“I’m off!” — the first words spoken by the protagonist in Jean Echenoz’s novel, freshly resolved to leave his wife — and, incidentally, the title of the book.
My own departure from the family home in Zaragoza was rather more courteous. No slammed doors, no literary drama. Just a quiet exit in pursuit of a weekend alone.
The plan? Disarmingly simple. Drive into the Pyrenees, and keep going.
I take the Zaragoza–Huesca motorway. Now sleek and modern, this road once bore the rather unfortunate name “La Violada” — which, in English, translates to “The Violated.” My high school art teacher, Father Cavero, claimed it was a linguistic mishap: the route traces — perhaps even overlays — the ancient Roman road from Caesaraugusta to Osca, a broad way or via lata. Over time, the name twisted into something coarser, La Violada, without any real violation ever occurring. Language, after all, has its own form of entropy.
It’s a good anecdote, like the kind you remember during long drives into rising mountains. And like the book itself — Je m’en vais! (published in the UK by Harvill Press under the title I’m Off) — charming, slightly offbeat, and smarter than it lets on.
Echenoz’s novel blends the dry everydayness of Parisian art galleries with flickers of adventure and droplets of sentimental drama. The narration is third-person, lean in its prose, and paces itself between deadpan neutrality and a quiet, ironic nudge at the folly of its characters.
The book lasted me two days—a mere breath—the same amount of time it takes to pass through Huesca and continue on the road to Jaca.
As the road climbs, the landscape responds — forests emerge, a reservoir here and there, and a sense that we are now properly ascending.
Autumn, in my opinion, is the best time of year. Just when, in Paris, the jurors gather in the dining room of Drouant to award the Goncourt Prize.
It was in 1999 that the novel I’ve just mentioned took home the prize. But — and there is always a “but” — according to Pierre Assouline’s Du côté de chez Drouant (Gallimard, 2013), the book’s publisher (Éditions de Minuit) was physically present at the banquet. Not metaphorically, literally at the table.
Naturally, eyebrows were raised. Echenoz overheard a member of the jury murmur: “His publisher eats everything — he really is a good editor.”
Echenoz, unsure whether this was praise or thinly veiled critique, responded with a question that belongs more to the theatre of the absurd:
—“Did he have the lamb or the pork?”
No answer.
We’ve now reached the Somport tunnel. Thus far, the road has been respectable — mostly dual carriageway, the kind that hums politely beneath the wheels.
France, however, brings change. The road narrows, frays at the edges. One lane in each direction, poorly surfaced, serpentine.
Our country, as is plainly evident, can boast of better roads — but certainly not of better literary prizes. Here, it’s not just that someone at the jury table ends up awarding the prize to a fellow member’s work; it’s that we have the unfortunate habit of handing out the Christmas lottery jackpot to the director of the lottery’s son or nephew.
Forgive the bitterness. But it doesn’t diminish the novel’s worth. Lamb or pork notwithstanding, Echenoz deserved the Goncourt.
At Bielle, the high mountains begin to fade behind me. The firs and beeches recede.
I stop for a coffee. French architecture appears, crisp and measured — Haussmann’s symmetrical gift. As if someone took a ruler to the very soul of the town.
During that short pause, a few contemporary authors drift into mind. Not prizewinners, no. But worthy nonetheless.
Two in particular. Arturo Panero — prose sharp as a scalpel, poised somewhere between Henry James and Lovecraft. And Pedro Aranda, whose Almost Chicago is that rare thing: a novel you don’t expect from modern Spanish literature, yet which hums in the mind long after reading.
I recommend them both, warmly and without reservation.
I turn the key again. A short stop, nothing more. Our destination nears.
This column, if it has a purpose, might be to bring light to writers otherwise unseen — ignored by critics, overlooked by publishers, prey to pirate presses or stranded in the wilderness of self-publication. But it is there, in the periphery, in shadow, that literary seeds are sown. And sometimes — with time and luck — they make it into the canon.
It’s not uncommon in literature, as in so many other arts, for what doesn’t sell in life to be consecrated in death. Just ask Kafka, who didn’t sell a single copy, or Paul Valéry, whose The Cemetery by the Sea sold less than a fishing manual and now lies—ironies of fate—in every intellectual cemetery we call an anthology.
Twenty minutes later, I park at Pau’s train station. I like the funicular ride to the old town.
My accommodation? A discreet studio on the Boulevard des Pyrénées. You know it?
Worth the journey for the view alone — the full sweep of the mountain chain laid out like a silent opera.
Sublime.
Dinner is booked at L’Aragon.
Still time for a walk through the town — to the castle where Henry IV was born, the same King of Navarre who planted the Bourbons in France, before they leapt over to Spain. Curiously, this same town still hosts a Navarrese parliament.
But I’ll save that tale for another day. Tonight, my steps — or, as Casanova might put it, my genie— have taken me to the doorstep of a grand old house I used to frequent in my university days.
I light a cigarette across the street. Questions, both obvious and unnecessary, come flooding in.
It’s night now. People are arriving — a party, by the looks of it. The wallpaper inside is still the same. I can’t quite tell about the furniture.
A woman approaches — early thirties, perhaps. Glass in hand. She asks for a light. I take in the outfit: glossy black leather boots, knee-high socks, a light coat, and beneath it, a fitted emerald green velvet dress, cut to leave the shoulders bare.
Her ponytail falls with deliberate grace. It’s dark, so I can’t be sure if she’s brunette or chestnut. But it hardly matters — she carries herself with the confidence of someone whose style speaks before she does.
She talks. Soon, she asks: am I invited?
I shake my head.
—“Bah! The engineer invited so many people, nobody knows who’s who. I’m the last monkey in his studio. They told me I could bring whoever I want. Come in with me?”
I shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t. Things could get complicated if I’m seen there again. But after so many kilometres… and so many years…
Why not?
Just enough time for a quick glass of wine and…
“I’m off.”
José Vicente Rubio Eire
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