Theme: Paris Jean Echenoz's Chopin's Move is the homage to the espionage thriller but with just the right amount of Parisian parody to make it entertaining. Friends, this is a quick read that highlights some well-known spots in Paris as well as the lesser visited--you know, the meat packing district. The narrator, Franck Chopin, is an entomologist who floats in and out of spy service with his uncanny ability to use flies as not only as bugs, but as "bugs". If you catch my drift...Yes, the fly has landed. We've got some missing folks, a pretty girl(where would we be without the pretty girl?) and we have Vital Verber, the general secretary that Chopin is sent to spy on. This isn't a pulse pounder of a novel, but it does showcase some Echenoz's unique narrative ability and in particular with the metaphor:

Above him, in the heavy but clearing sky, two fat zinc clouds weigh like wineskins, from which several little pure-cotton fugitives have escaped.

Although this is just "exposition", it gives us a glimpse of his talent for taking the usual and giving it enough of a descriptive twist to make the superfluous seem interesting, not just an author telling us that it was cloudy out. And how could I net mention the opener?

The telephone might well have rung twice, But Vito knew he wouldn't answer. He put on his leg before putting on his pants, as he did every morning when getting out of bed--in any case, no good news is ever delivered by phone, and besides his leg came first.

Of course the leg comes first and so does the story. We find out about this guy, then Chopin, then Colonel Seck, Maryland, Suzy Clair, Suzy's missing husband, Oswald, and two body guards for Vital Verber. Oh, and another spy who paints landscape scenes and makes statues out of whatever is around while he works. Chopin falls for Suzy but she causes lapses of judgement which effect his job. Don't get me wrong, this guys is talented when it comes to the spy device business:

The difficult thing was to grasp the insect, but once it was caught, turned over, and squeezed under the microscope's lens, once the motor muscles of its wings and legs were inhibited by mesothoracic pressure, it was child's play for Chopin to graft a microphone onto its metasternum, well centered between its halteres--no more complicated than adjusting the radar thirty years earlier, evenings at school, on a model Messerschmidt or Spitfire at 1:72 scale.

And that's not all...this guy can read espionage messages in the dot of an i on a mailer put in his mailbox. Pretty cool. So, yes, when it comes to actual field combat or sting operations, Chopin is a bit of a bumbler. He gets captured and forgets his gun which his boss admonishes him for in front of everyone. Yikes.

Well, my Parisian lit lovers, this is a solid entry into quiet and quirky spy thrillers set in and around Paris that will keep you entertained. Echenoz is creative and a master of parody. With style, he does what most writers can't--adhere to the guidelines of genre while making fun of it. And once you read this book, you will want to read his other works just to see what he can invent.

Chopin's Move
By Jean Echenoz
Translated from the French by Mark Mark Polizzotti
Dalkey Archive Press
Paperback
135 Pages
ISBN: 1-56478-334-0
$12.95