Tuesday's books - Lauriane Pipoz
Reading the synopsis of The Anomaly, I'm expecting a thriller. A bit of science fiction. A thriller. A philosophical novel. I'm (almost) right, because it is all these things, but not entirely. Hervé Le Tellier offers us a masterly work in which literary genres mingle. Leaping from one to the other, the 2020 Goncourt prizewinner has fun showing us that to make a fascinating work, there's no need to rely on absolute coherence.
«In thirty minutes," continues Tina Wang, "we'll give you a list of scientists. Two or three philosophers, too.
- Why?" asks Silveria.
- And why should scientists always be the only ones awake at night? Silveria shrugs.
- Don't back down on any names, I have full authority to kidnap every Nobel Prize winner present in the territory.»
Plausibility is an essential criterion for drawing readers into a story of over 300 pages and so many characters. As the back cover aptly sums up, it features a «senseless event»: in June 2021, a plane splits up. With 243 people on board. And so, 243 «doubles» land in exactly the same place, three months after the arrival of flight AF006 Paris-New York. The novel catapults us into the shoes of eleven of these characters, first before the flight, then after the landing.
But the journey itself is not the book's main interest. We also meet the experts responsible for managing the task force whose mission is to come up with a coherent explanation to avoid panic among the population. Beings present on Earth in duplicate - can you imagine the kind of excesses that could lead to? And of course, we'll also have to limit the psychological damage to the passengers, confronted with their double with whom they'll have to share their entourage, their savings, their material possessions... In short, all the logistical and/or philosophical problems that the appearance of a double that is none other than ourselves can create.
«The head of Psychological Operations is worried. The straight road hates the pothole and the obscure hates the unexplained. The immobility of the Law stubbornly clashes with the waltz of the cosmos and the advance of knowledge. Where in the Torah, the New Testament, the Koran or other revealed texts can we find the slightest sentence, ambiguous sura or obscure verse, which predicts or justifies the appearance in the sky of an airplane identical in every way to another, which landed three months earlier?»
The secret life of doubles
This last theme is the common thread running through Hervé Le Tellier's work. Even if it remains difficult to define unequivocally. In each story within a story, we discover a hidden facet of the characters' lives, be it a shameful passion, dark aggressions kept secret, a panic fear of old age, an unassumed sexuality or even a double life. While some secrets will be taken to the protagonists' graves, others will come to light. But what they all have in common is that they are likely to make these eleven human beings reflect on the choices they have made in their lives, sometimes inspiring shame or guilt.
The enthusiasm I felt when I read this book also stemmed from one central point: the humor. How funny this book is! Mixing sarcasm, wordplay, irony about topical issues and comical situations arising from the little everyday frustrations we all experience, this serious subject is approached in a spirit of playfulness. This is certainly due to the author's pleasure in imagining and writing this story. A member of the Oulipo, this playful treatment does not exempt him from literary constraints. The book is very well documented on a number of subjects, including physics, religious history and international relations. This fusion of various disciplines, coupled with the abundance of literary genres, can give the impression of an exploded novel, strongly reminiscent of surrealism. While this will be highly enjoyable for some - I love it! -others may find themselves lost among the concepts of a Le Tellier whose aim is not to offer explanations to the reader, but to leave him or her to seek answers for themselves...if they exist at all.
The author has succeeded in anchoring his work in our times, drawing inspiration from reality to turn it slightly on its head and make us realize that, yes, if our existence is indeed important, there is certainly something absurd about it. A case in point is the inexplicable death of Le Tellier's literary double, whom he placed on the plane and who gave him the opportunity to make a mise en abyme of the creation of The AnomalyIf he can't explain his seemingly senseless gesture, who can?
Read also | Not all men inhabit the world in the same wayWhat does the 2019 Goncourt have to say?
This idea, and the way the novel closes, is what allows me to say that, beneath the multiple genres and sometimes scattered stories of the characters, there are common threads running through this novel. Numerous links can be woven between chapters, and certain figures - absurdly, Mickey Mouse, for example! - come back. The book's ending has left and may leave some of you wanting more. However, it also gives us clues to the heart of the matter, i.e., the confrontation of each person with his or her own choices, which are sometimes logical and predictable, and other times completely incomprehensible. What would you change?
Write to the author: lauriane.pipoz@leregardlibre.com
Photo credit: Francesca Montovani/Editions Gallimard
Hervé Le Tellier
The Anomaly
Editions Gallimard
2020
332 pages
French 
German 
English