Review of Cocteau’s Invitation by Erik Martiny

This was unexpected and slightly uncalled for

You know those Yorgos Lanthimos movies. This is a little like that. You ask yourself, wait, what? But you keep reading. This is a meta narrative that starts out as a typical literary pseudo-romance, featuring the creepy narrator going after a too-young student, somehow succeeding, introducing the reader to some fetishes which are indulged, commented upon, and then it flips into an entirely different narrative, revealing itself as a frame network of interlocking storytelling devices. We end up back in time, meeting Cocteau, a character which may be based on the real-life figure, but unless you’re very familiar with the French playwright and poet, you will have trouble separating fact from fiction. The bumbling new protagonist falls into a idolizing slavery to the predator literary giant who sends him on a far-flung mission to Indochina.
I don’t consider any of these things spoilers. You will either shut the book within a few pages or you will be riveted the entire time. This kind of loose storytelling is not for the average reader. This is not the most approachable work by this author, nor is it the most savory nor perhaps his best, but there is quite a bit of food for thought between the covers.
A little like Midnight in Paris, but with more gritty Realism thrown in. The protagonist’s confusing relationship with a venomous snake, and his self-sabotaging behavior may throw many readers for a loop. But Martiny is always astute and polished, veering into insane descriptions quite suddenly. His writing is unfailingly vivid, even when it is purposefully ambiguous or misdirecting.
If you enjoy the works of Marcel Schwab, I find a few parallels here. The author is steeped in Paris culture and history, but brings a global sensibility to bear. He is rather old-fashioned in not caring about current trends, not shoehorning in contemporaneous concerns. He does not let an agenda pollute his narrative freedom. Instead he composes a riotous work, more compelling than anything Milan Kundera wrote, full of the types of surprises you rarely find outside of a small press production. Perhaps one day his books will be part of NYRB classics – at least I like to hope so, since I enjoy them about as much as those cheeky volumes.