Command Performance by Jean Echenoz trans. by Mark Polizzotti

Gerard Fulmard, is a former flight attendant who was fired after an unspecified incident on a Paris-Zurich flight that also left him blacklisted and required to attend twice weekly therapy sessions. He tries his hand at the private detective trade but reality doesn’t match the dream and disaster ensues.Then in a turn hopefully for the better, his therapist brings him into a minor French political party in crises, the IPF (Independent Popular Federation), as a special operative, with even worse results.

I enjoyed this book and found it delightful. Fulmard is not hero material— he’s rather selfish, self centered and delusional— but still engaging as a character and the internal squabbling within the IPF is fun to watch unfold.

I saw this book described as very French. Though I don’t know what this means, I might have an inkling based on its quirky style.

It’s easy to focus only on the style of the writing, which I loved, but it isn’t a case of form over substance. Rather the style pulls it all together. It has elements of satire and parody of the amateur PI, the roman policier (detective story), and politics which are playfully presented. The story switches between the 1st person narration of Fulmard and an omniscient observer commenting on and speculating about what’s happening when Fulmard isn’t around. Fulmard and the observer often branch off into digressions  such as Fulmard considering the options when only one sock has a hole in the toe; and the observer delivering mini biographies. All of this is done with a droll style that made me smile. The translator’s choice of words adds to the style and fun of reading. I have to believe that the use of uncommon words is deliberate and intended to add literary flourishes. For example:

"Franck Terrail’s mustache is not assertoric but apodictic:"

assertoric = something that can be proven as a fact

apodictic = beyond dispute

[About a character on the beach] “Her outfit is not particularly balneal”

balneal = of or relating to a bath or bathing

The author has a fun way of describing things like Fulard’s self-deprecating observation about himself, “I look like anyone else, only less so” and another character who “Stared at the bare walls as if they weren’t”. Clever, amusing, and you know what he is conveying.

Story and style are both great fun.