A Reason to Read: Jules et Jim

I just walked in the door from a long weekend down South for my cousin's wedding, and will have more to say later.  One of the first highlights of the trip was having a couple of hours of uninterrupted reading time on the plane. I blew right through Jules et Jim and loved every word, made even sweeter by Francois Truffaut's essay which follows, telling how he came across the novel, a few years after it came out, languishing in obscurity, and was so moved he made it into a New Wave classic. It's well worth seeking out (I found it at Idlewild Books), kind of a hard, dazzling gem about friendship, love and self-awareness, and I have two favorite passages that I copied down to share with you:

One day she wanted to buy six large live lobsters from the fisherman, to play with; a beautiful but expensive idea. Jim explained that their small budget wouldn't stand it. She accused him of being mean. She wasn't afraid of living simply but she was used to getting windfalls to spend on her fantasies. She backed horses by post, in Paris and London.

That's Odile. Later, there's Kate:

There was nothing you could put your finger on. You never knew what she was aiming for until she had got it.

This clip of Jeanne Moreau singing in the film version is dreamy: