1914

Reviews / Votes

Praise for 1914:

"Echenoz's nod to the powerlessness of ordinary people caught in the first great modern cataclysm is a veritable monument to human dignity."
Gary Indiana, Bookforum

"This new novel from Jean Echenoz- concentrates and synthesizes the quintessence of his writing."
-Le Monde

Praise for Jean Echenoz:
"One of the best storytellers among the 'serious' novelists of his generation."
-Context

"Echenoz is one of the contemporary literature's rare graceful magicians. . . . He might easily be located in the post-human environs of Michael Houellebecq [and] Haruki Murakami."
-Bookforum

"A gentle tending to perversity links Echenoz to that other master of the perverse detail, Vladimir Nabokov."
-Los Angeles Times

"Every word is perfectly placed; the writing is fluid . . . like a garment that fits perfectly even inside out..."
-Elle

"The most distinctive voice of his generation and the master magician of the contemporary French novel."
-The Washington Post

"Writing lives! [Echenoz's] words are full of grace and surprises, and he has the ability to throw relationships among them just off-center enough to make the images or people they convey seem all the more compelling and fresh."
-The New York Times Book Review

"A writer at the top of his form . . . his style is, as usual, impeccable, full of finesse and promise."
-Le Monde

"[O]ne of the best storytellers among the "serious" novelists of his generation. . . . Echenoz has shown that an attention to novelistic intrigue is by no means incompatible with an experimentalist impulse."
-Context

"Against a pungently evoked French landscape, figures both comical and grotesque move through a magic-lantern adventure story at a pace that keeps us turning the pages-though again and again we pause to savor the richness of Echenoz's startling, crystalline observations. Never a dull moment!"
-Lydia Davis

"A humanist rewriting Foucault with a satirist's wit, Echenoz deftly and amusingly meditates on who we are and what defines us."
-Village Voice

"Echenoz employs almost no dialogue and nothing that departs from known facts in this tiny miracle of a biographical novel, which begins dryly and builds to a shattering, but still contained and elegant, emotional climax, like a Ravel masterpiece."
-Booklist

"This is a wholly unsentimental portrait of a freaky inventor. Our sympathy is not required; all Echenoz requires is our attention, which he secures through his lapidary prose, buffed to a high gloss in this excellent translation."
-Kirkus Reviews

"Echenoz picks out the absurd nuances of pop culture and twists them into a contemporary detective book. . . . A hilarious read."
-Publisher's Weekly

"Rarely has the difficult craft of storytelling been as well mastered."
-The Times Literary Supplement

"Jean Echenoz has a terrific sense of humor tinged with existential mischief. . . . An author in total control of his material."
-L'Express

"His realism is innocent, meticulous, ironic. . . . Seldom is a narrative so well constructed."
-Le Figaro

"[A] fascinating portrait of a musical genius, a strange and lonely character who was never at peace with himself."
-France Today

"Magnificent."
-Magazine Litteraire

"Vivid and extraordinary."
-La Croix

"Dazzling, meticulous, and somber."
-Telerama