by 
Mackenzie Patel
That feeling, a fiery violet one full of exhilaration and passion and amazement, is such a sweet affair, especially when it pertains to a particular novel. After mowing through The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain in mere days, I turned to his earlier novel, The President’s Hat, a few months later. I finished this literary masterpiece last night, and I’m still in that beautiful existential state where my mind is trapped within the pages and I confuse the imaginary characters with a much duller reality. The President’s Hat, first published in France in 2012, is a Parisian fairytale exploding with dynamic characters, mysterious encounters, and sexy language. I tend to gush needlessly over novels I’ve just read, but I can truly proclaim this book is worth the accolades I will never cease to heap upon it. There’s gritty reality mixed with a whimsical tower of myth and life lessons that, while unrealistic, one desperately hopes are actually true.
The premise of this novel is as follows: Daniel Mercier, a humdrum Parisian accountant, randomly dines next to the President of the French Republic, Francois Mitterrand, at a ritzy brasserie one evening. Forgetting his Homburg felt hat, the President exits the restaurant without a backward glance at his precious headgear, leaving Daniel free to sneak the hat for himself. Soaked with the power of change, this unique hat intertwines itself in the affairs of several interesting characters, twisting their fate and spicing up their normal lives. The main theme within these pages is the addictive quality of change, and how one seemingly regular object kinks up your path of routine. If only I had a President’s Hat of my own! This cycle of monotony and dry writing spells imprisoning me would all but dissipate into the grainy felt of a Homburg from Macy’s or Harrods. Besides Monsieur Mercier, several other characters sinuously enter and exit this animated, multi-layered narrative of coincidence. Fanny Marquant, a young woman trapped in an unsatisfying love affair, eventually ditches her unfaithful lover after acquiring Mitterrand’s hat on the train. After her, the illustrious perfume maker Pierre Aslan shatters the Parisian haute society with an intoxicating fragrance based off the lingering scents in the hat. Finally, Bernard Lavalliere, a pretentious member of Paris’s high society, turns into a Basquiat-loving, Liberation reading socialist after mistakenly taking Mitterrand’s hat at a brasserie. With words more passionate and seductive than a Godiva chocolate, this novel was aching with a storyline devoid of imperfection, reality, and tedium. It was my escape from this life of final exams, selfish friends, angst-induced confusion, and dissatisfaction, at least for a few sweet days.
I find Antoine Laurain incredibly wise, and a few specific passages seemed to leap out of their paper-induced confinement and coalesce into a tangible reality in my life. Even in a translation from the original French, Laurain’s words have a transcendent quality about them, making them timeless, uplifting, thought-provoking, and most of all, beautifully relatable. For example, Fanny Marquant writes in a letter to the obstinate Mercier:
“It is in the nature of an affair not to last; its ephemeral quality is what makes it so attractive, and trying to keep it going often leads to nothing but disappointment and delusion.” (Page 106).
Although this passage was probably the gloomiest in the book, it bore a striking resemblance to another quote about fleeting relationships mentioned in The Red Notebook. Read my thoughts about that literary gem here. The other passage that punched my throat of emotion involved the musings of Lavalliere as he contemplated the socialist changes taking place in France. Walking away from the skeleton of the Louvre’s famed (and controversial) glass pyramid and clapping Mitterrand’s hat to his head, Lavalliere thought,
“It was as though he had travelled back in time, back to adolescence, when life stretches out before you and everything is still possible.” (Page 152).
I’m still struggling to discover exactly what “everything” is, and I have less than two years left before my hour glass of adolescence is out of sand and I stand with the legions of the old.
One of my favorite scenes in the novel is the wild mess of liberals, artists, and Andy Warhol fanatics that Bernard Lavalliere finds himself entangled in. So many notable names were tossed about that my respect for Antoine Laurain (and his knowledge of the arts!) increased tenfold. Moving among glasses of champagne and weirdly fascinating publicists, Lavalliere rashly bought three Basquiat canvases and became a socialist—how novel! Also, the fact that Laurain mentioned Machiavelli’s The Prince, one of my favorite short novels, was a strain of pure joy for me…
Besides being profounder than a Jedi master, this novel satisfied my ever increasing demand for travel-inspired stories. I should’ve been born in Europe, for I find that continent, its history, and its culture thousands of times more substantive than anything I could discover in the U.S. France in the 1980s, a period of liberal change with radicals who thought their ideas would rock the world, was fascinating—Laurain mentioned Walkmans, the advent of the TV, the Challenger exploding in 1986, and the famous political era ushered in by the stately Mitterrand. Daniel Mercier traveled to Venice, where images of the Doge’s Palace, the Bovolo, Piazza San Marco, and dreamy gondolas crowded my already teeming mind. And better yet, Mercier happened to “run into” Mitterrand in Venice again, transforming the end of the delightful story into a legendary impossibility.
Overall, The President’s Hat, is an excellent read and one that is so much deeper than anything Goodreads has suggested. (i.e. “A quick read – anyone looking for a wonderful way to waste your afternoon, this one’s a treat.”) For this novel is the opposite of a frilly “waste,” it’s a story so luxurious that it rolls off your tongue and lodges into your thoughts for a long while. It stirs something of the unknown inside of you and transforms the idea of “change” into an alluring creature. If only I could place such a powerful hat onto my petite head…