“Bristol”, by Jean Echenoz: lost parody – Libération

The novelist paints a detailed portrait of a third-rate filmmaker.

The fall of bodies is a consequence of the laws of attraction. It is also the center, of light gravity, in certain novels by Jean Echenoz, including this one, the sixteenth, titled Bristol : the more the bodies (and the illusions) fall, the more the sentences rise, like clouds of dust rising from the ruins that the fall has caused, to end in mirages. Bristol, first name Robert, is a third-rate filmmaker. He is preparing the shooting of an adventure film in southern Africa, Gold in the blood. He goes to see his producer who is looking for money. As he leaves his house, this scene from a movie: a man falls from the fifth floor of his building. “Corpulent, milky skin spotted with red, thinning strawberry blonde hair, the man on the ground lies face down with his arms and legs crossed. It looks like, stranded at low tide, a large, old fish with four limbs suggesting the points of the compass.” Who is it ? Did they kill him, did he kill himself? We won't learn it until the end of the book, and it's unimportant.

Residents crowd around the stranded human beast. Other beasts appear later, metaphorical or not, a disciplined elephant on film, a giant turtle in a dream, illuminations described with the care of a medieval monk. Fairground creatures evolving in cardboard decorations well-made enough so that the artifice does not make one miss the reality. Bristol may be a filmmaker, but he hasn't seen anything. A man is