Echenoz, Jean 1947–

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Echenoz, Jean 1947–

PERSONAL: Born December 26, 1947, in Orange, France; son of Marc (a psychiatrist) and Annie (an engraver; maiden name, Languin) Echenoz; children: Jerome Arthur. Education: Attended Universite d'Aix en Provence and Universite de Paris (Sorbonne).

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Editions de Minuit, 7 rue Bernard-Palissy, Paris 75006, France.

CAREER: Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Prix Feneon, 1980, for Le meridien de Greenwich; Prix Georges Sadoul, 1980, for Le rose et le blanc; Prix Medicis, 1983, for Cherokee; European Literature Prize for Lac; Goncourt Prize, 1999, for Je m'en vais.

WRITINGS:

Jérôme Lindon (nonfiction), Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 2001.

NOVELS

Le meridien de Greenwich (title means "The Greenwich Meridian"), Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1979.

Cherokee, Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1983, translation by Mark Polizzotti, Godine (Boston, MA), 1987.

Equipee malaise (title mean "The Arduous Escape"), Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1986, translation by Mark Polizzotti published as Double Jeopardy, Godine (Boston, MA), 1993.

Lac (title means "Lake"), Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1989, translation by Mark Polizzotti published as Lac: A Novel, Godine (Boston, MA), 1995.

Nous trois (title means "We Three"), Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1992.

Les grandes blondes (title means "The Big Blondes"), Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1995, translation by Mark Polizzotti published as Big Blondes, New Press (New York NY), 1997.

Un an (title means "One Year"), Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1997.

Je m'en vais (title means "I'm Off"), Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1999, translation by Mark Polizzotti published as I'm Gone, New Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Au piano, Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 2003, translation by Mark Polizzotti published as Piano, New Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Chopin's Move, translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti, Dalkey Archive Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Also author of the screenplay Le rose et le blanc; work represented in anthologies, including S., Editions de Minuit (Paris, France), 1991; translator, with others, of a translation of the Bible, Bayard, 2001; contributor of articles to newspapers and periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS: Jean Echenoz was an "acclaimed and cultishly successful author" prior to the publication of his novel Je m'en vais, explained Alan Jenkins in the Times Literary Supplement. "That Echenoz was overdue for general recognition, few would have questioned." That recognition and acclaim came soon after Je m'en vais was awarded the Goncourt Prize in 1999.

Echenoz's novels Cherokee and Double Jeopardy, both translated into English, are composed as if they were detective stories, yet Echenoz does not follow the rules of the detective genre. Instead, he takes apart its conventions—the seedy atmosphere, the stock characters, the twisting plot—and reassembles them.

Cherokee follows the story of George Chave, a jazz enthusiast who goes to work as a Parisian detective. The title of the novel refers to a jazz recording of the same name. As Chave solves one job after another by seeming chance, he is drawn to the main mystery—a lost inheritance. Cherokee "is, like so much contemporary writing, more about its genre than of it," asserted Celia McGee in the New York Times Book Review. The critic further declared that in "describing a post literate world [Echenoz] never gives up his command of language (and the translator, Mark Polizzotti, has stood him in good stead)." Sarah Gold, writing in Washington Post Book World, however, noted that the novel "seems rather slight in the end, a clever, controlled exercise in style." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly concluded by labeling Cherokee a "compelling motion picture in prose."

Double Jeopardy also echoes the detective genre. Called a "fast-moving tale" by Peggie Partello in the Library Journal, Double Jeopardy involves love, munitions, and Paris. Jean-Francois, also known as Jeff, manages a rubber plantation in Malaysia where a labor dispute has broken out. He has come to Paris in search of weapons. Once back in Paris, he meets up with his old friends, an ex-love, and his nephew. Jeff and his friend, Charles, were both once in love with Nicole, but she married someone else. A generation later, Jeff's nephew, Paul, and Paul's friend, Bob, have both fallen for Nicole's daughter, Justine. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly noted that while story cohesion is not a strong point in Double Jeopardy, the reader will nevertheless "savor Echenoz's easy command of comedy."

Lac and Big Blondes were both lauded for their wit and satire. Lac, a spoof of espionage novels in which an agent is charged with spying on a foreign official for no ostensible purpose, received the European Literature Prize in 1990. A Publishers Weekly critic complained that the novel was not good enough to win a major literary prize but nonetheless found that as "camp, as satire and as storytelling," the book "is very good, accomplished writing." Gilbert Taylor wrote in Booklist that "underneath the dry-witted descriptions and gritty Parisian ambience, Echenoz's crystal clear theme—that espionage can be pointless, self-serving snooping—is put forth with sardonic, soft-chuckling humor."

