Prose. Part of Avec's new Pivotal Prose Series, BENCHING WITH VIRGIL wraps the mystery back inside the enigma. The Narrator's obsessive, Beckett-like observations seem to go nowhere in particular, yet the reader does journey around Paris, does recall a girl reading on a bench, does overhear strange conversations between Mr. Laurel and Bergson (Hardy is busy hanging curtains), and does get to the crime scene just in time to be murdered -- by the narrator. In Hollander's writing, the stream-called-consciousness flows beautifully, deceptively, and continuously. Far more than mere digressions, these are the markings of a writer on the track of thought, deconstructing his own deductions, pinpointing the elusive presence of the reader at every twist in the bend. Gad Hollander, a filmmaker who lives in London, is the author of WALSERIAN WALTZES, also available from SPD.