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triumph: he will be a great man, admired and adulated, a great persuader, a great artist. They will go to France, a country she adorns with all virtues. During a brief period of prosperity, due to the success of a "Parisian haute couture" shop energetically run by his mother, he leads an extravagant lifestyle with a whole host of tutors. His mother pushes him, without success, into various artistic activities, and he does his best to discover his talents. He begins to write (or more precisely to look for pseudonyms evoking his future glory). He tells how he later become what his mother had predicted — a famous writer, a war hero while relating the penniless period that followed their arrival in Wilno. His mother, to his horror, would announce his ambitions to the neighbors, and was duly showered with jibes. The failure of the fashion house brings them back to hard times. They move to Warsaw, "temporarily", awaiting their move to what they consider their "real" country, France. A humiliation at school - he did not react whereas his mother was called "cocotte" - leads to the decision to move to
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first experiences as a man, making his mother proud. She at last finds stability by becoming manager of the Hotel-Pension
Mermonts. Life becomes happy. And yet, Romain is plagued by the worry that he will not succeed in time to offer his victory to his mother, when he learns that she has diabetes, a fact she had been hiding from him for two years. Old and sick, she continues to fight forcefully and to convey to her son her certainty of a bright future for him. He moves to
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In the second part, the narrator refers to his adolescence in Nice. Romain's mother, despite her energy in the face of adversity, is forced to ask for help - we imagine that she turns to the father of Romain. Romain devotes himself to writing, in order to attain the expected fame. He also makes his
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in 1945 in
England, which gets a favorable reception, and he is given the opportunity to enter the diplomatic service for "exceptional services". Returning to Nice at the end of the war, he discovers that his mother has died three and a half years earlier, having given a friend the task of sending
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The first part begins with the reveries of a mature Romain, remembering how, out of love for his mother, he had decided to stand against the stupidity and meanness of the world. It then relates his childhood years in the city of Wilno (now
Vilnius). Romain's mother instills in him his dreams of
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Romain Gary tells the story of his childhood and youth with his mother, a
Russian former actress carried by a love and unconditional faith in her son. The story, full of humor and tenderness, tells the story of her tireless battle against adversity, the extravagant energy she deploys so that he
174:. But he is not promoted, because he has only recently become a French citizen, and he invents a lie to avoid giving his mother too painful a disappointment. When the war breaks out, he goes as a simple corporal. He sees her again in 1940 on leave, and when he leaves her she is very unwell.
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The third part covers the war years, during which he receives from his mother countless letters of encouragement and exhortations to valor. Having joined the
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attain to a great destiny, and the efforts of Romain, who is willing to do all to make his life coincide "with the naive dream of the one he loves".
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her son hundreds of letters that she had written for him in the days preceding her death.
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Two films based on the novel, and sharing the same title, have been released:
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221:(New York opening: 25 Dec 1961).
662:French novels adapted into plays
617:French novels adapted into films
312:"Film Review: 'Promise at Dawn'"
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637:Novels set during World War II
612:French autobiographical novels
547:Your Ticket Is No Longer Valid
310:Lodge, Guy (16 October 2017).
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259:20th-century French literature
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278:Kanfer, Stefan (1971-02-08).
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491:The Man Who Understood Women
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31:First UK edition (publ.
647:Novels set in Lithuania
632:Novels set in the 1920s
464:Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!
179:Free French Air Forces
139:autobiographical novel
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607:Novels by Romain Gary
280:"Cinema: Smotherhood"
141:by the French writer
135:La promesse de l'aube
55:La promesse de l'aube
657:Novels set in France
652:Novels set in Warsaw
627:Michael Joseph books
292:on December 21, 2008
192:Éducation européenne
483:The Roots of Heaven
381:The Roots of Heaven
240:(2017) directed by
230:(1970) directed by
185:and officer of the
51:Original title
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642:Vilnius in fiction
602:1960 French novels
421:The Life Before Us
254:1960 in literature
81:Éditions Gallimard
64:John Markham Beach
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321:. Retrieved
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290:the original
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137:) is a 1960
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531:Madame Rosa
523:The Ski Bum
475:Adaptations
429:Hocus Bogus
405:The Ski Bum
366:Romain Gary
200:Adaptations
143:Romain Gary
45:Romain Gary
596:Categories
539:Womanlight
296:2012-01-01
265:References
219:First Love
61:Translator
579:White Dog
555:White Dog
413:White Dog
77:Publisher
323:23 March
248:See also
69:Language
389:Lady L.
317:Variety
149:Summary
582:(2022)
574:(2020)
566:(2017)
558:(1982)
550:(1981)
542:(1979)
534:(1977)
526:(1971)
518:(1970)
510:(1968)
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499:Lady L
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486:(1958)
467:(1971)
459:(1968)
440:(1977)
432:(1976)
424:(1975)
416:(1970)
408:(1965)
400:(1960)
392:(1958)
384:(1956)
373:Novels
234:, and
131:French
100:France
72:French
41:Author
448:Films
115:Pages
325:2023
285:Time
208:and
160:Nice
110:1961
92:1960
118:374
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358:e
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129:(
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