Creation Lake review: Rachel Kushner’s climate change novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, is top-notch

creation lake
Rachel Kushner (Jonathan Cape (UK, September 5); Scribner (USA, September 3))

creation lake Written by Rachel Kushner, it’s part thriller, part spy, part comedy, and part poetic depiction of human history, stretching back to the beginnings of humanity. homo sapiensshared the Earth with Neanderthals. This is a sensationally entertaining novel, and rightly on the long list for the Man Booker Prize.

The story is narrated by the antihero Sadie Smith (pseudonym). She is a secret American agent working for a shady employer who is sent to France to infiltrate and ultimately destroy Le Moulin, a group of environmental activists whose members are known as the Moulinards.

Sadie begins to approach her work in a completely unethical manner. First, she seduces a man named Lucien, who has ties to activists. A few months later, she secures a job with the Moulinard family and heads to Lucien’s family home, conveniently located in Guyenne, southwestern France, where Le Moulin is based.

Although the roof is leaking, the house itself is a perfect screen for keeping an eye on her prey, a job made easier by her high-powered military binoculars and a case full of high-tech kit.

The structure of the novel is wonderful. We follow Sadie as she makes her way into the understandably paranoid Mrinal community. We also feel a deep-seated resentment towards those who try to retrace her life, run through the backlist of her operations, and (justifiably) expose her. We gradually realize that the apparently super-professional operatives are taking unnecessary and dangerous risks. In fact, is she a weak young woman hanging by a thread, or is she a grenade with the pin pulled out? Or both?

Moving back and forth, these two threads are equally fascinating, each informing the other with perfect dramatic timing. But the third part of the book concerns the emails of a much older man, and that becomes the heart of the book.

Sadie hacks Le Moulin’s group email account so she can read all the messages she receives from someone named Bruno Lacombe. He is the group’s mentor and inspiration, so it’s only natural that she pays special attention to his emails.

In his message, Bruno expresses his views on the superiority and inferiority of Neanderthals. homo sapiens And his life living alone in a Neanderthal cave. He also lectures the Mrinal family on the history of the Guyenne region.

As a plot device, these emails have every right not to work. But just like Sadie, we soon learn to read them avidly. We quickly learn that it is the relationship between Sadie and Bruno (albeit one that only she knows about) that is at the emotional center of the novel.

She is more interested in him and what he has to say than anyone else in the Moulinal family. Maybe she’ll run into him before the surgery in France is over?

I found Bruno’s musings on Neanderthals particularly fascinating, even if biased and unscientific. Probably because I read it while traveling. new scientist A tour through the prehistoric art of northern Spain. The oldest works of art there are thought to be by Neanderthals, but no matter how different (or different) they may be from us, Bruno’s passion is evocatively captured. I am.

I can’t say much more without spoiling the high-octane story. As for Sadie, does she deserve our sympathy and what do the events of this book leave her as a person? Looking forward to reading this again and maybe understanding it.

I also recommend Emily…

Ministry of the Future
Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)

creation lake Probably climate fiction. However, if you want the ultimate cli-fi, read the following article. Ministry of the Future. This book depicts a scenario that is almost upon us as the world heats up. Its structure, made up of fictional eyewitness accounts, is bold, unrelenting and glorious..