Coda

by René Belletto, Alyson Waters (Translator), Stacey Levine (Preface)

“It is to me that we owe our immortality, and this is the story that proves it beyond all doubt.” With this sentence René Belletto begins a novel that compresses every genre he has worked in—thriller, science fiction, experimental literature, horror—into one breathless narrative in which what is at stake is nothing less than our own immortality.
 
Playing with the expectations of the reader, Belletto constructs a logical puzzle that defies logic, much like the “almost-perpetual motion machine” invented by the narrator of this novel and his father. What sets the story in (perpetual) motion is a package of frozen seafood. This lowly mechanism triggers a series of picaresque and otherworldly events, from the storyteller’s meeting with Fate disguised as a beautiful woman, to the kidnapping of his daughter, to his amorous reunion with the younger half-sister of a high school friend, to the elimination of death from the world. It’s a funny business, but Belletto’s playful and falsely transparent language opens the book to such serious matters as explorations of death, immortality, love, and the innocence of children.

Genres: Fiction, France, Novella, Contemporary

69 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2005

About the author

René Belletto is a French novelist and script-writer. His novels (Le Revenant, 1981; Sur la terre comme au ciel, 1982; L'Enfer, 1986) combine the suspense of the detective story with humour and sensitive characterisation.

Reviews

[Nathanimal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imperfect perpetual motion machines? Dissociative personalities? Odd coincidences involving frozen clams? There was a lot of potential here and I enjoyed it, but I wished Belletto had dug into the strangeness a bit, committed to it. Also, although I don't care about endings, that ending was what the?

Stacey Levine wrote the intro. I will read anything she writes.

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Equally spurious and metaphysical, this is thriller of detection stripped of all details but the most absolutely necessary until it reads like an outline of distilled plot points. Shorn of any naturalizing context that an ordinary novel might couch them in, they're artificial, weird, compelling. Read it in one brisk sitting if you enjoyed Antonio Tabucchi's The Edge Of The Horizon or other mysteries that trail off into the infinite. This, too, begins and ends exactly there, with a dense coiling of fate to close the loop between.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal. This novella feels like something very new in magical-realism/PoMo-fantasy, though it does make me think, a little, of early Paul Auster and of Zoran Zivkovic’s Hidden Camera. Belletto aims at pulling off a merry miracle, and I think he does it. Be warned, however: it takes 5 or 10 pages to get used to the spare, near-mechanical technique he employs at the start. And, please, skip the spoiler-laden introduction.

I read the book in one sitting and it left me with a silly grin and a buzzing brain. I want more. To work, translators!

[And wouldn't you just know it, Belletto won the Prix Jean Ray for his first novel--Jean Ray being a criminally-neglected fantasist, more or less unknown in America.]

[Martyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic. A great example of the fact that more happens in shorter novels sometimes, when the pace and tone are handled correctly. This tale is narrated in a style reminiscent of being told a quick story by a friend, it's immediate and rushed - but it works well. The ending is superb and enigmatic. Just a wonderful book all round.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an odd and beguiling novella! I’m not entirely sure what happened, but it was definitely a fun ride. Was this a dream, a series of coincidences, some bizarre conspiracy to mess with the narrator, some form of mental illness? Is the narrator even reliable? The surreal nature of the plot leads me to believe it was a dream, but the open-ended ending leaves it up to interpretation. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about this story for quite a while…

[Monica Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I set the perpetual motion machine in motion again, it had stopped (something that never would have happened had Anna been there), and I was pleased to see the seascape light up and come to life within its aquarium--the fleecy waves, the shadows gliding along the shore--without any part of the system running on batteries or connected to an electric outlet of any kind.

Rene Belletto's Coda is one of those novels that could frustrate with all its possible meanings, messages and puzzling pieces that somehow add up to a whole. The pieces of this story happen in a linear order, and seem logical as opposed to illogical, but then there is something askew about them, slightly off-balance. Somewhere during the novel, I began to feel Belletto's dreamy logic encompass me, make me feel as if I were seeing the events of the novel play out before in a blurry sequence. And like a dream, parts were so real even though I knew that they couldn't be. Reading Belletto is like lucid dreaming - the perfect intersection of fantasy and reality.

The narrator is unnamed. The style is detached. The language is simple, almost plain. All of these elements, like any master of the surreal, serve as counter-agents to the reader's disbelief. The narrator, a father living in Paris with a young daughter Anna, has lost his wife. He is a well-off man who, heeding his father's deathbed request, brought to fruition his plan for a perpetual motion machine. With trial and error and much of his own ingenuity, the narrator succeeds and constructs a successful business selling the almost perpetual motion machines consisting of spiral and balls that has to be restarted once a day. This idea of the motion of time becomes the construction for the story and it's odd fragmented flow events that spring form the mundane.

Beginning with a package of frozen clams, a mystery begins:

I had to face facts: while I was away someone had some into my house and placed a package of Marty Frigor clams in my freezer.

As ridiculous as this seems, it is presented so soberly, that reader doesn't hesitate to accept this, only perhaps wonder what it may signify in deeper terms. On the package is a name, Marc Kram, whom the narrator knows as an old school friend. After he contacts Marc and they reconnect, Marc invites him to a party. The narrator meets a woman, Marthe, who is beautiful but a friend to no one at the party and apparently only seen by narrator with whom she conversed. At this party, the narrator is also given the information of Marc's half-sister, Agathe, that once held the narrator's interest. When the narrator meets Marthe again, the reader is given enough information to think that there is an otherworldly quality to her, and one that is neither concretely good or evil. She delivers bits of conversation like this to our unsuspecting narrator:

"You're theory is perfect. 'Death, fate's faithful servant...' Tired of being nothing but a spirit, I wanted to incarnate myself in the body of a mortal woman at the risk ... at the risk of meeting you," she said softly.

