Novel
The Foundling Boy
Le Jeune Homme vert
Michel Déon · 1975
Synopsis
In 1919, in Normandy, a newborn is found at the door of the Arnauds, gardeners at the château of the du Courseau family. The couple, who have no child, raise this boy named Jean as their son, while the family at the château also plays a large part in his life. He grows up between the wars, is educated, travels to Paris, Rome, London and the South of France, through encounters that shape him, and he is approaching manhood when a new war looms.
Context
The novel appeared from Gallimard in 1975, and a sequel, which takes the hero into the war years, was given to it in 1977: the two volumes form a single whole, which the Académie française presents as one piece. It has been compared to Fielding's foundling novels and to Flaubert's Éducation sentimentale, and its English publisher classes it among the novels of apprenticeship. It was adapted for television in 1979, and was translated into English only nearly forty years after its publication.
Who it is for
A broad, lively novel of education, in the vein of foundling tales; it continues in a second volume.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English by Julian Evans, it was published in 2013 by Gallic Books under the title The Foundling Boy.
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