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Solo Viola: A Post-Exotic Novel
A harrowing early novel by one of France’s most unusual contemporary writers
At once humorous and horrifying, Solo Viola is one of Antoine Volodine’s first forays into post-exoticism. He takes the reader into a fictional world where a variety of characters collide: three prisoners just released from jail, a band of circus performers, a string quartet, a writer, and a bird. All are trying to survive in an absurd and hostile environment of authoritarian spectacle, at the mercy of a tyrannical buffoon, and seeking the strange counterbalance of hope in a viola player, whose stunning music just might save them all, if only for a moment.
At once humorous and horrifying, Solo Viola is one of Antoine Volodine’s first forays into post-exoticism. He takes the reader into a fictional world where a variety of characters collide: three prisoners just released from jail, a band of circus performers, a string quartet, a writer, and a bird. All are trying to survive in an absurd and hostile environment of authoritarian spectacle, at the mercy of a tyrannical buffoon, and seeking the strange counterbalance of hope in a viola player, whose stunning music just might save them all, if only for a moment.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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About the author
Antoine Volodine
37 books171 followersAntoine Volodine is the primary pseudonym of a French author. Some of his books have been published in sf collections, but his style, which he has called "post-exoticism", does not fit neatly into any common genre.
He publishes under several additional pseudonyms, including Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger.
He publishes under several additional pseudonyms, including Lutz Bassmann and Manuela Draeger.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
June 11, 2025
Prisoners are out of their jail and there is undesirable freedom awaiting…
Solo Viola is a story of the fascist anarchy where some humans are considered to be just birds that must be rid of… There are musicians… Clowns… All and sundry… And there is a faceless mass… And also there is a viola soloist and her love…
The tale is an allegorical dystopia of individuals and crowds… Of individuals drowning in crowds… Of colours drowning in grey…
Jackals run in packs and they mark their territory with piss.
This is the story of a man. Of two men. Actually, three. Aram, Matko, and Will MacGrodno. The prison door closes behind them. It slams. The iron hinges bang together. They produce the same thunder as always, like train cars suddenly derailing and crashing into each other. The same deafening racket as always. And yet there’s a difference. Today, as the three men listen to those echoes die out, they’re not standing in the prison’s corridors, in its stairwells, or under its skylights, but instead, out in the warm street.
Solo Viola is a story of the fascist anarchy where some humans are considered to be just birds that must be rid of… There are musicians… Clowns… All and sundry… And there is a faceless mass… And also there is a viola soloist and her love…
So enthralling was the virtuosity she displayed that, as the audience listened, with their breath caught and their eyes filling with sudden tears, few could believe that only a single instrument sang before them, that only four strings vibrated for them. Tchaki Estherkhan created a sonic sphere around herself, a harmonic richness surpassing the limits of human understanding and memory. In these moments of enormous emotion, the walls fell away; the theater floated, wandered.
The tale is an allegorical dystopia of individuals and crowds… Of individuals drowning in crowds… Of colours drowning in grey…
We found ourselves locked in, sharing our living space with an army of brutes whose plans we could not manage to figure out, for anything was imaginable other than the lack of a plan.
Jackals run in packs and they mark their territory with piss.
May 15, 2021
This is an exhilarating read--each sentence brings me to an unexpected place, whether it be into the lives of three newly released prisoners, or inside the head of a wounded bird, or in the shoes of a phobic clown. My only other experience of reading Antoine Volodine was with the exhilarating, maddening post-nuclear-apocalypse (maybe) story RADIANT TERMINUS. I would say that SOLO VIOLA is a similar read, for the way it bombards me with sense impressions as I read along, until I'm feeling many emotions, the chief among them being a profound sense of grief. I have no idea if this is the intention of the author but it's what happened to me. I was wrung out after reading this brief novel. I'm indifferent to the superstructure of stories and personae and contradictions that make up the Antoine Volodine mythos--this novel fortunately stands on its own.
April 2, 2021
A powerful novella about a mixture of characters from just released prisoners, to circus performers, writers and a string quartet all living under the rule of an authoritarian government and their military heavies. First published in French in 1991, this translation reads as very current and applicable to various places around the world. The leader of the Frondists in the novella is typically buffoonish and interchangeable with his henchmen, willing to use racism to mobilise the masses. It’s quite an indictment on the behaviour of people in crowds and the need to chant stupid insulting slogans.
