Enough About Love

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THAT YEAR THE PLANET EXPERIENCED its hottest autumn for five centuries. But the climate’s providential clemency, which may have played its part, will not be mentioned again.

This tale covers a period of three months, and perhaps a little more. Any man — or woman — who wants to hear nothing — or no more — about love should put this book down.

 • •

TOWNS SHOULD BE GIVEN LARGE PARKS. Parks are a condition necessary for young people’s lives to change course, to set off on a different tack, down an unforeseen fork. For them to realize part of their potential. It is into just such a park, the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, that a young man walks one February morning in 1974. He has long hair and is wearing a woolen scarf, his name is Thomas, Thomas Le Gall.

Thomas is a good student. He is just sixteen and is already in his first year of an advanced math class: he has to satisfy his mother’s ambitions for him, and get into one of the elite universities, ideally the highly competitive Polytechnique. But on this February morning, Thomas left home — he lives in Barbès in the Eighteenth Arrondissement — and took the Métro, and did not get off at the station where his school is. He stayed on Line 4 all the way to Saint-Michel, then walked up the boulevard to the park. He walks toward the large pond, passes statues of the queens of France, and sits on a metal chair. He has prepared for this getaway: he has several books in his bag. It is not all that cold.

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