tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8955844379699946887.post2222904687387140544..comments2024-03-13T16:33:53.563+00:00Comments on <b>Dr Tony Shaw</b><br>: Jean Echenoz: Lac | Chopin's Move (1989)Dr Tony Shawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565448709541046337noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8955844379699946887.post-84707268791319035612018-12-20T13:48:13.466+00:002018-12-20T13:48:13.466+00:00Yigri, thank you for these remarks, which are very...<b>Yigri, thank you for these remarks, which are very much appreciated.</b>Dr Tony Shawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07565448709541046337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8955844379699946887.post-35994235069125488572018-12-17T14:21:21.931+00:002018-12-17T14:21:21.931+00:00Greetings from Romania,
I just discovered this bl...Greetings from Romania,<br /><br />I just discovered this blog* through searching on Google more about the reception of this novel by Echenoz, after reading it...<br /><br />In your place, I would have focused in this review on how not just the obsessive details and digressions subvert spy fiction expectations, but also the focus on atmosphere (with the narrator overtly exaggerating the artificiality, through the overuse of the word "synthetic", and the meaninglessness of everything here) and low-key psychology: not so much the few and momentary melodramatic feelings of F. Chopin (his dialogues and actions betray him more than enough) but rather how the entire cast seems to be preoccupied to little degree beyond what they're scripted to do. Of course, my distinction here becomes moot by the end of the book, when Chopin stops paying attention to how the operation unraveled and, with him (convinced that he did not really matter in something that even more certainly matters less), the narrator also stops giving us information in that direction.<br /><br />The book was recommended to me as being as anti- as it can get, so I was a little disappointed, so to say, that the book retains a small dose of suspense, the narrator does not destroy or skip over all the "fun" parts, that in the end it has been actually rather entertaining and very humorous. I'm sure that, if any strictly-genre reader stumbled upon "Lac", they certainly would have put it down early on, and even those who managed to skip all the "boring" descriptions (which is a big part of the fun for those of us initiated readers, familiar with the Minuit tradition) must have been frustrated, but the book in general and the chapters in particular are quite short. So it is kind of a compromise and a distraction, but an interesting one in its depressive French pomo way. These are "my two cents", anyway.<br /><br />*I am going to read now more of your blog, but I can already I am going to enjoy it and it is a pleasure for me to see you dedicate your time to quite a lot of contemporary French literature, which at least in my country (Romania) it is often seen as utterly uninteresting, the likes of Bruckner or Houellebecq (utterly obnoxious for me) being the only exceptions usually invoked. Even so, I wouldn't say writers who are respected in French literary circles could be called "obscure", let alone "outsiders", as your blog subtitle claims... but "overlooked" outside France quite definitely! And someone blogging in English about these books - in 2018! - is definitely worthy of my humble respect.<br /><br />Regards,<br />Yigru Zeltil<br />(obscure poet from Romania... just proving, once again, that most people who care about this kind of literature ought to be writers themselves...)Yigru Zeltilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04694622896985297352noreply@blogger.com