I was drawn into the story from the start and found it a quick, thoughtful and thought provoking read.
I was drawn into the story from the start and found it a quick, thoughtful and thought provoking read.
May 22, 2021
Solo Viola is my first experience reading any work by Antonio Volodine. It was first released, in its original French, in the 1991, and is now having a new life in a new English translation as the world sees a resurgence of authoritarian leaders and regimes.
This short novel is intriguing, maddening and overwhelmingly sad. The central characters: three released prisoners; a writer and his artist friend; a classical string quartet; a woebegone circus troupe; a leader, a “malevolent buffoon,” who buys and bullies support from a mindless and adoring public. The story begins in a disjointed fashion but builds to a crescendo. A cautionary tale of sorts.
Recommended (a foreword explains much about this book, Volodine, and the meaning of post-exotic literature.)
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
This short novel is intriguing, maddening and overwhelmingly sad. The central characters: three released prisoners; a writer and his artist friend; a classical string quartet; a woebegone circus troupe; a leader, a “malevolent buffoon,” who buys and bullies support from a mindless and adoring public. The story begins in a disjointed fashion but builds to a crescendo. A cautionary tale of sorts.
Recommended (a foreword explains much about this book, Volodine, and the meaning of post-exotic literature.)
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
December 2, 2021
How odd, I mused as I closed the book. The idea that the novel was thirty years old hung in the air as I reconciled that with the mental framing and images that I’d accumulated and constructed during my reading. How prescient this novel is to recognize the populist theatre practiced by so many: Bolsonaro, Duterte, Orban and this country’s recent muddying species.
The refractive view of a depicted novelist again unsettles, especially when taking into account the oneiric aspect, the puzzling plummet of revolution and dreams. The magical realist devices were unexpected but didn’t develop or blossom. That non-event didn’t distract. The bracketing of a string quartet with a circus held all sorts of promise. What occurs at novel’s end maintained a whispered suspense, one which becomes as poignant and pointless as all poetry.
The refractive view of a depicted novelist again unsettles, especially when taking into account the oneiric aspect, the puzzling plummet of revolution and dreams. The magical realist devices were unexpected but didn’t develop or blossom. That non-event didn’t distract. The bracketing of a string quartet with a circus held all sorts of promise. What occurs at novel’s end maintained a whispered suspense, one which becomes as poignant and pointless as all poetry.
January 15, 2025
This is a stunningly good book that’s more relevant than ever, centering around the rise of a populist, fascist group of ex-politicians who hate foreigners and stage a mass rally to destroy art (in the form of a classical music concert) in favor of a “one people, one culture” circus that turns into a bloodbath of a rally.
The structure of this book is fantastic, with the first part introducing all the characters (“this is a story of a man. Of two men. Actually, three.”; “this is also the story of a bird.”; “this is also the story of a clown.”), including an author who takes over the narration in part two, which recounts the disturbing rally (where the fascist group’s flag contains a spider-like symbol, calling to mind a swastika, along with the obsession with spiders that runs through Volodine’s work) and murders.
I won’t give away the third part and the ending, although, if you pay attention to the beginning, it’s already stated how this will end . . .
A moving, brilliant book that’s wonderfully translated by Lia Swope Mitchell, who captures the clicks of Volodine’s prose and the way it’s both incredibly lucid and fucking weird all at once.
The structure of this book is fantastic, with the first part introducing all the characters (“this is a story of a man. Of two men. Actually, three.”; “this is also the story of a bird.”; “this is also the story of a clown.”), including an author who takes over the narration in part two, which recounts the disturbing rally (where the fascist group’s flag contains a spider-like symbol, calling to mind a swastika, along with the obsession with spiders that runs through Volodine’s work) and murders.
I won’t give away the third part and the ending, although, if you pay attention to the beginning, it’s already stated how this will end . . .
A moving, brilliant book that’s wonderfully translated by Lia Swope Mitchell, who captures the clicks of Volodine’s prose and the way it’s both incredibly lucid and fucking weird all at once.
July 29, 2025
I’m still crying.