As the events become stranger and more threatening - Anna is kidnapped and the narrator is led to believe it is the work of child traffickers - the pace, the motion of the plot powers along at a clipped tempo, never stopping for the consideration of the characters of the reader. A brilliant tactic by Belletto.

The denouement is thrilling and it feels, like in life when something is that thrilling, that time sped up. And once the feeling fades, the questions that plague humanity's relationship with time arise: What does our time on earth mean, if anything? What does time that has gone by, the past, mean to each of us now? In the infinitum of existence, what does our life represent?
Belletto himself can't help but chronicle the narrator's thoughts about existence and time:

Where had all the dead, present and past, gone? Had they been lost to oblivion? Had they never existed? And how would people recount their history from now on, the histories of their families, their countries, or the history of the world?

Of course Belletto can't answer these questions or many of the others that he raises, but it is difficult to not be enchanted by this book whether it is fantasy, mystery, noir or literary. Yet it is mesmerizing and believable as a dream had during a short afternoon nap that occupies our mind for the rest of the day. And like the titles points out, we wake again the next day to see how our life in motion will affect our dreams and vice-verse.

[Marc Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video review https://youtu.be/5AH_MNeV0pg

[Jaci Millette Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a sucker for the postmodern novel, or in this case, contemporary books that mimic postmodern characteristics— especially those metaphysical pieces that play on the relationship between author and reader. In Coda, Belleto comically acts on the reader’s expectations. When something out-of-the-ordinary or impermissible occurs in a piece of a fiction, a reader’s mind often enters whirlwind and attempts to weave reason between one thing and another thing— liken it to Chekov’s gun—nothing in a novel can be spontaneous or arbitrary— “it must MEAN something, it must tie in eventually!” Rather than letting the mind dismiss these events as arbitrary, Bellito’s narrator investigates every single one of them. He exploits the mystery/thriller/detective formula. Not only do these wild tangents acutely reflect the reader’s thinking patterns, they actually propel the story forward. I did notice the omission of the year-- maybe Belletto hopes this lends the story a timeless nature and comments on how stories set in any era rely on (and set) readers’ expectations.

Despite following these leads, Belletto still builds suspense successfully: for example, on the bottom of page 8 he says “And then I got up again. I had to put away the frozen food. I went into the kitchen, walked toward the fridge, and opened the freezer. And then … But before I recount the event that was simultaneously ordinary and unbelievably and that thrust me so directly into this story, I think I need to clear up a few things about my affluent lifestyle.” The transitions were so whimsical and fascinating. I found myself eager to find out the origin of the frozen clams, who the mysterious woman was, and what happened to the narrator’s daughter. A short, puzzling delight.

[Penelope · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I picked it up randomly at the library, intrigued by the concept of "a logical puzzle that defies logic." I was expecting something along the lines of Borges' writing, but Belletto's story-telling is quite different. Coda is a quick read--even quicker than I expected--fast paced and difficult to put down. I started it with the intention of just reading the first few chapters and before I knew it, I had finished the entire book!

The story and its characters are whimsical, with dark undertones. The way that reality is described within the story made me wonder whether perhaps the narrator was mentally ill, disoriented, or if this was really some sort of alternate reality in which a bizarre series of circumstances leads to the sudden existence of immortality (does it really even exist in the story, or is it the word "death" itself that falls out of existence?)

Overall, an excellent read. I'll definitely be checking out some of Belletto's other translated works.

[Susan Vincent · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was on a hunt for short fiction which could be read in 1 or 2 train rides; "Coda" was the first of the few I picked up. It only took one day's commute to finish but I was not impressed with either the story line nor the language; possibly the translation is to blame for this? Belletto's penchant for meaningful coincidences and overwrought personal interactions alluded to a narrative purpose that never fully materialized. If this hadn't been so short I would not have finished it.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super quick read, and a delightful refusal to play along with the expected conventions of the genre. First sentence: “It is to me that we owe our immortality, and this is the story that proves it beyond all doubt.” Followed by a detective story, the ending of which turns the whole thing on its head (though the twist, if you can call it that, was outright stated all along), while explaining the detached feel of the narrator (how to engage in a world without death?).

[Tamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seemed weird to me. The main character definitely had some emotions, but the read just felt unemotional??? I'm glad I read this. It just felt weird. It's a short and would like to read other stories by this author.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I checked this out of the library because it was very small.

[linnea · Rating 3 out of 5]

i love reading literature of other countries and this was a quick little enjoyable read.

[Gwyneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

cool writing. weird story.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

so difficult to rate, it's between a 5-star because it's amazing in its simplicity, and a 1-star because what was this all about?? all in all, I feel better for having read it, so a 3-star.

[Sarah Yasin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reminds me of the writing style of Balaji Balasubramanian. Especially the part about the mysterious frozen dinner in the freezer . . .

[Michelle Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous! The whole thing feels like a dream. It's short, so it's easy to read in one sitting.

[Chris Ng · Rating 5 out of 5]

由雪櫃多咗一包冰蜆，到個女被綁架，到如果死亡是命運的忠心僕人，那麼死亡自己死咗，命運又如何發展下去?七十頁短篇小說一次過講曬你知。神奇。

[Lindsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe just my mind set but I'm good.

"Unfortunately, everyone who was suppose to come to the party came..."

Surreal but didn't keep my attention.