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L'Enquête (2010)

by Philippe Claudel(Favorite Author)

3.22 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

2234065151 (ISBN13: 9782234065154)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Stock

review 1: The society described is not real nor realistic as to the concept of a city, the concept of a company. On the level of situations and on that of the people’s behavior it’s the same: not as we know it. Or: not as we like to know it, acknowledge it. There’s a whole other set of rules of people interacting. A strong aspect of the novel, I think, is in the shifting perspective: finding recognizable conversations with logic statements and conclusions as a normal situation, turning around into finding ‘normal’ conversations the exception. The stranger the situation the protagonist is placed in, the more the reader understands that this represents the norm of that society.At some point the Investigator says that it is a parody. Indeed, that term comes closer to my opini... moreon than the term allegory. But the essential values of that society, those have not come clear to me. Maybe the essence is a certain lack of values. People like the Giantess do try to let people think there are values, e.g. the hotel rules. It can be seen as a totally superficial society; I’m just guessing. You might think of it as a cruel society, but what goes for the Investigator, does not go (in so far as you get an insight) for the inhabitants of the apparently surreal society.The fact that the main characters are apparent by their function, is another significant omen. As if on the one hand one exactly knows which role that person plays in the plot, and on the other hand those are abstractions, representing functions in that context which are not necessarily similar to those in the world we know by that name. So existentialism is all around us. But the shifting of perspective doesn’t end. Reality is dreamlike, harsh as a nightmare. All the more it’s surrealism that takes over, it seems. It seems. So the book seems to have a message. Grab its richness before it volatilizes. JM
review 2: The Investigator arrives on a train and finds that there is no taxi waiting for him. He has come to conduct an Investigation at The Enterprise. He starts walking blindly, sure that he will find his way. He asks for directions. Pretty much everything belongs to The Enterprise, he is told. Any road will lead him there, one way or another. It starts to snow.His suitcase breaks. His socks, toothpaste, and polyester pants spill into the wet streets. He blunders on and finds The Guardhouse. The Guard refuses him entry — it’s too late to come in to The Enterprise today. Come back tomorrow. Can he recommend a hotel? “We’re not the Tourist Office.”The Investigator is a specific man, specifically described; he is small, round, middle-aged, balding. But he has no name. He has only a role. And so it is with each character in this book: The Waiter, The Policeman, The Founder, The Guard. Occasionally an individual will switch roles. No man is without one.The Investigator’s journey is a wandering one through an exaggerated dream of modern life. The bed in his hotel stands alone in the middle of the floor, the only furniture in a room that measures twenty feet by thirty feet. The attached bathroom is a closet; so small he dares not close the door. He goes to breakfast the next morning. The dining room is full of table after table of Tourists eating cheese omelets, smoked fish, fruit-studded soft rolls, and pineapple juice. The Investigator requests toast and orange juice. The Server says no. He gets bitter coffee and two rusks. The Investigator accidentally breaks a towel dispenser. The Policeman questions him, demanding he reenact the ‘crime’ again and again.The Reviewer arrives on page one and finds there is no plot waiting for her. She has come to construct a Review of The Book. She starts reading blindly, sure that she will find her way. Each distorted incident, each twisted setting, presents a jaded, Kafka-esque take on the hollow modern world. The Investigation, somehow, does not get off the ground. The Investigation, improbably, does. less

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