Book

Dans le règles de l’art

Makis Malafekas

4/5

Perfect summer read

Pulp fiction meets social satire in this easy and amusing pseudo-crime novel set during a hot summer in Athens. Not yet available in English, I have read it in the excellent French translation by Nicolas Pallier. The French title Dans le règles de l’art means ‘According to the rules of art’, while the original Δε λες κουβέντα means ‘You keep discretion’ referencing a popular Greek song. It is worth noting that the author Makis Malafekas (Μάκης Μαλαφέκας) was in the running for the European Union prize for literature for 2025 for his latest novel Deepfake. Perhaps this will result in some of his work being belatedly translated into English.

In this first book of a trilogy, Michalis Krokos, the author’s alter ego, comes back to Athens for the launch of his book on Coltrane. But his life gets taken over by intrigue surrounding the large art festival Documenta which is taking over the Greek capital during the summer of 2017 while the Greek economic troubles continue to simmer in the shadows. You get a palpable sense of resentment of a nation facing ongoing financial obstacles and still nevertheless continuing to live in the same way it always had, free and sometimes decadent. And who can blame them.

The descriptions of the summer heat are deliciously funny, and so are those of vacuous art connoisseurs, taxi drivers, tourists, alcohol and drug-fuelled wanderings around the city and of Germans and their attitudes towards Greece. Malafekas places his hero on the margins, free from the ties that bind all the beautiful people who have sold their souls to the devil when they started working for the art market. Perhaps the ludicrous global art market is an easy target, but the pronouncements of the beautiful people are still hilarious in their quasi-erudite gullibility. The money laundering underpinning the global art market is a worthy target of Malafekas’ scorn, but he reserves sharper mockery for those who work in the field and naively facilitate the turning of the wheels. In the words of the author, there is all this energy generated by all these people which doesn’t go anywhere.

The story follows the disappearance of a canvas valuable for reasons that are nothing to do with art and the subsequent disappearance of one and murder of another person associated with Documenta. Reluctantly drawn into elucidating the intrigue, due of his infatuation with a woman, Krokos survives the attempt on his life via ridiculously unbelievable but enjoyable twists and turns. Things tend to start happening very late at night after many peaceful shots of whiskey in one joint or another.

The initial chapter describing flying into Athens surrounded by a variety of characters sets the scene well eliciting curiosity to find out how the story will develop. The writing is easy, colloquial, macho but self-mocking, enacting the male fantasy of being a free bachelor forever. Italian reviewer called it Mediterranean noir and the label fits well. What I particularly liked is that the satire is understated and yet probing and precise behind the visions of an everyday Athens in the sun. Notable colourful characters include a super-rich debauched Scot (based on the music producer Stephan Colloredo-Mansfeld), a transvestite informer, and a taxi driver who like so many taxi drivers around the world is heavily invested in conspiracy theories. But as they say, just because you are paranoid, that doesn’t mean that no one is following you. 

Translated into French by Nicolas Pallier