One of The most impactful anti-fascist novels ever written. At only ninety pages, the reading is brief, but the tales, characters, and events will stay with you forever.
One of The most impactful anti-fascist novels ever written. At only ninety pages, the reading is brief, but the tales, characters, and events will stay with you forever.
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February 22, 2023Primera obra traduïda al català d'un autor cridat a ser una referència:
https://elbiblionauta.com/ca/2023/02/...
https://elbiblionauta.com/ca/2023/02/...
June 17, 2021
CROSS-POSTED ALONGSIDE ELEVEN SOOTY DREAMS
These two post-exotic novels from Antoine Volodine continue the Russo-Gallic author’s roman fleuve wherein various awkwardly named Eastern European-sounding characters traverse the violently surreal prose-poetry of the author’s disquieting imagination. In Solo Viola, one of Volodine’s earliest post-exotic forays, an authoritarian regime helmed by the Frondists enact intraspecial cleansing while the protagonists, among them a circus strong-man and a horse pilferer, wobble around in rebellion of the fascism corrupting circus life and beyond. In Eleven Sooty Dreams (written under the female pseudonym Manuela Draegar) characters move through an unidentified war-torn landscape in a sequence of opaque, tedious, lyrical, and horrific episodes, alternating between the stories of Granny Holgolde, the most prominent of which features a young girl who, after a bombing attack, transforms into an elephant. As the title suggests, these stories have the hazy quality of dreams, wafting along on a kind of dream logic, making the prose intermittently banal and lyrical, never rising to the heights of wonder as achieved in Volodine’s masterpiece Radiant Terminus. Solo Viola is the stronger of these two short novels, a sveltely appealing introduction to one of the strangest fictional terrains ever created. Volodine’s universe is one of perpetual magic, frequently blown apart by barbarity.
These two post-exotic novels from Antoine Volodine continue the Russo-Gallic author’s roman fleuve wherein various awkwardly named Eastern European-sounding characters traverse the violently surreal prose-poetry of the author’s disquieting imagination. In Solo Viola, one of Volodine’s earliest post-exotic forays, an authoritarian regime helmed by the Frondists enact intraspecial cleansing while the protagonists, among them a circus strong-man and a horse pilferer, wobble around in rebellion of the fascism corrupting circus life and beyond. In Eleven Sooty Dreams (written under the female pseudonym Manuela Draegar) characters move through an unidentified war-torn landscape in a sequence of opaque, tedious, lyrical, and horrific episodes, alternating between the stories of Granny Holgolde, the most prominent of which features a young girl who, after a bombing attack, transforms into an elephant. As the title suggests, these stories have the hazy quality of dreams, wafting along on a kind of dream logic, making the prose intermittently banal and lyrical, never rising to the heights of wonder as achieved in Volodine’s masterpiece Radiant Terminus. Solo Viola is the stronger of these two short novels, a sveltely appealing introduction to one of the strangest fictional terrains ever created. Volodine’s universe is one of perpetual magic, frequently blown apart by barbarity.
July 19, 2025
I got rather lost in the post exotic story created by Antoine Volodine. The characters are interesting and I kept waiting for more, for cohesion, trying to make some sense, as if I need sense to grasp something, to be able to take away something from a story. But how can there be sense in a world where being in or out of prison is the same thing. Where the same scary absurdities exist just clothed differently but there is no difference between being in or out. A world where we are still governed by the bullies who try to make us believe the absurdities which they use to cover their immoral and often violent actions.
I'm not sure I understand what post exotic means maybe this was a step in the right direction towards this understanding.
An ARC gently provided by author/publisher via Netgalley.
March 14, 2021
This was my entry into Antoine Volodine's unique literary project, which he promises can be read in any order. Volodine is only one of a number of heteronyms used by the French-Russian writer behind them, which is certainly unusual but not unheard of, but then each of these personas is writing from the same alternate reality. In this reality these writers are all left-wing prisoners in a totalitarian state, telling each other stories, and birds are human-like members of the resistance. Weird, huh. The project so far consists of 44 of a planned 49 works published in France over four decades, under various of the heteronyms, and together they make up the "post-exotic" literature. Eight have been translated into English over the last 25 years and there are three new translations coming out in 2021 to push that total to 11, of which Solo Viola, published by the University of Minnesota Press is one.
