Among the most ambitious works of literary fiction of the century - Zone

It's difficult to summarize the narrative of Mathais Enard's novel Zone (2008), in that doing so misses the whole point of the narration. As noted in previous posts, this ambitious and monumental novel is told as a stream of consciousness of a man - Francis, but traveling under a pseudonym on a fake French passport - as he heads by train from Milan to Rome where he intends to deliver a suitcase to someone from the Vatican; the suitcase contains discs and documents presumably identifying numerous war criminals and collaborators across Europe. Unlike most novels, this narrative does not give us a straightforward back story nor a clearly delineated plot line; it truly unfolds like the process of a man thinking about his life. At first, the novel feels hazy and unclear - though vivid in its particular accounts of certain scenes; as you progress through the novel, things fall into place and we get a more comprehensive picture of this man and his life. So in brief summary - recognizing that this goes against the spirit of this novel: Francis, born to a French father and Croat mother, volunteers to serve in the Croat military and fights against the Serb forces (early 90s?), where he traumatically witness the death in battle of his best friend, Andri; Francis later, encouraged by his father, applies to work in the diplomatic core. He's rejected, but is welcomed into the French secret service, i.e., the equivalent of our CIA. He wonders at first whether they know about his war experiences; of course they do! After several years of tedious work on dox and records, he gets assigned to several dangerous missions, leading him to witness the dark side of wars and struggles in Europe, the mid East, and North Africa (where his father had also served and perhaps committed war crimes). These experiences in what he calls "the Zone," combined w/ his voracious reading, make him aware of war crimes across the century and to a lesser extent reaching farther back into history (all the way to Homer), which seems to be what motivates him to turn over secret records to the Vatican and then to go off on a new life under the assumed name. In doing so, he leaves behind a woman he'd been close to (Stephanie?), who worked w/ him in the ministry - but he's apparently a loner, like many spies, who cuts off ties to everyone. His knowledge of - which is to say, Enard's knowledge of - war crimes and military history is astonishing, and all of the war scenes (including some from Israel that we read of in a few brief chapters that show the book he's reading while on the night train) are powerful, compelling, and frighteningly credible. Enard's is among the most ambitious works of literary fiction of this century; it's probably not for all readers - neither is Ulysses, for that matter - but those who are serious about contemporary literary fiction should give it a serious look.