Echenoz is a big cheese in French lit, and having kind of enjoyed his 1983 Prix Médicis-winning book Cherokee, I thought I'd check out this 1987 novel of his. The thing I didn't like about Cherokee was its huge cast of characters, and again, there are a lot of people to keep track of and quite a lot happens, but none of it seems to be of any consequence. Kind of a style over substance problem. The plot can barely be summarized, but basically it revolves around gunrunning. Parisians Paul and Bob sell guns illegally and are interested in Justine. Jeff (aka Jean-Francois, AKA Pons, AKA Duke) and Charles need guns to stir up a little trouble in Malaysia so that Jeff can be a plantation manager/feudal lord without any interference from the pesky owners. They both used to be interested in Justine's mother, Nicole, and Charles is also Paul's uncle. Finally, there are some Belgian gangsters, Plankaert, Toon, and Van Os, who are mad that Paul and Bob won't sell them guns and thus kidnap Justine. (If you intend to read the book, do yourself a favor and print this out, 'cause trying to keep it straight as you're reading ain't easy.)

What sounds simple and straightforward above, really isn't in Echenoz's fractured style. He playfully hops, skips, and jumps, all over the place, and while it's not an experimental work, it's a far cry from traditional narrative structure. It's more about the rhythm of the story and the irony and comedy derived from his telling a series of melodramatic events in a exceedingly deadpan way. There's the kidnapping or two, a mutiny, bank robbery, worker uprising, lost loves, unrequited longing, long-lost relations, and all manner of melodrama. Some scenes are quite wonderful and witty, however, the story is never really taken seriously by the author, and thus the book is kind of a big piece of steaming irony. (It's not without reason that there's an academic work in French titled, "Irony in the Works of Echenoz"). It gets pretty tiresome after the first quarter of the book, and I don't think I'll be bothering to seek out any more of his stuff, although the Prix Goncourt-winning I'm Gone is supposed to be quite good.