Hortense Is Abducted     by Jacques Roubaud, Translated by Dominic DiBernardi Original title: Enlèvement d'Hortense Published by Dalkey Archive Press Pub. Date: November 1, 2000 Format: Paperback, 229 pages ISBN: 1564782565 List Price: $12.50 buy now directly from the publisher Free Shipping Worldwide Published by Dalkey Archive Press Pub. Date: May 1, 1989 Format: Cloth, 229 pages ISBN: 0916583384 List Price: $19.95 buy now directly from the publisher Free Shipping Worldwide

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The second installment in Roubaud's popular and widely acclaimed "Hortense" series opens with a murder of a dog at the Church of Sainte-Gudule. Chief Inspector Blognard and his sidekick Arap de are on the scene, as is our narrator, Jacques Roubaud. While they track down the Poldevian criminal, teenage girls argue the relative merits of the boy bands Dew-Pon Dew-Val and Landau Valley, P re Sinouls tries to program a computer to take his place at the organ so that he can continue to practice Beeranalysis, and the clientele of the Gudule Bar debate the reality of I nfinity. Time is running out for the Inspector, however, as the murderer puts into action his plot to kidnap our heroine Hortense, a 22-year-old philosophy student whose buttocks are so beautiful their description has been banned from the printed page.

"A witty and sexy page-turner."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post

"Roubaud seduces with felicitous—and feline—humor . . . evoking the spirits of his countryman Rabelais, of Flann O'Brien, Jorge Luis Borges, Gilbert Sorrentino, Julio Cortzar, Umberto Eco, Tom Robbins."—Los Angeles Times

"If Mel Brooks, Lewis Carroll and Alfred Jarry were forced at gunpoint to collaborate on a mystery, the result might be something like Hortense Is Abducted. . . . It's a grand stunt."—Chicago Tribune

"I admit that it is a delicate matter, perhaps even indelicate, but in no way thoughtless, I do insist—to greet the reader with the classic journalistic line of: 'If you were going to read only one book this year, here you go, this is the one.' "— Le Journal Littraire

"Those who decide to read this book on a bus or a train should be forewarned: uncontrollable bursts of laughter will seize you at any time!"—Library Journal

"Clever. . . . There's plenty of fun to go around, and it is a pleasure to be led by Mr. Roubaud."—Colin Walters, Washington Times

"Quirky, mischievous, off-the-wall. . . . Roubaud is not your ordinary writer. And that's his extraordinary attraction."—Columbus Dispatch

"Impishly fantastic."—Atlantic Monthly

"Hortense Is Abducted gives a resolutely new perspective on a reality which we wonder afterwards if all the other novels we have read have not lied about."—Le Soir

"Although Hortense Is Abducted is a mystery with a plot literally as intricate as a sestina, its real fascination lies in Jacques R oubaud's conversational asides, inside jokes and self-referential wordplay. . . . A good deal of amusement."—New York Times Book Review

"For Jacques Roubaud, writing is a game, thus an activity that is as serious, amusing and codified as mathematics or th e physical sciences. The author chooses his reader as partner . . . and begins by telling him a charming tale. . . . The result: you are won over by a powerful, irresistible joie de vivre, a delight in laughter. And in reading."—Telerama