Solo Viola consists of two main parts with a short postscript. The first section had me in mind of Italo Calvino. It has that fable-like, somewhat whimsical quality to it. It introduces the reader to several groups of separate characters in a capital city. There are three just released political prisoners - a horse thief, a circus wrestler, and a bird. There are four members of a string quartet. There is the horse thief's more successful brother. There are millions of Frondists, followers of a populist nationalism that controls political and public life, expert in manipulating the dark currents of the human soul. There is a clown. And there is a writer:
I imagine we can take this description of the character of Iakoub Khadjbakiro (all characters in this novel have exotic sounding names to this reader, often seeming to bear some resemblance to Armenian ones) as a fair description of the author's decades-long project. And if he was horrified by ominous developments concerning populist nationalism in 1991, when this novel was published in France, he would hardly be less so when considering political developments in the Western world leading up to 2021. Thus his project unfortunately has just as much relevance today as at any time in the last forty years of its compilation.
All these characters, and Frondism, come together in the second part of the novel in a gradually building set piece of horror that reflects an attack on the arts and its supporters, an attack on a perceived cultural elite by the populist mass expertly manipulated by totalitarian leadership. Those of us who enjoy a good string quartet performance will be rather uncomfortable here. Volodine portrays the helplessness of those who become the target of the totalitarian mob's rage, a mob for whom, as would be said of Donald Trump's rallies twenty five years after this book's publication, the cruelty is the point.
The brief postscript suggests, in my initial read at least, that escape from this fate is only partially achievable by turning away from the reality of human nature and society and turning inward to the world of imagination, where we can at least imagine a society of the brotherhood of man - but which would ironically only exist in the mind of a sole person, and which here is suggested by a solo viola playing. I'll have to read more of the author to see if that fatalistic reading holds!
Solo Viola consists of two main parts with a short postscript. The first section had me in mind of Italo Calvino. It has that fable-like, somewhat whimsical quality to it. It introduces the reader to several groups of separate characters in a capital city. There are three just released political prisoners - a horse thief, a circus wrestler, and a bird. There are four members of a string quartet. There is the horse thief's more successful brother. There are millions of Frondists, followers of a populist nationalism that controls political and public life, expert in manipulating the dark currents of the human soul. There is a clown. And there is a writer:
He is not content to offer peevish, bitter pronouncements about the world that surrounds him. He does not reproduce in exact detail the elemental brutality to which humanity has been reduced, the bestial tragedy of their fate... [his] usual process was to replace the hideousness of current events with his own absurd images. His own partial hallucinations, both troubled and troubling. Most of the time, although obviously not always, he obeyed the rules of logic... suddenly his exotic parallel worlds would coincide with something buried in some random person's unconscious mind. Suddenly, that reader would emerge from the subterranean levels of mirage and onto the main square of the capital... he was unable to render on paper, without metaphors, his disgust, the nausea that seized him when he faced the present day and the inhabitants of that present... we approach the story of a man who lives in the anguish of being unclear, a man who spends twenty-four hours a day obsessed by the real, but who nevertheless expresses himself in an esoteric, sibylline manner, locating his heroes in nebulous societies and unrecognizable times.
I imagine we can take this description of the character of Iakoub Khadjbakiro (all characters in this novel have exotic sounding names to this reader, often seeming to bear some resemblance to Armenian ones) as a fair description of the author's decades-long project. And if he was horrified by ominous developments concerning populist nationalism in 1991, when this novel was published in France, he would hardly be less so when considering political developments in the Western world leading up to 2021. Thus his project unfortunately has just as much relevance today as at any time in the last forty years of its compilation.
All these characters, and Frondism, come together in the second part of the novel in a gradually building set piece of horror that reflects an attack on the arts and its supporters, an attack on a perceived cultural elite by the populist mass expertly manipulated by totalitarian leadership. Those of us who enjoy a good string quartet performance will be rather uncomfortable here. Volodine portrays the helplessness of those who become the target of the totalitarian mob's rage, a mob for whom, as would be said of Donald Trump's rallies twenty five years after this book's publication, the cruelty is the point.
