Aurélien by Louis Aragon. Short summary

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«Aurelien» is a controversial novel that shows the moral excesses and aesthetic amusements of the young bourgeois Aurelien, who personifies the famous evil of the century that the writer knew in his youth.

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The protagonist falls into the «love trap» into which his surroundings push him, and he allows himself to fall in love with Berenice, a young provincial girl with a taste for perfection. Aragon sees his two characters trying to get rid of their shyness and clinging to the idea of love, which proves impossible.

The idea of love collapses on contact with reality, and soon Berenice returns to her provincial life, while Aurélien finally settles into his bourgeois life, which he finds mediocre. The couple could not unite even 18 years later, after the end of World War II. The long separation between Aurelien and Berenice creates a chasm, and it confirms what both foresaw: their love would be but an illusion.

This love is at the center of two paths: that of Aurélien, a bourgeois broken by war who did not know how to exist, and that of Berenice, who is very much a modern independent woman.