Il rapimento di Ortensia

Hortense #2

by Jacques Roubaud, Stefano Benni (Translator)

On the sixth prie-dieu of the ninth row of the Church of Sainte-Gudule the corpse is discovered. Chief inspector Blognard is on the scene, as is our narrator, now married to Hortense, the delectable star of Roubaud's first novel "Our Beautiful Heroine". But will they succeed in detecting the criminal, perhaps the same, before his plot to kidnap the lovely bride succeeds? Or perhaps Carlotta, the fifteen-year-old redhead, her mysterious black cat Hotello, and the Poldevian pony prince Cyrandozoi will prevail where lesser men have failed?
The delightful imaginary world brought into being in Jacques Roubaud's first novel comes to uproarious life again in this sequel. While the murder investigation is afoot, teenage girls argue the relative merits of the rock groups Dew-Pon Dew-Val and Landau Valley, Pere Sinouls tries to program a computer to take his place at the organ so that he can continue to practice Beeranalysis, and the clientele of the Gudule Bar debate the reality of Infinity. The author's whimsical touch and deft craftsmanship intermingle reflections on the novel, asides to the reader, and a rich gallery of comic characters enmeshed in a peculiar intrigue that spirals like the Poldevian coat of arms, a snail.

"A witty and sexy page-turner." (Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World 7-30-89)

"If Mel Brooks, Lewis Carroll and Alfred Jarry were forced at gunpoint to collaborate on a mystery, the result might be something like Hortense is Abducted. . . . It's a grand stunt." (Barry Schechter, Chicago Tribune 7-23-89)

"Clever and cream-puff light." (Colin Walters, Washington Times 7-17-89)

"Those who decide to read this book on a bus or train should be forewarned: uncontrollable bursts of laughter will seize you at any time!" (Library Journal starred review 6-15-89)

"Roubaud seduces with felicitous and feline humor . . . evoking the spirits of his countryman Rabelais, of Flann O'Brien, Jorge Luis Borges, Gilbert Sorrentino, Julio Cortazar, Umberto Eco, Tom Robbins." (Kenneth Atchity, Los Angeles Times 12-13-89)

Genres: France, Fiction, French Literature

226 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Jacques Roubaud was a French poet, writer and mathematician.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The beginning is strictly Gothic – the way all the scary pulp fiction should really begin…

Not a soul, not a cat. Not the soul of a cat, consequently. The sounds of the city arrived only faintly, as if from far away, as if come from another world: the world of anguish, of the ephemeral, of illusion; the world that is barbarous, carnivorous, villainous; the world of fevers, beavers, bacterium; of biles, of woes, of crimes; the world of dementia, of embolism, of entropy; of lucre, of licentiousness, of smoke; of lycanthropy, of pyromania, of syzygy; and reciprocally… you know, the world.

Hortense Is Abducted is an absurdist mystery – the absurdist crimes are being investigated using absurdist methods…
Hortense Is Abducted is a postmodernistic detective story – the postmodern author talks to a hypothetical reader discussing the ways to write mysteries and deriding pulp fiction clichés… And, along with the valiant and sapient puss, wearing no boots though, he takes an active part in the plot and action.
And every absurdist crime must have its absurdist motives… And at last, in the end we learn the incredible truth.

[Alma · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A vida continua. O Sol põe-se levanta-se põe-se levanta-se põe-se levanta-se põe-se levanta-se põe-se levanta-se. Está um lindo dia."

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highly informed and stylized, Hortense Is Abducted is a madcap dissection of the detective genre featuring characters Roubaud developed in an earlier novel Our Beautiful Heroine, one which I haven't read. This is all out Oulipo, games and maths subvert the story and any sources of sentiment. The crime is solved via math, based on the sequence of characters appearing in the text. There are nods and plaudits all around. I did appreciate the effort, the scintillating architecture even if the sighs eventually defeated the laughter.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Jacques the Fatalist to Jacques Roubaud: OuLiPo’s lesser-known practitioner and most famous surviving member, excluding Harry Mathews, who isn’t really French anyway. For some reason, Dalkey Archive have only released two volumes in the Hortense trilogy—the first, Our Beautiful Heroine, has been translated by Overlook Press, but is due a reprint—but grumbles aside, there’s much ludic OuLiPo larks in this farcical detective spoof. A brief scan of this book’s blurb sums up the anarchic and delicious imagination of this professor, scholar, wit and all-around genius. Daft, ingenious, hilarious postmodern fun for the high-brow reader too proud to read Sedaris.

[Margarida Sequeira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um autêntico divertimento, este livro!
Trabalhando a metalinguagem dos textos, numa suposta trama de suspense, o autor não só constrói uma intriga com bastante originalidade, como também vai fazendo a paródia a outras histórias conhecidas dos leitores, refletindo sobre as narrativas, tecendo comentários sobre o que escreve e dotado de um direto saber e omnipotência da história, vai nos entretendo de tal forma, que ficamos agarrado à mesma e às suas personagens tão suigeneris!
Recomendo um bom livro para quem gosta de refletir sobre a metalinguagem textual.
Achei interessante também, enquanto matemático dar as suas pitadas enigmáticas à narrativa🙂

[Kamakana · Rating 3 out of 5]

070219: play with plot...

[Rolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like that several redhead persons are involved. I like that the panic of a person can be measured and sometimes reaches a level of 2 exp 20. I like that there is a third part, because I like the first two parts. I like Hortense.

[Jordan Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my favorite first sentences ever.

Much to enjoy, much to think about; the problem for me was that there is much to think about again, and again...and again... I have never seen the "meta" laid on so thickly and persistently. So much about the author not being in control of his text, about the characters bearing independent existences, etc. It felt like Vonnegut in Breakfast of Champions, but with the metaliterary cross-penetration of author's reality and fictional diegesis fetishized. And I didn't feel like it was an absurdist fetishization, one that might even be parodic of texts that smugly play with narratological "meta"ness--though maybe that was the intent. It certainly didn't feel that way though.

Some of the anthropomorphism is charming, though the personalities of cats don't get much more nuance than what you'd typically find in the collected internet memes on them as languid, spoiled, self-indulgent creatures.

The use of the map, the fabrication of countries, the absurdist parody of detective genre conventions--enjoyable and thought-provoking.

The source of my dulled enthusiasm could be that I love Roubaud's poetry, and am a huge fan of the quadrilingual "Renga" he did with Octavio Paz, Charles Tomlinson, and Eduardo Sanguinetti--add to that my infatuation with the first sentence, and this generally left me expecting something more subtle and twistedly wry.

I will still cherish and quote that first sentence though...

[Addison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with Jacques Roubaud in about 5 minutes.