Suffice it to say that every move of the game, every ironic consequence, is precisely and prettily delineated. Memory is clearly not his forte, though perhaps there is, in his kingly name and his erstwhile politics, a trace of Soviet history. Without meaning to, Jean-Marc colludes in this permanent state of amnesia, having no curiosity about Chantal's previous existence as a wife and the mother of a deceased child. At the end of 'The Hitchhiking Game', when the girl's body betrays its soul, forcing her to enjoy loveless sex, she is said to have crossed a boundary, to have entered the dictatorship of sensation. Perhaps because of the Channel Tunnel, so freighted with Plutonian symbolism.
Identity is short, brilliant, and a joy to read.
Perhaps it is greedy to miss the shock of revelation I experienced when I first read 'The Hitchhiking Game' all those years ago.