The brief postscript suggests, in my initial read at least, that escape from this fate is only partially achievable by turning away from the reality of human nature and society and turning inward to the world of imagination, where we can at least imagine a society of the brotherhood of man - but which would ironically only exist in the mind of a sole person, and which here is suggested by a solo viola playing. I'll have to read more of the author to see if that fatalistic reading holds!
January 21, 2025
No se me ocurre mejor novela que esta para leer durante la semana en la que Trump tomó posesión como el hombre más poderoso de la Tierra por segunda vez.
El libro de Volodine es un análisis del totalitarismo. Nos habla de cómo funciona el populismo. Me interesa la distinción entre cultura popular y la culta/intelectual y como la primera se utiliza para manipular a las masas mientras que la segunda es desdeñada y ridiculizada. También nos muestra como ciertas personas se venden al totalitarismo porque les interesa, por ignorancia o porque les da pereza pensar más allá.
Deberíamos poner fragmentos de este libro para comentarlos en las pruebas de acceso a la universidad y no discursos del creador de Apple. Quizá así no hubiéramos llegado donde nos encontramos ahora mismo con la extrema derecha accediendo a las instituciones.
Un libro intenso e imprescindible para aquellos que amamos el arte y que nos esforzamos por no perder el sentido crítico.
El libro de Volodine es un análisis del totalitarismo. Nos habla de cómo funciona el populismo. Me interesa la distinción entre cultura popular y la culta/intelectual y como la primera se utiliza para manipular a las masas mientras que la segunda es desdeñada y ridiculizada. También nos muestra como ciertas personas se venden al totalitarismo porque les interesa, por ignorancia o porque les da pereza pensar más allá.
Deberíamos poner fragmentos de este libro para comentarlos en las pruebas de acceso a la universidad y no discursos del creador de Apple. Quizá así no hubiéramos llegado donde nos encontramos ahora mismo con la extrema derecha accediendo a las instituciones.
Un libro intenso e imprescindible para aquellos que amamos el arte y que nos esforzamos por no perder el sentido crítico.
Read
November 15, 2021Well... at least it was short.
February 3, 2021
This parable or fable was originally written in the 1990's but has received this new translation at a time the publishers felt deemed appropriate. Lyrical and lovely, but not really my cup of tea.
June 7, 2021
Remarkable how of-the-moment this is, given that it’s 30 years old. Volodine has been tuned in (like many on the Left) to the structural realities and has found such a brilliant way to literarily explore it. His whole Post-Exotic project is excellent. Looking forward to another one translated later this year from the heteronym Lutz Bassmann.
May 20, 2019
Uff… este libro… este libro es la historia de la resistencia a un gobierno fascista. La historia de los pájaros que se comunican a través del arte y que se niegan a vivir bajo un régimen que les obliga a ver a otros humanos como enemigos.
La narración se centra en cinco personajes: un artista de circo, un ladrón, un pájaro (así se le dice a los que toman armas para luchar en contra del régimen), un escritor y una violista. Las vidas de los cinco se entrelazan cuando el gobierno frondista decide emboscar un evento musical y cazar pájaros para diversión de un pueblo enceguecido por la crueldad.
El libro es delirante y surreal. Lo compré en una feria porque está traducido por Ana Becciú, poeta argentina a la que adoro. Me conmovió, lloré, reí y me impresionó, sufrí la vida de cada personaje. Y, bueno, es una narración llena de figuras poéticas y un ritmo bastante particular. Leyéndolo, me encontré pensando en nuestro propio país, en el brazo político que infunde odio entre sus habitantes para mantenerse en el poder. Es un libro espectacular.
La narración se centra en cinco personajes: un artista de circo, un ladrón, un pájaro (así se le dice a los que toman armas para luchar en contra del régimen), un escritor y una violista. Las vidas de los cinco se entrelazan cuando el gobierno frondista decide emboscar un evento musical y cazar pájaros para diversión de un pueblo enceguecido por la crueldad.
El libro es delirante y surreal. Lo compré en una feria porque está traducido por Ana Becciú, poeta argentina a la que adoro. Me conmovió, lloré, reí y me impresionó, sufrí la vida de cada personaje. Y, bueno, es una narración llena de figuras poéticas y un ritmo bastante particular. Leyéndolo, me encontré pensando en nuestro propio país, en el brazo político que infunde odio entre sus habitantes para mantenerse en el poder. Es un libro espectacular.
