“The Anomaly” won the Goncourt Prize, considered the most important literary award in France. The problem with that, is that my expectations are always too high. I start the book thinking that I am holding a book which will be passed on from generation to generation, be read and analyzed in 100 years and become what we call “a classic”. So yeah, I’m setting the bar for sure too high and so that plays into my review of the text, which sure isn’t fair to the author, I admit.
But there you have it, “The Anomaly” is first of all several destinies that intersect between children and several groups of lost adults, but also characters from different social backgrounds, each with a social theme to denounce: we learn about the fate of a serial killer whilst reading about a little girl victim of rape or that of a singer who cannot express his own sexuality… all these crucial topics lose their value because they are not dug. I therefore find that we get lost not only between the ten or so characters, but also and above all in the ideas to bring to the fore. We fly over them, we read it but we do not take it in full head. Moving on to the next chapter, the subject is no longer in our minds, and that is very unfortunate.
Ideas also merge on the project of Hervé Le Tellier. Are we talking about an end of the world close to ours in order to open our eyes to our policies, our environment but also our social relations? Are we reading an author who, during his lockdown, wanted to put things into perspective, thinking that his situation was not so difficult? That this time was created to test our patience for future obstacles? I cannot tell you, and it is surely for each reader to find his/her own answer, the one that will reassure him/her the most.
For my part, this brought up a whole bunch of questions that I would not necessarily have thought about and which, when I closed the book, stuck in my head … Here is a small list (shortened to let you ask yourself yours), which I hope will intrigue you and make you want to read this book, which in the end remains a Goncourt and worth the detour (but maybe not the prize in itself … I promise, I’ll stop) .
- Have I ever crossed paths with the same person several times without realizing it?
- If the world was controlled by programs, then isn’t that the same as believing in a God? Doesn’t that change anything in the end?
- Have I ever experienced an anomaly as such?
- Do we have to dance to forget bad times?
- Is accepting not to be unique the solution to success?
- If I could go back a few months, what would I change?
- If I die, who would come to my funeral and claim to know me?
- “Truths are illusions that have been forgotten to be,” said Nietzsche. What are my truths?
Here’s the most beautiful, truthful and striking moment of the text in my opinion, I leave you with this, and I hope that you will still enjoy and try the book, even if I was a bit to harsh at the start of this book review:
“We’re prepared to twist reality if the stake is not to lose altogether. We want an answer to the least of our anxieties, and a way to think about the world without questioning our values, our emotions, our actions. Look at climate change. We never listen to scientists. We are relentlessly emitting virtual carbon from fossil fuels, virtual or not, we are heating up our atmosphere, virtual or not, and our species, always virtual or not, will be extinct. Nothing moves. The rich intend to save themselves, alone, in spite of common sense, and the rest are left to hope.”
