Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the French by Frank Wynne

David Mazon is in his mid-30s when he decides his very ordinary life needs a shake-up. He motivates himself to finish his doctorate in anthropology, a field project that takes him from Paris to a rural French village on the Atlantic coast, near La Rochelle.

In his shack he notes how the amount of worms and other insects proliferate, the bain of the work of the ethnologist; though not for one moment does he suspect they might be reincarnated human souls.

As Mazon poured half a bottle of bleach over the red annelids taking over his bathroom, he was unaware that he was returning to the Wheel the black souls of murderers whose vicious crimes had condemned them to many generations of suffering.

The village, it turns out, is the perfect venue for recycling the dead, every organism was once something, or someone, else.
Unsurprisingly, undertaking is a booming business, so much so, that the Angel of Death gives them a weekend off each year, for a huge party. And its some party, they are a ribald crew, led by the mayor.

It’s a wonderful premise, but really only a brief section of the 500-odd pages is directly concerned with it. A hundred pages or so of it are tremendous fun, but as the pages tick over the more it seems like an indulgence on the part of Énard. Aside from the gluttonous excesses of the banquet, not much else of interest happens.

Half as long, and it could have been brilliant.

My GoodReads score 3 / 5