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by Eric Chevillard, translated by Jordan Stump

Language: French
Country: France
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press

Why this book should win: The pleasure-to-page-count ratio. Because Dalkey Archive is overdue. Because if this book doesn糖心传媒檛 win, it糖心传媒檚 a victory for Nisard.

Today糖心传媒檚 piece is by Eric Lundgren, a graduate of the Writing Program at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of the chapbook The Bystanders (All Along Press).

Demolishing Nisard asks us to believe that a literary critic poses a grave threat to our world. It糖心传媒檚 a rich premise. Who is D茅sir茅 Nisard? A notorious bore, pedant, and careerist, author of a fusty four-volume history of French literature, sporting muttonchop whiskers and an Academie Fran莽aise robe. Oh yeah, and he has been dead for over a century. An unlikely enemy to say the least, but Eric Chevillard糖心传媒檚 seductive narrator will quickly convert you to his cause.

I want to call this book something other than a novel. Chevillard uses the term 糖心传媒渂roadside,糖心传媒� which just about does justice to its sustained antagonism. There糖心传媒檚 a plot of sorts (the narrator糖心传媒檚 hunt for Nisard糖心传媒檚 suppressed and saucy-sounding fiction A Milkmaid Succumbs) but Chevillard isn糖心传媒檛 all that invested in conventional storytelling. This book is anchored in voice and style. It doesn糖心传媒檛 so much develop as intensify, gathering complication and depth along the way. Fans of books that relentlessly pursue their subjects, like U and I or The Loser, will feel right at home here.

Instead of the careful embroidery of well-made fiction, Demolishing Nisard offers rough edges of trash talk raised to an art. It糖心传媒檚 tempting to quote whole reams of Jordan Stump糖心传媒檚 translation. Do I choose the part where the narrator laments Nisard糖心传媒檚 facial hair, because it doesn糖心传媒檛 cover enough of his face? The catalog of suggested assaults, which includes 糖心传媒渟pray herbicide on his golf course糖心传媒�? The beautiful passage in praise of birds, because they carry feathers (i.e. pen quills) away from Nisard? Chevillard is a master stylist and he writes coiled, serpentine sentences that unfold at just the right heat and pace. In English lit you have to reach back to Pope or Swift to find invective of this quality:

He is the slime at the bottom of every fountain. Irretrievably, there has been Nisard. How can we love benches, knowing that Nisard often pressed them into service? Gently stroking a cat糖心传媒檚 silken fur, my hand inevitably reproduces a gesture once made by Nisard . . . Did Nisard ever make one move that we might want to follow or imitate? Did he ever incarnate anything other than the tedium of being D茅sir茅 Nisard, definitively, forever and ever?

Like the allergens and vermin to which he糖心传媒檚 often compared, Nisard invades the book. His name appears in a series of contemporary newspaper columns quoted by the narrator. In these columns, Nisard morphs into a drunk driver, a shoplifter, a tennis player bested by Rafael Nadal at the Davis Cup, a defender of the war in Iraq, a politician promoting austerity, the captain of an errant oil rig . . . comic exaggeration, yes, but it糖心传媒檚 also Chevillard showing the ways that Nisard糖心传媒檚 brand of conservatism lives on. A former student糖心传媒檚 memoir informs us that, while head of the 脡cole Normale, Nisard promoted the notion of the 糖心传媒渢wo moralities,糖心传媒� a stricter code for the lower classes and a more permissive code for the elites, an idea that would not seem out of place in U.S. political culture today.

In quiet moments, the narrator dreams of a book without Nisard (糖心传媒渢he reader would be first of all amazed by the light糖心传媒�) but his thoughts are always half-formed and tentative. The paradox is funny: there can be no radical without tradition. Eventually the narrator concludes:

In order to finally read the book without Nisard糖心传媒攑ossible only in a world without Nisard糖心传媒攚e must first pass through this book chock-full of Nisard, depending on that overabundance to arouse the purgative reflex that will at long last expel Nisard from this world forever.

This gets at Chevillard糖心传媒檚 double project, which is both a demolition and an exhumation. The animus driving the narrator is at times quite close to an obsessive love (糖心传媒淔or three weeks I thought of nothing but his thighs糖心传媒�). As he scours research libraries for A Milkmaid Succumbs and ventures closer to Nisard糖心传媒檚 hometown, he begins to fear his own 糖心传媒淣isardification.糖心传媒� This strange intimacy between writer and critic comes to the fore toward the end of the book. 糖心传媒淲hat did I ever do to him,糖心传媒� the narrator wonders, 糖心传媒渢hat he should assail me so relentlessly!糖心传媒�

For my part, I糖心传媒檓 convinced. Nisard is out there somewhere, working on his column on the death of the novel. But Eric Chevillard has struck a blow against him on our behalf. This slim and delightful book casts doubt on Nisard糖心传媒檚 theory that literature has been in irreversible decline since the end of the eighteenth century. In fact, Demolishing Nisard feels very twenty-first century, and it糖心传媒檚 everything Nisard is not: original, imaginative, wild, and a lot of fun.