at the time the novel is set meant that a relationship was over. Unfortunately, Alexander cannot see that Georges was forced to do this and that his feelings for him are actually unchanged—and commits suicide. When Father Lauzon expresses his condolences to George, he admits the true nature of his feelings for Alexander.
The work has been praised for its elegant style, and the discretion with which the subject is treated. One example is the question which Alexander poses to Georges: "Georges, do you know the things one should not know?"
1964 movie adaptation
In 1964, the novel was made into a movie of the same title by director Jean Delannoy starring Francis Lacombrade as Georges and Didier Haudepin as Alexandre as well as Michel Bouquet as Père de Trennes. The film was produced by Christine Gouze-Rénal, whose sister Danielle was the wife of future French president François Mitterrand. The filming location for the movie was the 13th-century Royaumont Abbey, some 50 km north of Paris.
The movie is mostly true to the novel, changing only relatively minor plot points such as Alexandre's suicide from poisoning to death by throwing himself from a train. Also, Alexandre in the movie is brown-haired, not blond, which also removes some of the inside jokes between Alexandre and Georges which are present in the book.
On the set of the film, Peyrefitte met the 14-year-old aristocrat Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villele who had been cast as a choir boy and was a big fan of the book. Not only did Peyrefitte sign Alain-Philippe's copy of the book but the two also fell in love, pursuing a stormy relationship that Peyreffite chronicled in some of his later novels such as Notre Amour (1967) and L'Enfant de cœur (1978).
Alain-Philippe Malagnac was later married to Amanda Lear and died in a house fire in 2000 at the age of fifty one, shortly after Peyrefitte's death. It is unknown whether this was a suicide, even though Peyrefitte in his novels describes a "suicide pact" between the two, i.e. their intention to commit suicide if the other one dies.
Relationship to Peyrefitte's biography and other similar works
The plot is understood to be largely autobiographical, with de Sarre being Peyrefitte's alter ego in the book. As in the book, Peyrefitte had a relationship with a younger student at a Catholic boarding school and as in the book, his love interest eventually committed suicide.
The reader can follow George de Sarre's later life as a diplomat in Greece in Peyrefitte's Les Ambassades and La Fin des ambassades, where he also meets Father de Trennes again. Again, this parallels Peyrefitte's life as a diplomat in the 1930s/1940s.
Peyrefitte was on (mostly) friendly terms with Henry de Montherlant, who in his later years wrote a novel (Les garçons, 1969) about a similar relationship. There exists substantial correspondence between the two on, among other things, pederasty.
Detailed bibliography
- Les amitiés particulières : roman / Roger Peyrefitte. – Marseille : Jean Vigneau, 1943 (Toulouse : Impr. régionale). – 382 p. ; 24 × 19 cm. [Limited edition, 1.999 ex.]
- Les amitiés particulières : roman / Roger Peyrefitte. – [85e édition]. – Paris : Jean Vigneau, 1946 (Mayenne : impr. de Floch). – 444 p. ; 18 × 12 cm.
- Les amitiés particulières : roman / Roger Peyrefitte ; avec, en frontispices, 2 lithographies originales de Valentine Hugo…. – [Paris] : J. Vigneau, 1946 (impr. de J. Dumoulin). – 2 vol., pl. ; 28 × 19 cm.
- Le amicizie particolari / Roger Peyrefitte ; trad. G. Natoli. – Torino : Einaudi, 1949. – 388 p.
- Special friendships / Roger Peyrefitte ; transl. from the French by Felix Giovanelli. – New York : Vanguard Press, 1950. – 392 p.
- Les amitiés particulières : roman / Roger Peyrefitte. – Paris : Flammarion, 1951 (Lagny : impr. de Emmanuel Grevin et fils). – 444 p. ; 19 × 12 cm. [New edition in 1964]
- Les amitiés particulières : roman / Roger Peyrefitte ; lithographies de [Gaston] Goor. – [Paris] : Flammarion, 1953 (J. Dumoulin ; Marcel Manequin, 10 mai 1953). – 2 vol., [4]-180 p.-12 pl., [4]-180 p.-12 pl. : 24 lithographies ; 29 × 20 cm. [Limited edition, 740 ex.]