September 17, 2021
Somehow a book has managed to be both strange and boring. I had strong hopes for this at the very beginning outside the prison but I quickly lost interest and couldn't bring myself to finish this even though it's so short
April 28, 2021
By the middle of the first page, I was up for what could be a heck of a ride. This is an interesting allegorical tale of facing a totalitarian state with a none too bright but apparently charismatic leader, who is able to turn nearly an entire country against everything deemed culturally formative - literature, art, and especially music - backed by an army of thugs dressed in brown shirts, black pants, with red armbands featuring a white circle and a sort of twisted black spider within the circle. While not altogether subtle, the familiarity with that horde helps us understand the many allusions to human-like birds, detested and derided by the Frondists (those who follow the dictator, both officially and socially). I've seen other reviewers suggest that the birds represent the underground, those who are fighting the Frondist regime, but the descriptions of the birds can leave no doubt as to which ethno-religious group they represent.
Humorous and terrifying within the span of a single paragraph, this book is slim and deep enough that it nearly demands an immediate second reading to give a full appreciation to the brilliance of the writing.
Four and a half stars.
Humorous and terrifying within the span of a single paragraph, this book is slim and deep enough that it nearly demands an immediate second reading to give a full appreciation to the brilliance of the writing.
Four and a half stars.
March 26, 2021
While I'm not familiar with the author or his place in French literature, I can say this is an excellent short novel In many ways it reminds me of 20th century Eastern European novels about authoritarian rule: a sense of the absurdity of life in such a world, a savage portrayal of the banality of rulers, and an evocation of the random terror people live with. The book is extremely funny in places and haunting in others.
Volodine also shows us the merger of entertainment and politics, as the climax of the book is a spectacle mounted by the government that combines extreme nationalism, the lowest entertainment, and orchestrated group-hate that spills into violence. Even though the book was written 30 years ago, it is uncomfortably pertinent to current politics.
I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation, but the English is rich and readable.
All in all, this is an important book and highly recommended.
Volodine also shows us the merger of entertainment and politics, as the climax of the book is a spectacle mounted by the government that combines extreme nationalism, the lowest entertainment, and orchestrated group-hate that spills into violence. Even though the book was written 30 years ago, it is uncomfortably pertinent to current politics.
I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation, but the English is rich and readable.
All in all, this is an important book and highly recommended.
Read
June 1, 2021Solo Viola was written in French in 1991 and only recently translated into English by Lia Swope Mitchell with an excellent Foreward by Lionel Ruffel. The Russian-French author, here listed as Antoine Volodine, writes under a number of heteronyms and says this about himself: “One must see and understand Antoine Volodine as a collective signature that undertakes the writings, voices and poems of several other authors. One must understand my physical presence….as the presence of a delegate whose task is to represent the others, my comrades who have been prevented from appearing before you due to their mental distance, their incarceration, or their death. One must allow my presence here as a spokesman.” Solo Viola is one of 49 planned works, only a few of which have been translated into English.
“Reading one of Iakoub Khadjbakiro’s novels often means traveling with no safety equipment, in grave danger, across the hauntings and shames of our time, into the heart of what other people repress and deny.”
The novel takes place in an unknown country, in an invented city. “This is the story of” bird-like humans and human-like birds, musicians, politicians and circus performers. I won’t add any specifics, because the experience won’t be the same if you know too much going in. I’d go so far as to recommend that you not read the Foreward until you’ve finished the novel.
From the Foreward: “You may wish to search on your own for any events that took place on some May 27 in the twentieth century”.
Inventive, moving, harrowing. Recommended.
Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to review the ARC via Netgalley.
“Reading one of Iakoub Khadjbakiro’s novels often means traveling with no safety equipment, in grave danger, across the hauntings and shames of our time, into the heart of what other people repress and deny.”
The novel takes place in an unknown country, in an invented city. “This is the story of” bird-like humans and human-like birds, musicians, politicians and circus performers. I won’t add any specifics, because the experience won’t be the same if you know too much going in. I’d go so far as to recommend that you not read the Foreward until you’ve finished the novel.
From the Foreward: “You may wish to search on your own for any events that took place on some May 27 in the twentieth century”.
