French rhapsody

See my full review at The Emerald City Book Review. French Rhapsody is a sly satire of contemporary French culture, set off when a Parisian doctor receives a letter, lost for 33 years by the post office, that seems to suggest that his defunct 80s band might have made the big time. He goes off on a quest to find the tape of their could-have-been hit single and track down some of the members of the band, who have gone off in quite different directions.

This opening device led me to expect that the book would focus on the doctor, but in fact it soon leaves his point of view and hops about rather erratically among the other characters who become involved in the twisted strands of the story. The main focus, if there is one, ends up being on the ultra-wealthy enigmatic man who produced that fateful demo tape for the group, and now is being primed by certain factions to become the next French president. There are some secrets in his past, though, that need to come to light before he can move forward to the next stage of his own life.

This political slant, along with another story strand concerning a band member who has become an ultra-right-wing thug, brings in some pertinent reflections on the explosive mix of celebrity, money, and extremism in today's world. The silliness of modern art also gets a dig through the medium of another former band member who's created a giant blow-up model of his own brain; and the doctor's quest ends with an ironic twist that punctures the vanity of our dreams. Overall, this was a more acerbic, less heart-warming read than Laurain's other Gallic books (The Red Notebook and The President's Hat), and it didn't hold my attention as well with its haphazard structure. Still, for some contemporary French wit, it's worth a try.