Freshness even after 15 novels
A shy provincial in Paris, taking refuge in odd jobs and cinemas, he had modestly attempted to construct suspense novels. Meridian of Greenwich (1979) then Cherokee seduced Jérôme Lindon, promoter of the new novel, as much as Jean-Patrick Manchette, king of neo-crime. It was the beginning of a line of thrilling novels. Adventure, travel, espionage, love, action, he had fun with genre codes. We could see a connection with the book which decided his vocation: Les gummes (1953) by Alain Robbe-Grillet, an example of literature under the guise of a thriller (for its film adaptation, we chose Claude Title who also played Bob Morane , that is to say). In any case, fifteen novels later and at 77 years old, Echenoz is still going off-piste.
A “big” different from the “big”
This time, Robert Bristol is so preoccupied with the production of his film that he ignores the naked body of a man who fell from his building. Suicide or murder? Against a shoot in southern Africa, a young actress is imposed on him, who will disappear. He leads a furious elephant there, but is overwhelmed by the native militiamen. Back in Paris, his neighbor, a beauty soon to fade, but already unemployed on screen although vegetarian, draws the attention of the police to our director. At the same time… We shouldn’t say too much because Echenoz’s devious imagination is one of his strengths. Let us add a willingness to pepper his rhythmic text with a few scholarly words and, as an antidote, with popular remarks. And we end up admiring this ability to take the reader along with him, as if we were improvising together the twists and turns of a scenario playing with the rules, starting with those of realism. Between 2006 and 2012, Echenoz published Ravel, Courir, Des éclairs, 14, four quasi-historical books. He who distrusted the label “writer” as a shameful illness seemed to have fallen into line. This was before Special Envoy (2016) and his newfound virtuoso freedoms. Bristol is the pinnacle of its own art. Echenoz does not resemble the great writers, but he is one.
Bristol ★★★★
Jean Echenoz, Éditions de Minuit, 208 p.
