Jean Echenoz
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Piano
Max Delmarc, age fifty, is a famous concert pianist with two problems: the first is a paralyzing stage fright for which the second, alcohol, is the only treatment. In this unparalleled comedy from the Prix Goncourt-winning French novelist Jean Echenoz, we journey with Max, from the trials of his everyday life, through his untimely death, and on into the afterlife. After a brief stay in purgatory-part luxury hotel, part minimum security prison, under the supervision of deceased celebrities-Max is cast into an alarmingly familiar partition of hell, "the urban zone," a dark and cloudy city much like his native Paris on an eternally bad day. Unable to play his beloved piano or stomach his needed drink, Max engages in a hapless struggle to piece his former life back together while searching in vain for the woman he once loved. An acclaimed bestseller with 50,000 copies sold in France, Piano is a sly, sardonic evocation of Dante and Sartre for the present day, the playful, daring masterpiece of a novelist at the top of his form.
€ 21,00 -
Cherokee
"Compelling and fresh." - The New York Times Cherokee recounts the adventures of one George Chave, the proverbial innocent who, in his pursuit of love and the mysterious Jenny Weltmann, manages to run afoul of the police, an uncannily large thug, a very deadly con artist (who happens to be George's cousin), two inept private eyes (who happen to be George's colleagues), a cult that worships the Sister-in-Law, and a remarkable knowledgeable (and loquacious) parrot.
€ 17,00 -
Lightning
A Novel"Echenoz captures the spare beauty of Tesla, this often-drawn and much-translated figure, till his death at 86. He is a lean ghost in the history of power, electricity and invention. Echenoz fixes him even more firmly in our imaginations."—Los Angeles TimesStarred Review. Not many nineteenth-century inventors would first dazzle an employer with unprecedented feats of electrical engineering and then relieve that employer from the unexpected burden of paying promised premiums for those feats by tearing up a contract worth millions. But readers meet such a rare genius in this engrossing novel, a finely etched fictional portrait of Nikola Tesla (here depicted as Gregor), a talented immigrant who begins life in the U.S. as an underpaid troubleshooter for Thomas Edison but whose exceptional gifts eventually make him Edison’s formidable rival. But readers see much more than the extensively chronicled Edison-Tesla rivalry. Probing deep into Tesla’s tangled psyche, Echenoz illuminates unexpected tensions. Fearless when enveloped by lightening, Gregor quails before an admiring woman. Able to penetrate the most elusive secrets of high-voltage power, he yields to the wildest delusions, succumbing to fantasies of Martian contacts and of Death-Ray weaponry. And, finally, this complex man, a human meteor who soars into America’s cultural stratosphere, sharing social space with John Pierpont Morgan and Mark Twain, carelessly tumbles into oblivion, keeping company mostly with park pigeons. Coverdale’s nuanced translation of Echenoz’s highly successful French original permits English-speaking readers to contemplate the human mystery that persists long after the scientific puzzles have been solved. BooklistThe affecting story of a difficult and misunderstood European visionary on American shores comprises this lyrical, slender novel by Prix Goncourt winner Echenoz (Running). Born during a lightning storm "somewhere in southeastern Europe" in the mid-19th century, Gregor has many wonderfully inventive ideas from an early age a rapid mail tube running under the Atlantic Ocean, harnessing the power of Niagara Falls for energy and soon the bright young engineer lands in America, where he ends up working with Thomas Edison, who is less than convinced by Gregor's ideas about alternating current. George Westinghouse, however, is intrigued, and as AC becomes the electrical standard, everybody gets rich, even Gregor, for a while. However, with each succeeding electrical marvel, described by an admiring omniscient narrator who admits to being "mystified" by science, Gregor is increasingly dismissed as a crackpot, and other less than scrupulous inventors make off with his world-altering inventions. Echenoz constructs a sympathetic, stylized portrait of an isolated genius stricken by obsessive compulsiveness, a friend only to pigeons at the end. Publishers Weekly
