Every turbulent flight is turbulent in its own way.” Some readers might find this more embarrassing than rewarding, but what can you do? The rules are what they are. Similarly, pastiched incipits of known and lesser-known novels are inserted at regular intervals, the opening of the “Spin Cycle” chapter for example, an intellectual tip-of-the-hat to Tolstoy: “All smooth flights are alike. The reader gets to taste every genre available as if at some giant literary buffet. Constraints rule The Anomaly too, one in particular attempting to accommodate all literary genres in one, by presenting each subplot in a set of recognisable literary codes: the story of the hit man narrated like a thriller, the character of the mathematician set in a campus novel, and so on and so forth. The former is known for having written an entire novel without ever using the letter “e”, ( La Disparition or A Void in the English version). More importantly, since 2019, he has presided over the Oulipo (a benign-sounding acronym that stands for “Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle”), a group of mostly French writers, committed to creating works using constrained writing techniques, like their towering tutelary figures George Perec and Raymond Queneau. He has published an impressive number of novels, plays and articles that make him a fixture in the French literary landscape – albeit with selling figures in the thousands, not the millions. Le Tellier’s artistic endeavour and philosophical overview are broader than the sum of the novel’s pages. It explores the many narrative consequences of dealing with a duplicated set of people and the debates that rage between the characters – cloned or not – who are forced into this mess.Īs enticing as this sounds, English-speaking readers should beware. His experience as a science journalist probably helped too, but the story remains entertaining, the plot unfolding in much the same way a blockbuster movie: fast, and increasingly furiously, as it nears its end. The author holds a degree in maths, which must have come in handy. The remaining, yet significant portion of the book, is dedicated to building a sophisticated set of hypotheses and scientific explanations. The situation triggers geopolitical trouble, and the American government deploys national security measures to silence the event.
The plane encounters an unusually strong storm, upon which an unprecedented duplication occurs: One aircraft lands in the United States, in March, while its exact replica, passengers and all, lands one hundred and six days later, in June. No brooding intellectual persona in sight instead, a cast of colorful characters, including a hit man, a confused Nigerian gay pop star, an Afro-American female lawyer, a little girl and her pet frog, a French film editor, an architect, an airline pilot, and many others, all taken in a whirlwind of events after their Paris-New York flight goes wrong. The first part bravely keeps its promise of storytelling, taking us on an exciting journey brimming with auspicious developments.
#The anomaly book serial#
The Anomaly’s tone is pleasing at first, with lots of witticisms and an unceasing flow of second-degree comments about serial killers, mathematicians, and heads of state alike. As a case in point, a television adaptation is on its way, proving that literary achievement is possible outside the narrow realms of pseudo-intellectual introspection. As the most enthusiastic readers have it, the book has at long last shaken French literature from its egocentric tendencies and its endemic lethargy. The national reading public is still showing its appreciation: The book boasts glowing selling figures. Yet, amidst the plethora of so-called autofiction works cluttering the shelves of French bookstores, the Goncourt Prize was awarded in 2020 to a novel whose prime achievement lies in its ability to narrate multiple stories. In the country of Balzac and Dumas, it has long been common for literary critics to lament the death of storytelling and to look towards American contemporary fiction with envy and awe.
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