Chopin's Move

Jean Echenoz's work has received many high-browed prizes in French literature, so I was a little surprised at how slight a project CHOPIN'S MOVE was. It is the work of a gifted writer having fun with a genre romp. As with Jonathan Lethem's similarly-minded book, Gun, with Occasional Music, the results are amusing, but ultimately, somewhat exasperating. With Echenoz, much of the fun for the reader lies in the odd turns of phrase that one wants to credit him for... as opposed to an inventive translator! But in the end, the punning (our entomologist-protagonist works with bugs, and as a spy, also plants them, get it?) and silliness just sort of wore me down. It's one thing for a writer to enjoy a good lark, but as a reader, I suppose I wasn't quite in the right mood. Nonetheless, Francophiles, word lovers, and devotees of spy literature will find this book enjoyable.

Chopin's Move is an intriguing novel following Chopin, an entomologist and reluctant secret agent; Oswald, a foreign-affairs employee who mysteriously vanishes; Ozwald's wife Suzy, whose relations with Chopin enmesh her within a shroud of deceit; and more colorful, neurotic, off-kilter or ever-so-slightly screwy individuals. Written with a keen tongue-in-cheek taste for wry humor and nuances of detail, Chopin's Move is a distinguished narrative with twists that keep on coming.