Chez Max
Jakob Arjouni
Published: Diogenes Verlag
Zürich, 2006
Kerstin Schoof
Translation: Anne Foster
Fans of crime fiction know Jakob Arjouni mainly through his romans
noirs featuring the Turkish detective Kayankaya, but the
author, who lives in the South of France has also published non-crime
novels and collections of short stories.
Set in the future, Arjounis latest
book is part science fiction, part psychodrama and part thriller.
As a cover, the first-person narrator and French Secret Service
agent Max Schwarzwald, runs an upmarket restaurant specialising
in German cuisine. He is responsible for the 11th arrondissement
in which his shop is located and has to get to criminals before
they can commit their crimes. He's an easy-going chap with not
much motivation and unspectacular results. He has a difficult relationship
with his partner Chen, a crime-fighting legend and insufferable
pain in the neck. When Chen himself comes to the attention of the
security services, Max sees his chance…
Chez Max can be read as a protest against
the current obsession with security. Individuals are classified using
psychological profiles of murderers, which inevitably creates a comprehensive
state surveillance and spy system. The protagonist Max feels that
the end justifies the means when that end is the common good. But
the end is always the ideological self-interest of a wealthy community
of states which cannot be questioned because of extensive thought
control.
In spite of, or perhaps because of, its topicality and its explicit
references to real life events, Arjounis vision of the future sometimes
falters on its own fuzzy self-logic. The novel is described as philosophical-psychological,
in which the consequences of the policies of the industrial nations
and the war on terror are played out, but without any unpredictable
or conflicting elements being introduced into the scenario. As a
consequence Paris in the year 2064 and restaurant-owner Max remain
rather vague and intangible.
Nonetheless the tension of Chez Max reflects
that within the protagonist and makes the book difficult to put down.
Even after the ideal world in which Max lives is restored, the reader
is left.