Inventive, moving, harrowing. Recommended.
Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to review the ARC via Netgalley.
November 8, 2021
Originally published as Alto Solo in French in 1991, this work by a French author who goes by the pseudonym of Antoine Volodine is building up a body of forty-nine works of post-exoticism. Solo Viola, to my understanding, was among the first of these efforts and some others are under his other heteronyms. Volodine's other heteronyms include Lutz Bassmann, Manuela Draeger and Elli Kronauer. A considerable number of his books have been translated into English, including Bardo or Not Bardo and Eleven Sooty Dreams, which I intend to seek out. Solo Viola is translated by Lia Swope Mitchell.
The foreword by Lionel Ruffel describes post-exoticism as "an imaginary literature, coming from elsewhere and going elsewhere, a literature that proudly claims its status as foreign and strange, that proudly claims its singularity, and that refuses any attribution to a specific and clearly identifiable national literature."
For me, this slim novel read like a work by Kurt Vonnegut, Dubravka Ugrešić, László Krasznahorkai and those satirical Russian masters like Mikhail Bulgakov who masterfully disguised criticism of state. Set in the fictional land of Chamrouche, the population is held sway to the message and power of the Frondists, the baffoonary leader of the Frondists is a past B-list actor called Balynt Zagoebal. The Frondists appeal to the base, xenophobic, boorish instincts; whipping the crowd up into a frenzied slathering mob against negs, spadgers, the literati, classical musicians, emigrants etc. This is of course very much relevant to our world today. Thirty years after this book was first published, populism, fascism and the far right are once again rearing their ugly heads around the world.
I like the elements of the fantastical tale: humans which turn into birds and vice versa, a clown in a circus with necrophobia, members of a classical music quartet, three men just released from prison, a defiant literary writer. In their courageous defiance to authoritarian tyranny also lies a quivering terror, the climactic scene and aftermath is all too realistic.
Solo Viola is challenging to read for several reasons, I think Volodine is what might be termed a 'writer's writer.' Fellow writers will likely appreciate better his experimental format and style, the changes in perspective, the sentence structures, the looping narrative. Reading this takes concentration but in the right frame of mind, it can be an intellectual and visceral treat.
Thanks to University of Minnesota Press and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
The foreword by Lionel Ruffel describes post-exoticism as "an imaginary literature, coming from elsewhere and going elsewhere, a literature that proudly claims its status as foreign and strange, that proudly claims its singularity, and that refuses any attribution to a specific and clearly identifiable national literature."
For me, this slim novel read like a work by Kurt Vonnegut, Dubravka Ugrešić, László Krasznahorkai and those satirical Russian masters like Mikhail Bulgakov who masterfully disguised criticism of state. Set in the fictional land of Chamrouche, the population is held sway to the message and power of the Frondists, the baffoonary leader of the Frondists is a past B-list actor called Balynt Zagoebal. The Frondists appeal to the base, xenophobic, boorish instincts; whipping the crowd up into a frenzied slathering mob against negs, spadgers, the literati, classical musicians, emigrants etc. This is of course very much relevant to our world today. Thirty years after this book was first published, populism, fascism and the far right are once again rearing their ugly heads around the world.
I like the elements of the fantastical tale: humans which turn into birds and vice versa, a clown in a circus with necrophobia, members of a classical music quartet, three men just released from prison, a defiant literary writer. In their courageous defiance to authoritarian tyranny also lies a quivering terror, the climactic scene and aftermath is all too realistic.
Solo Viola is challenging to read for several reasons, I think Volodine is what might be termed a 'writer's writer.' Fellow writers will likely appreciate better his experimental format and style, the changes in perspective, the sentence structures, the looping narrative. Reading this takes concentration but in the right frame of mind, it can be an intellectual and visceral treat.
Thanks to University of Minnesota Press and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
May 9, 2021
Thanks NetGalley, University of Minnesota Press and Antoine Volodine for a copy to review.
First published in French an 1991, this is nothing like I ever read before.
A powerful intense novella taking place in a fictional world, interesting and engaging but not for your typical reader indeed.
Personally I liked it.
First published in French an 1991, this is nothing like I ever read before.
A powerful intense novella taking place in a fictional world, interesting and engaging but not for your typical reader indeed.
