Énard chews on more than the average author bites off, but just when all hope for focus seems to be thrown out the window, clarity comes knocking on the door (after comical foley work of scrambling footfall from window to door) wearing a different shirt (hastily buttoned off-kilter). I know I’m stalling, but there are so many wonderful centrifugal tales orbiting the titular red giant offering distraction after delightful distraction, that I struggle to pinpoint just what I loved about this book. It’s a carnival that includes gravedigging jesters, a flea circus of soul transference, an oh-so-leaky tunnel of love, tasteful dunk tanks for every religion, and that’s where my analogy sits deflated. In short: a splendid (it is!) love story (or is it?) of antiquated country life in a dying world (or is it? Oops it is).
The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild by Mathias Énard, (List Price: $18.95, New Directions, 9780811231299, December 2023)
Reviewed by Ian McCord, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia