THE PASSION OF MARTIN FISSEL-BRANDT

Experimental minimalism comes with a decidedly Gallic twist in this brief romantic fiction, a noteworthy book that marks the first English translation of an author who has built a reputation in France based on eight novels. Here he deals with the odd fate of Martin Fissel-Brandt, the middle-aged protagonist who begins a quest for his former lover, Anna Posso, after he finds a hidden letter addressed to the apartment where they used to meet. The author's prose flits here, there and everywhere over the course of incredibly short chapters, introducing coincidences, plot twists and unexplained characters with barely a whiff of logic. The more intriguing turns include Martin being whisked away to Asia by the demands of his profession to quell a local rebellion, along with a seemingly random attack on him and some of his co-workers at a construction site. As for the erstwhile romance, the normal pining is replaced by some diabolical hints that Martin may in fact have murdered Anna as well as several other former girlfriends, with one of those hints entertainingly delivered by a cat. Despite the absence of conventional narration, Gailly's prose has a certain whimsical rhythm and a unique sense of rhyme and reason, which makes reading this novel not unlike perusing the script of a Buñuel film. Gailly's work is definitely an acquired taste and demands a suspension of linear thinking, but readers who like to be surprised won't get shortchanged here. (Mar. 18)