Pascal Quignard is a brilliant French prose writer, essayist, translator, laureate of the Prix Goncourt. For the first time in Russian, Quignard’s novel “Carus, or He Who is Dear to His Friends,” received the French Criticism Prize. The novel takes place in the 70s of the last century. The hero of the novel is musician A., suffering from severe depression. But his wife and five friends - an old collector and second-hand book dealer, a dealer in Chinese rarities, a teacher-philologist, a woman music critic, a grammarian and an ardent defender of the purity of language - touchingly take care of him, trying to restore A. to his former energy and joy of life. We learn about all the events from the diary that one of the characters keeps almost every day for a year. And little by little, his chronicle imperceptibly introduces the reader to this close circle of scholars, to their joint music playing, interesting discussions, quarrels and reconciliations, so that he begins to feel like he belongs in their society. And together with them he learns love, compassion and friendship.