Not content to have been France’s most popular author in the past, Romain Gary resolved to restore his flagging reputation, regain critical acclaim and win for a second time the Prix Goncourt which is only supposed to be awarded once to the same person, by resorting to the ruse of writing under a pseudonym, as Émile Ajar. The publisher Gallimard was prepared to go along with this, and no one else seemed to notice that “Gary” sounds like “burn” and “Ajar” like “embers” in Russian.

Ajar’s first novel, published in 1974” was “Gros Câlin”, or “Big Hug”, the quirky tale of “M. Cousin”, a lonely, Parisian statistician, who purchases a pet python, which will give him the physical contact he craves, and bring him into contact with people drawn by curiosity. Feeding Gros Câlin soon becomes a problem, since his diet of living mice distresses Cousin, particularly as regards a pretty white mouse which he names “Blondine” and resorts to keeping in a box on a shelf out of the python’s reach. When he confides in a priest, he receives the cynical advice to buy a lot of mice to make them seem anonymous and easier to kill, rather like fighter pilots in the war, who found it less disturbing to bomb from a great height people they didn’t know.

This satirical humour may not prove enough of a distraction from the essential poignancy of Cousin’s chronic inability to relate to others, and to read social situations correctly. In the Metro, he chooses to sit right next to the only other occupant of the carriage, with no concept of behaving oddly and invading a stranger’s personal space. At work, he is convinced that Mlle Dreyfus, a work colleague, is in love with him simply because she greets him regularly in the lift, and imagines that they will soon get married.

This novel proved so successful that Gary had to persuade his cousin Paul Pavlowitch to impersonate him in interviews. However, perhaps because I read this in French, I could not fully appreciate all the literary allusions, puns and misuse of words which French readers apparently find so clever and entertaining.

Lacking much of a plot, the narrative soon began to feel repetitive and tedious, particularly as regards Cousin’s visits to prostitutes, which are described in sordid detail, suggesting Gary’s bias toward defending this way of life. The descriptions of Mlle Dreyfus, who comes from Guyana, struck me as being, if unintentionally, somewhat racist.

Towards the end, the novel becomes somewhat surreal, with Cousin appearing to have been driven mad, which like “But it was all a dream” may seem like a cop-out. There are a few interesting observations, like the fact that it might be useful if, like a python, a human being could simply shed his skin periodically to achieve a kind of “rebirth” – also a metaphor for Gary achieving renewed success by writing under an assumed name.

Describing Cousin’s sense of isolation may have been an outlet for Gary’s own state of mind, for only a few years later in 1980, the author shot himself – having left a note for his lawyer to reveal the true identity of Ajar.