The Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula (La Nbuleuse du crabe) is comprised of fifty-two vivid chapters that provide startling insights into the existence of this nebulous man named Crab: his nightmarishand none too solidphysique, his mysterious absence from the pages of history, his birth in prison, his never having been born at all. In his portrait of Crab, ric Chevillard gives us a character who is genuinely strange and curiously like ourselves. A postmodernist novel par excellence, The Crab Nebula parodies literary conventions, deconstructs narrative and meaning, and brilliantly combines absurdity and hopelessness with irony and humor. What distinguishes it most of all is the startling originality of Chevillards voice and vision. There is whimsy and despair in this novel, pathos and laughter, satire and warm affection. The Crab Nebula is the fifth noveland the first to be translated into Englishby the brilliant young French author ric Chevillard. His sympathetic yet outrageous portrait of Crab calls to mind works by Melville, Valry, and Kafka, while never being less than utterly unique.