€ 20,95 -
Special Envoy
A Spy NovelA dazzling satirical spy novel, part La Femme Nikita, part Pink Panther and part Le Carré—from one of the world’s preeminent authors
€ 24,95 -
Capricho de la Reina
En Capricho de la reina Jean Echenoz reúne varios relatos previamente publicados en revistas de arte y proyectos diversos, como una publicación teatral. Son siete cuentos que nos transportan a siete lugares: un parque, un puente, el fondo marino, Suffolk, Mayenne, Babilonia y Le Bourget. Siete historias en las que veremos desfilar al decrépito y heroico almirante Nelson, vencedor en la batalla de Trafalgar, o al obsesivo ingeniero de puentes Gluck; en las que seguiremos el trazo de la pluma de un escritor que dibuja una exquisita panorámica de la campiña de Mayenne, y nos acercaremos a las estatuas de los jardines de Luxemburgo en París. Se trata de 'caprichos', tal vez por su aparente arbitrariedad temática. Pero entre pieza y pieza descubrimos un hilo invisible que los engarza, y no es otro que el impecable estilo de un escritor que construye con las palabras justas y la precisión de un miniaturista un espléndido conjunto de grandes relatos.
€ 17,50 -
The Queen's Caprice
"For the publication in English of his Caprice de la reine, Jean Echenoz has made a few minor changes in the texts. These seven recits are his favorite occasional pieces, written on subjects that inspired the author to observe, improvise, invent-for although these stories sometimes spring from historical incident, they are in the end what Echenoz wished to create: "little literary objects." This tension between story and history depends in part on the ability of the reader to catch allusions and follow undercurrents of meaning that are reasonably clear to French readers but may pass completely unnoticed in English. I have therefore provided endnotes for some of these references and for a few other points of interest as well" -- Translator's note.
€ 19,00 -
Running
Following his brilliant portrait of Maurice Ravel, Jean Echenoz turns to the life of one of the greatest runners of the twentieth century, and once again demonstrates his astonishing abilities as a prose stylist. Set against the backdrop of the Soviet liberation and post-World War II communist rule of Czechoslovakia, Running-a bestseller in France-follows the famed career of Czech runner Emil Zátopek: a factory worker who, despite an initial contempt for athletics as a young man, is forced to participate in a footrace and soon develops a curious passion for the physical limits he discovers as a long-distance runner. Zátopek, who tenaciously invents his own brutal training regimen, goes on to become a national hero, winning an unparalleled three gold medals at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and breaking countless world records along the way. But just as his fame brings him upon the world stage, he must face the realities of an increasingly controlling regime. Written in Echenoz's signature style-elegant yet playful-Running is both a beautifully imagined and executed portrait of a man and his art, and a powerful depiction of a country's propagandizing grasp on his fate.
€ 19,00 -
De spionne
Constance weet niets van de spionagewereld als ze wordt geronseld voor een opdracht in Noord-Korea. Maar ze gaat, versiert een kaderlid en peutert in de slaapkamer staatsgeheimen van hem los. Het lot van een spionne kan helaas snel keren, en Constance moet het hermetisch afgesloten land zien te ontvluchten. Veel hulp valt daarbij niet te verwachten van de twee slimmeriken die zijn ingehuurd om haar te beschermen.
€ 21,99 -
14
Anthime leidt een geregeld leven. Doordeweeks werkt hij als boekhouder in een schoenenfabriek, in het weekend zit hij in het café. Verder is hij meer dan gemiddeld geïnteresseerd in Blanche, de dochter van de schoenenfabrikant, al heeft zij een relatie met Charles, de arrogante onderdirecteur van de fabriek. Dan breekt de Eerste Wereldoorlog uit. Samen met zijn cafévrienden en Charles vertrekt Anthime naar het front om Frankrijk te verdedigen. Zal hij Blanche ooit nog terugzien?
€ 20,00