Discovering the meaning of life

Saying "Happy Days" will likely get people reminiscing about a TV show some twenty years removed. Even though re-runs ran when I was a munchkin (I remember that much), I never found the show interesting. Laurent Graff, author of 2004's "Happy Days," probably knows less than I do about the TV show. Mr. Graff is French, and his "Happy Days" refer to The Happy Days-A Private Retirement Home, not Fonzie and malt shops. The former strikes as more significant, though perhaps just a niche in the vast pop-culture landscape. "Happy Days" details the life of Antoine, a man preoccupied with his own mortality. At 18, Antoine, the narrator, takes readers along as he buys his grave plot in the cemetery and purchases his headstone. He works through a myriad of epitaphs, each of which he has inscribed on a plaque, each of which is discarded onto a growing stack of plaques in his closet. After trying his hand at the three things that most of us use to define the first half of our twenties: university, relationships and careers, Antoine decides to pull his inheritance and move himself into The Happy Days. In the first portion of the book, feelings and assessments of Antoine, conflict readers. He comes across as genuine, bizarrely nuts, morbidly obsessed, outrageously lazy, caring, indifferent and perfectly normal (finding his own way down the path to "purpose" that we all plow through, sometimes without ever reaching it). For example, Antoine leaves behind a wife and two children when he retreats into retirement. Readers abhor him for this abandonment-especially without any logical explanation. But then, Graff paints a visit between the former family, and readers wave off their previous judgments in favor of one that runs something like this. Both the family and Antoine are much better off anyway. More or less, that is exactly how it goes. You will grimace at Antoine's social butchery, yet then cheer his friendship and his compassion when he goes well out of his way to help a friend. Life in Happy Days runs a bit differently for Antoine than it does for other residents, "oldsters," as he calls them, but he fits right into the humming, clattering, where's-the-bathroom commotion. Everyone shares the understanding that Antoine is the gardener, agreeing that is the best way to avoid further unanswerable questions from outsiders. But Antoine joins in the activities with the oldsters, befriends them and appreciates their candid honesty. During his time, he poses bits of philosophy. Once, for example, he mentions how most people live life without providing a "satisfying or encouraging justification for having lived." Later, in a quick blurb, he tells us, "All my life, I've let myself die." Again, the conflict emerges. Is Antoine merely morbid or an advocate of living every moment to its fullest? I say the latter. The cover bit about "Happy Days" describes how Antoine's life changes after meeting Mireille, an oldster with terminal cancer, but I do not buy that explanation. Antoine is unique in his outlook, his life and his interaction with his friends both inside and outside Happy Days. "Days" is not overtly preaching, nor is it flashing neon alternative lifestyles in our heads. You take what you want from Antoine. He may or may not make you think about life, your life. Happy Days transforms by the end of the novel, and we imagine that Antoine has come closer to understanding his purpose in life: being a friend, gardener and resident of The Happy Days. The Fonze may forever be cool, but Antoine is happy. I would rather be happy than cool any day. Antoine's adventure in the 99 pages of "Happy Days" sells for $11.