Personally I liked it.
October 19, 2021
Volodine es una de las mayores sorpresas que conocí últimamente. Solo de viola puede ser "menor" que Ángeles Menores, pero sigue siendo Volodine y eso es decir música.
April 22, 2021
Solo Viola, a tiny book filled with Big ideas written by Antoine Volodine, receives a brand new translation to be released at yet another politically appropriate juncture. It features a motley cast of characters in a world controlled by a clownish and bombastic authoritarian figure (familiar?) and surrealist yet highly lovely prose.
However, I've rated this a three! Personally, I couldn't ever get drawn into the story 100%, or find myself relating to any of the characters. Perhaps this is my privilege talking or naivety, or maybe it just wasn't my cup of parable this time. This shouldn't detract from the timely nature of the message, and it's a quick enough read where it's not so much of a time suck to give it a shot to see if you feel differently from me.
**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Univ Of Minnesota Press**
However, I've rated this a three! Personally, I couldn't ever get drawn into the story 100%, or find myself relating to any of the characters. Perhaps this is my privilege talking or naivety, or maybe it just wasn't my cup of parable this time. This shouldn't detract from the timely nature of the message, and it's a quick enough read where it's not so much of a time suck to give it a shot to see if you feel differently from me.
**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Univ Of Minnesota Press**
December 25, 2025
There is a form of French fiction, derived from Surrealism and Post-Structuralism, that is legible in the original French but struggles with opacity when translated to English. Volodine’s odd novelette wants to be both poignant and political, and is both those things in its way. But there are two many characters, all with strangely unpronounceable names, and things that seem both like magic realism and tortured metaphor at the same time. As a portrait of the artist in an authoritarian state, however, it also feels close to the bone at the moment. So if you prefer your chamber music without an accompanying bloodbath, or like to be able to distinguish between human beings and birds, this might not be to your taste. As you can tell from the above, it left me with a mix of empathy and annoyance.
January 28, 2025
Grabbed by accident an interesting post-exoticism, the first time that I’ve heard this genre, a dystopian novella written by Antoine Volodine, one of his many pen names, Solo Viola (1991).
A damn wicked read, about a music conductor that plays the viola but is put on trial by an oppressive government that claims he is using music as a secret way to inspire people to rebel against the actual government.
It is a very thought-provoking book, you do have to read between the lines. In simple terms it’s about standing up against power through creativity even when you know you will certainly lose.
A damn wicked read, about a music conductor that plays the viola but is put on trial by an oppressive government that claims he is using music as a secret way to inspire people to rebel against the actual government.
It is a very thought-provoking book, you do have to read between the lines. In simple terms it’s about standing up against power through creativity even when you know you will certainly lose.
June 2, 2022
Devastating but beautifully written. A timeless (and unfortunately also timely) account of the cruelty with which humans continue to treat each other.
This passage really stood out for me:
"Their number can be explained by economic and social factors, but it takes courage to complete the explanation, to say something instinctive, doubtless inscribed in the genetic heritage of the species, compels the great masses of humanity to condone that which promises desolation and carnage." -p22
I'm still digesting all my feelings about this book, which I think pays testament to its value.
This passage really stood out for me:
"Their number can be explained by economic and social factors, but it takes courage to complete the explanation, to say something instinctive, doubtless inscribed in the genetic heritage of the species, compels the great masses of humanity to condone that which promises desolation and carnage." -p22
I'm still digesting all my feelings about this book, which I think pays testament to its value.
March 3, 2022
There were times I was left in awe of the writing, reminiscent of Marcel Proust, and other times, I was left going, “Huh?” I am all for weird in writing, but there were times I was left a bit baffled. Maybe it was a problem of reading it in translation. I was also left a bit bored at times with this book.
June 27, 2021
This book reminded me of Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'. Being in the fictional world that is ruled under a dictatorship, the characters' voice explores survival, identity and the outcomes of tyranny.
Thank you NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for giving me the opportunity to read this.
Thank you NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for giving me the opportunity to read this.
November 4, 2025
un llibre super curiós, pels seus personatges, per la narració, però no tant pel que es narra, que no es curiós si no que molt real (vaia lio de frase no se escriure, per algu que sap escriure suposo que ja teniu a l’antoine)
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