The most ambitious novel of the century that I've read (so far)

I don't think I'm giving anything away, especially in that Mathias Enard's Zone (2008) is not exactly plot driven (the plot such as it is entails a man riding a train to Rome where he intends to turn over to the Vatican a cache of documents naming war criminals from across Europe and the Mediterranean) but the novel ends pretty much in the only way it can: a freeze-frame, reminiscent of the end of a Truffault movie, perhaps. Whether that's satisfactory or not after such a long journey - 500+ pp in the mind and consciousness of Francis, a French spy, who plans to take on a new name, Yvand (?) and a new life - is immaterial. We have learned so much over the course of the supposed 3-hour journey, a panopticon of the horrors, pogroms, deportations and war crimes over the past century of history - w/ occasional references the Homeric epics as well - that at the end most readers will feel drained and shaken and guilty about all human transgressions. In the final chapters of Zone we learn some key info about the narrator: How he chose the identity that he plans to assume, what war crime he committed while serving w/ the Croat army, why his girlfriend - fellow spy Stephanie - has abandoned him, what actually happened on the night in Venice when he had a brush w/ death. These details help complete the picture of the narrator, but, like any true secret agent, he remains at the end a mystery and a cypher. In my view this book merits the comparisons it's received - comparisons with Melville, Joyce, even Homer, and other; it's the most ambitious 21st-centry novel I've read so far, and I would agree w/ the author of the brief preface - Brian Evenson - that readers should not be put off by Enard's unusual style - the entire novel consists of a single sentence - as the writing is surprisingly easy to follow and in fact it has a nice and steady pace that, as Evenson notes, is well suited to the onward rush of an intercity, high-speed train. Yet: This novel is demanding and not something to take up lightly, filled as it is w/ references to atrocities and massive deaths in war and in political, racist oppression. I'd encourage all serious readers to give it a try, but know what you're getting into beforehand.