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte ; [dessins de Englebert]. – Paris : Club des éditeurs, 1956 (Paris : Club des éditeurs, 20 juin 1956). – 352 p. : ill., portrait, cart. ill. ; 20 × 14 cm (rel.). – (Club des éditeurs ; 6). [Limited edition, 7.176 ex.]
- Special friendships : a novel / by Roger Peyrefitte ; transl. from the French by Edward Hyams. – London : Secker & Warburg, 1958 (Bristol : Western Printing Services Ltd). – 352 p ; 20 × 14 cm (hb).
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte ; [illustration de G. Benvenuti]. – Paris : Éditions J'ai lu, 1958 (impr. d'E. Pigelet). – 448 p. : couv. en coul. avec notice et portrait ; 16 cm. – (J'ai lu ; 17-18). [New editions in 1964, 1968, 1973, 1999 (ISBN 2-27711017-5)]
- Special friendships : a novel / by Roger Peyrefitte ; transl. from the French by Edward Hyams. – Panther, 1964 (December 1964). – 256 p. ; (pb). – ISBN 0-58601663-5
- Verholen vriendschap / Roger Peyrefitte. – Utrecht : Bruna, 1966. – 372 p.
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte ; [frontispice de Daniel Briffaud]. – [Levallois-Perret] : Cercle du bibliophile, [1968]. – 399 p. : portrait, cart. ill. ; 20 cm. – (Le Club des grands prix littéraires).
- Les amitiés particulières : roman : édition définitive / Roger Peyrefitte. – Paris : Librairie Générale Française, 1973 (73-La Flèche : impr. Brodard et Taupin). – 448 p. : couv. ill. en coul. ; 17 cm. – (Le Livre de poche ; 3726). [New editions in 1975 (ISBN 2-253-00446-4), 1978 (ISBN 2-253-00446-4)]
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte. – Genève : Édito-service ; [Évreux] : [diffusion le Cercle du bibliophile], [1973] (impr. en Suisse). – 397 p. : portr. ; 21 cm (rel.). – (Le Club des grands prix littéraires).
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte. – Neuilly-sur-Seine : Éd de Saint-Clair ; [Paris] : diffusion F. Beauval, 1975 (impr. en Suisse). – 352 p.-[6] f. de pl. : ill. ; 18 × 12 cm (rel.). – (Collection des grands romans contemporains).
- Les amitiés particulières : roman / Roger Peyrefitte. – [Montrouge] : [le Livre de Paris], 1975 (80-Doullens : impr. Sévin). – 442 p. ; 19 cm (rel.). – (Club pour vous Hachette). – ISBN 2-245-00320-9
- Le amicizie particolari / Roger Peyrefitte ; trad. G. Natoli. – Torino : Einaudi, 1979. – 346 p. – (Nuovi Coralli). – ISBN 8806491970
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte. – Paris : Flammarion, 1986. – 442 p.
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte. – Paris : Flammarion, 1992 (8 janvier 1992). – ISBN 2-08-060173-3
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte. – Paris : Flammarion, 1992. – 128 p. – ISBN 2-08-064968-X
- Las amistades particulares / Roger Peyrefitte. – [Barcelona] : Ed. Egales [=Editorial Gai y Lesbiana] ; Otras Voces, 2000. – 398 p. ; 22 × 14 cm. – ISBN 84-95346-09-5
- Secret friendships / by Roger Peyrefitte ; drawings by Hugo Haig-Thomas. – Clarence (New York) : West-Art Publishers, 2000. – 264 p. : ill. – ISBN 0-914301-23-3
- Heimliche Freundschaften : [Roman] / Roger Peyrefitte ; aus dem Franz. von Günther Vulpius. – Berlin : Bruno Gmünder Verl., 2004. – 318 S. ; 18 cm. – (Bruno-Gmünder-Taschenbuch ; 37). – ISBN 3-86187-837-2
- Les amitiés particulières / Roger Peyrefitte. – Paris : Flammarion, 2004 (août 2004). – ISBN 2-08-060172-5
- Les amitiés particulières : roman / Roger Peyrefitte. – Paris : Éd. TG [= Éd. Textes gais] (Paris : Impr. Trèfle communication, 2005). –390 p. : ill., couv. et jaquette ill. en coul. ; 21 cm (br.). – ISBN 2-914679-16-5
See also
- Pederasty
- Pedophilia
- Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in fiction
- Pedophilia and child sexual abuse in films
- Child sexual abuse