Mr. Mee [Paperback]

Andrew Crumey is one of a new type of British writers, more interested in a tradition exemplified by Borges, Calvino, Barthelme, and Kundera, than another suburban study of the humdrum lives of humdrum people. (Dan Rhodes is another writing in this way) In reviews elsewhere on these pages I have made reference to his place within this seam of writing, the novel of ideas.

Crumey is an exemplary model in this regard. His previous novels include Music in a foreign language (a Calvinoesque look at fiction and love); Pfitz; and D'Alembert's Principle (the latter two books in a loosely related triptych on memory, reason, and imagination concluded by this novel). In this novel there are echoes of these earlier works throughout, and their themes, and some of the characters and ideas, permeate this new novel. And like those previous works this novel is a Chinese box. This time there are three interlinking narratives - Mr Mee's own introduction to the internet and Rosier's Encyclopaedia; the story of two copyists that disturb Jean Jacques Rousseau's peaceful retreat (Ferrand and Minard, two characters referred to fleetingly in Rousseau's Confessions, that have something of man of Porlock of them); and the confession of an academic studying eighteenth century French fiction. The strands come together wonderfully.

Crumey's fiction taps the rich source of eighteenth century French philosophical thinking (as well as modern variants). However, to refer to this gives a misleading impression of the novel. His work is clever, but his intellect is worn lightly. The novels set you thinking. But, most importantly, Andrew Crumey is very funny. Like his previous novels this is witty and charming.

Andrew Crumey gets better and better. I very much look forward to his next work.

The novel is distinguished by a complex intertextuality in which three separate narratives weave in and out of each other, connecting, confirming, contradicting. The first is the epistolary record of Mr. Mee, an elderly antiquarian in search of the elusive and possibly apocryphal Rosiers Encyclopedia. The second (and finest) of the three narratives chronicles the adventures of Ferrand and Minard, two bumbling characters who are forced to flee Paris after a commission to copy the Encyclopedia involves them in murder and conspiracy. The third concerns a literature professor's preoccupations with issues of memory and imagination as he contemplates seducing one of his students.

Although there are some distracting philosophical asides and some forced humor, Crumey manages to create a playfully inventive fiction that examines the intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment in light of information theory and quantum mechanics. If that sounds interesting to you, by all means proceed. If not, you'll be better off looking elsewhere.