David Foenkinos has returned, and he has done so with prose as delicate as it is incisive. The author of “Delicacy” presents us with “The Happy Life” (Alfaguara), his latest novel, a reflection on the pursuit of happiness and the traps of everyday life.
Taking advantage of his visit to Spain, we spoke with him about the themes he explores in this new work, his creative process, and his vision of the world.
We live in a time where being happy seems almost like an obligation, something imposed on us by social media and the media. But, at the same time, happiness is a very fragile, fleeting concept. Did The Happy Life arise from this contradiction?
It’s a very interesting perspective. We spread our happiness on social media. I myself just joined Instagram (finally), and yes, I’m supposed to talk about my happiness. Lives are compared to each other more than ever, and this creates a competition for fulfillment. And yes, it’s all appearance.
Depression is on the rise. The truth is, when we ask ourselves what happiness is, its absence becomes evident. A century ago, we didn’t question whether we were happy or not.
“Lives are compared to each other more than ever, and this creates a competition for fulfillment.”D. Foenkinos
When did you decide to write this novel? What point in your life were you at?
I decided to write this book when I discovered that ritual trending in South Korea, which consists of celebrating our fake funeral as a kind of rebirth therapy. The images are fascinating. All these desperate people getting into their coffins with the hope of finding meaning in life.
Inevitably, it spoke to me: I had a near-death experience when I was 16, which changed my relationship with life.
In your new novel, you delve into this idea of “stopping being ourselves” and starting a second life…
Yes, “The Happy Life” is a book about a second life, about rebirth.
As a novelist, I feel like I live again with each book. I’m constantly betraying myself. I already have many lives.
“As a novelist, I feel like I live again with each book.”D. Foenkinos
If it were possible to live different lives as if they were different rounds in a video game, what would you like to be, or how would you live those lives?
I’m going to be a paddle tennis player! Seriously though, that would be my dream. I’m exhausted by always having to choose, between love lives, professional offers, pizza or pasta at restaurants. I would choose everything. I’d live in Madrid, Berlin, and Paris at the same time.
When you were 16, you had a near-death experience, something that inevitably changed your life. What did you learn from that traumatic episode?
The experience of death turned me into a sensitive person.
Books, paintings, movies—all of it became more powerful and more beautiful.
Nostalgia and small everyday details play an important role in your writing. What draws you to these aspects?
I have to admit that I’m really the prototype of the happy nostalgic.
Evoking certain nostalgic memories makes me happy.
In your books, you’ve tackled profound themes such as grief, illness, and depression, and your characters are always very human, often riddled with doubts and contradictions. How much of this novel is autobiographical?
Apart from the death experience, there’s very little autobiography in this novel. I write books to escape and forget myself, yet it seems like I’m everywhere between the commas.
“The experience of death turned me into a sensitive person.”D. Foenkinos
Some of your books have been adapted into films. Would you like that to happen with The Happy Life?
No, I don’t want all my books to become movies. Unless Almodóvar calls.
Finally, what are you working on now? Do you have any projects in mind?
I have many projects: a series in the United States, a play in London, a new novel in France, and plans to return to Spain to eat croquettes.
In short, and as you will see when you read this exquisite novel, David Foenkinos, with his characteristic delicate, ironic, and deeply human style, invites us to reflect on the small and big decisions that shape our lives, always teetering between the absurd and the sublime. Through characters caught between their desires and realities, he reminds us that happiness, rather than a permanent state, is a fragile, fleeting, and precious construction, one that requires us to question it depending on the phase of life we are in.
Highly recommended.
(*) Photographs: Anagrama.
