I find it enlightening to read mysteries in translation. Experiencing the crime novel from another perspective, another culture, gives the reader new experiences, new ways of looking at things. For instance, I enjoy a significant chunk of Scandinavian crime fiction because many of the best writers — Stieg Larsson, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, Karin Fossum — make the crimes so personal, so intimate, that one feels the emotion much more than in a common American whodunit. Or one can enjoy the surrealism of a tremendously inventive writer like the Frenchwoman Fred Vargas whose tales can amaze, befuddle, and thrill all at the same time.
Or — and to be honest, this is probably much more common — one can just end up being befuddled as I was after reading Philippe Djian’s UNFORGIVABLE. Djian is prolific, with 18 novels to his credit, this being only the second one translated into English (Euan Cameron does the honors here). And this book won the 2009 Le Prix Jean Freustié and will soon be made into a movie directed by André Téchiné. But still, the tale leaves one cold.
Francis is an aging writer who lost his first wife and eldest daughter to an horrific accident years ago. When his second daughter goes missing, he is completely distraught, at wit’s end, and his life slowly begins to unravel as he waits for news of his missing girl. But, and this is deliberate on Djian’s part, Francis is painted as the most self-absorbed and unlikable protagonist of any novel I’ve come across in quite some time. Everything revolves around him, and he is unable to see how his actions and his thoughtless statements wreak havoc in the lives of everyone else around him.
This is less of a genre book than traditional “family falls apart” literature spelled with a capital L, but its main character is so relentlessly toxic that one really wishes the satellite characters would just wise up and leave Francis to stew in his own juices.
Djian does have a certain genius, as he is very adept at dropping subtle clues as to what is going on, only to be fully explained on a later page. A phrase will shock you and make you wonder if the translation’s gone off, then 20 pages later, the phrase is explained and the story continues to unfold. That’s great, but it just wasn’t enough for me. —Mark Rose
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