Big Blondes, a story about the furtive search for former pop entertainer and blonde bombshell Gloria Stella by a team of investigators, was described as "trenchant social commentary on the intrusive role the media plays," by Nancy Pearl in a Booklist review. A Publishers Weekly critic concluded: "Cleverly written and quickly paced, Big Blondes is a hilarious read."

Echenoz's Je m'en vais, translated into English as I'm Gone, received the prestigious Goncourt Prize in 1999. "Echenoz has always parodied popular genres and this time intertwines an adventure and a detective story," explained a critic for the Economist. The story revolves around Felix Ferrer, an art dealer who travels to the North Pole in search of a ship frozen in ice that contains a treasure trove of Inuit Eskimo artwork. "Central heating, phone and fax, porn movies and Ikea-like furniture are as readily available up north as elsewhere; global sameness is the modern disease," the Economist critic commented. "We have made curios of other cultures and a bad joke of our own, and made a commodity of both," wrote Alan Jenkins in the Times Literary Supplement.

"But fleetingly audible beneath or beyond the deadpan virtuosity and the jokes there is a pained note," wrote Jenkins, "a tiny diminuendo of bafflement and yearning. It has to do with the mechanics of consumption and desire, with our restlessness, our spoilt fidgeting for cash or goods or sex; most of all, it has to do with how the men and women in this universe treat each other." The critic for the Economist concluded that "Echenoz is foremost a humorist. Yet behind his seductive and delicately ironic prose hides a moralist who highlights the fake, the absurd, the loneliness of modern lives and invites his readers to laugh about it rather than at it."

Piano, described by Spectator critic Lee Langley as "deadpan, elegant and wittily observed tragicomedy," is the story of Max Delmarc, a Parisian concert pianist who suffers from stage fright and alcoholism and who is in love with a woman named Rose. After leaving a concert, he is mugged and dies from his stab wounds. In the next life, his wound is repaired and his looks changed with plastic surgery in an "Orientation Center," where he enjoys a brief affair with a nurse named Doris Day, then is sent back to the "urban zone," which is Paris, with instructions that he is not to play music or contact anyone from his previous life, orders he is unable to follow. A Publisher Weekly reviewer wrote that "the result is a quirky, slight novel that offers an original take on human potential and folly." A Kirkus Reviews contributor described Piano as "fun for those who don't yet know that death doesn't hurt and that God is a skinny guy named Lopez."

Although he was named for two composers, Franck Chopin, the protagonist of Chopin's Move, is an entomologist and occasional secret agent who falls in love with the married Suzy Clair and is hired by Colonel Seek to follow an official named Vital Veber who travels with two bodyguards. Warren Motte noted in World Literature Today that like Echenoz's previous work, this novel "plays delightfully upon literary conventions borrowed from both popular and 'serious' genres, stretching ironies and tensions among a variety of themes and techniques."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1995, Gilbert Taylor, review of Lac, p. 387; June 1, 1997, Nancy Pearl, review of Big Blondes, p. 1656.

Economist, December 4, 1999, review of Je m'en vais, p. 14.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2004, review of Piano, p. 146.

Library Journal, April 15, 1993, Peggie Partello, review of Double Jeopardy, p. 126; April 1, 1997, Marc Kloszewski, review of Big Blondes, p. 124; April 15, 2004, Edward Cone, review of Chopin's Move, p. 123.

New York Times Book Review, September 20, 1987, Celia McGee, review of Cherokee, p. 31.

Publishers Weekly, May 8, 1987, review of Cherokee, p. 62; March 1, 1993, review of Double Jeopardy, p. 38; September 11, 1995, review of Lac, p. 73; April 7, 1997, review of Big Blondes, p. 70; August 11, 1997, review of S., p. 386; March 22, 2004, review of Piano, p. 61; April 5, 2004, review of Chopin's Move, p. 41.

Spectator, January 1, 2005, Lee Langley, review of Piano, p. 29.

Times Literary Supplement, May 19, 2000, Alan Jenkins, review of Je m'en vais, p. 24.

Washington Post Book World, July 30, 1987, Sarah Gold, review of Cherokee.

World Literature Today, September-December, 2004, Warren Motte, review of Chopin's Move, p. 115.

ONLINE

French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web site, http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/ (January 19, 2006), profile of Echenoz.