Product Description

A Best Book of the Year

The Investigator, a humble and ordinary man, has been ordered to conduct an Investigation into a series of suicides that have taken place at the Enterprisea huge, sprawling complex in an unnamed Town. But the Investigators train is delayed. When he finally arrives, no one is there to meet him at the station. When he reaches the Enterprise, he is denied entrance. The harder the Investigator tries to fulfill his task, the more senseless obstacles he encounters: regulations hamstring him, street layouts befuddle him, andperhaps most unnervinglyhe senses someone watching and recording his every movement. In this highly original and absorbing work, Claudel turns his masterful storytelling toward a sweeping critique of the contemporary world. Like Kafka, Beckett, and Huxley, Claudels dark fable shows that the most looming questions of our time can only be countered with piercing intelligence and considerable humor.