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Our latest review is a piece I wrote about Benoit Duteurtre’s Customer Service (translated from the French by Bruce Benderson), which is part of Melville House Press’s fantastic Contemporary Art of the Novella series.
It’s a pretty funny book that a lot of people will be able to relate to:
The novella opens with the hapless narrator leaving his cell phone in a taxi. In his mind, this is an easy enough problem to solve—all he has to do is get a replacement phone and he’ll be on his way. For anyone who’s ever dealt with a cell phone company (i.e., everyone), it’s never that simple. As the narrator finds our, the new phone will cost four times as much as the original, and without his SIM card, he won’t be able to keep his phone number, and besides, his account doesn’t allow for a replacement phone—he’ll have to open a new account and pay for both until the original contract expires.
Refusing to give in to this insanity, he decides upon another approach—getting in touch with Leslie Delmare, Director of Customer Service, who had sent him a letter granting him “preferred customer” status, which must count for something, right?
“Once I’d arrived at this third level in the pyramid, however, I understood that I couldn’t climb any higher: The middle manager tried to dodge my request; then, seeing that I wouldn’t give up, explained to me in a patient voice that Leslie Delmare, in charge of customer service, didn’t exist. It was just a name invented for the signature. The only person who could take care of my problem was imaginary. This woman’s words threw me back, mind ricocheting, to all those powerless operators who couldn’t make the slightest decision but were forced just to repeat the phrases they’d been taught.” [Click here for the rest of the review.]
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