With perfect urbanity, Jean Echenoz valiantly endures the ordeal of the interview, which we guess is not his favorite stage when a book is published. A mixture of goodwill and slight embarrassment reigns on either side of the coffee table in his living room. In the forty-six years that he has been publishing, the writer has not completely gotten rid of the shyness revealed by his worried smiles and the slight tremor of his voice, whose delivery is a little reminiscent, at times, of that by Patrick Modiano.
Above all, anyone who has read it knows his taste for ellipses as well as his aversion to gravity and imagines how absurd he must find the activity consisting of having him comment on his work. A bit as if we were summoning this esthete of irony, lightness and detachment to explain with compunction the sources of his humorous traits. He goes to such lengths to refuse the spirit of seriousness. Why want to force him to overwhelm his texts with unequivocal explanations and solemn glosses?
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France
Lifestyle
