by Jean Echenoz (2020)
2025 reads, 20/25:
Apart from my name, I doubt I inspire much envy: I look like anyone else, only less so.
The setting: Auteuil, Paris, the westernmost quarter, known for its generational wealth and old money. The protagonist: Gerard Fulmard, disgraced former flight attendant, shooting his shot at private detective work. The case: a missing officer of the Independent Popular Federation (IPF), an elite political organization. Command Performance by Jean Echenoz is the May 2025 pick for the New York Review Books (NYRB) book club, which is an interesting choice, because unlike most books I've gotten from NYRB, this one was originally published (in France) in 2020! (In contrast, next month's pick hails from the late 19th century.)
Right from the beginning, Command Performance feels like a black comedy. Starting with a fallen piece of satellite right in Fulmard's neighborhood, Echenoz goes on to describe Fulmard using the quote above (which feels like a much more self-deprecating version of the Casablanca quote: "...he's just like any other man, only more so"). Combine that with the fact that Echenoz chose to spend time on the fallen satellite before the main character should clue you into the fact that Fulmard is just a small piece of this story, a mere mechanism used for Echenoz's true intention.
During reading, Echenoz also toys with us, the reader, using subversions and plot twists combined with direct second-person speak. It's not frequent, but often enough to tilt your head every once in awhile, and think to yourself, "does this book know I'm reading it?" It reminds me of Micheal Haneke's Funny Games in a way - but much less brutal.
And so, after this business with the firearm, a requisite feature of this type of story, as Gerard Fulmard pertinently observed, now we're getting some exoticism. To tick every box, the only thing missing is a sex scene–but a real sex scene, of course, artfully described, less depressing and thwarted than Franck Terrail's in Pigalle. We'll see about that later. Let's keep it in reserve should the opportunity arise.
Is that not Echenoz speaking directly to us, through Fulmard?
I haven't spoken much about Fulmard himself, because there's actually not that much to him. His most interesting feature is that he finds himself subject to the external forces in this story. Read that again: his most interesting feature is that he interacts with everyone else in the story. It's a bit mean, to be honest, but that's how I think Echenoz is choosing to use him. Fulmard is less of a character, more of a device, these things just happen around him, pulling him into the action, pushing him away from success. But I'm not sure if these things happen to Fulmard because he has no drive in life, or if they would happen anyway, whether Fulmard likes it or not. Similar to one of the themes I brought up in my Against the Day review, this raises the question of predestination. Who is really in control?
The last thing I'd like to bring up about Command Performance is its cover art. NYRB always has fascinating covers, but the one for this book really struck me. Scroll up and take another look at it, and you may have the same immediate thought that struck me when I first saw it: this is a video. I looked it up, and indeed, it turns out that it's a projected art installation by Bill Viola called Ascension, which I find a bit peculiar, since to me it looks like the man is falling into the water, not coming out of it. But you can see for yourself in this video right here:
You don't need to watch the whole thing to grasp that "Ascension" details the fall, rise, and then second fall of someone jumping into a body of water. Calling it Ascension seems odd to me, but Viola could be focusing only on the part of the video where the water's buoyant force takes over. This rise in the middle of the fall may be related to the temporary meaning that Fulmard feels as he gets entwined in the IPF's case. It could also refer to the external forces that Fulmard experiences: once he's in the water, he is left to the whim of the the surrounding fluid.
But regardless: for a new take on the detective genre, or if you just want expectations to be subverted at every turn, pick up this book from NYRB. It's gotten me curious in Echenoz's other work - but that follows a long, long to-read list I have ahead of me.
For as we all know: a feature of the privileged is that they band together: their goal is social security, capital promotes inter se. And while competition initially encouraged them to jostle and trample one another in a frantic free-for-all, now that their fortunes have been made, they opt for a collective real estate that they alone maintain.