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Creation Lake
A new novel about a seductive and cunning American woman who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—a propulsive page-turner of glittering insights and dark humor.Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty, who is sent to do dirty work in France. “Sadie Smith” is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader. Sadie has met her love, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by “cold bump”—making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone Sadie targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her “contacts”—shadowy figures in business and government—instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who communicates only by email. Bruno believes that the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she’s the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner’s rendition of “noir” is taut and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner’s finest achievement yet as a novelist, a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published September 3, 2024
About the author
Rachel Kushner
43 books1,958 followersRachel Kushner is the bestselling author of three novels: the Booker Prize- and NBCC Award–shortlisted The Mars Room; The Flamethrowers, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times top ten book of 2013; and Telex from Cuba, a finalist for the National Book Award. She has been awarded prizes and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Guggenheim Foundation. Her novels are translated into 26 languages. She lives in Los Angeles and wants you to know that if you're reading this and curious about Rachel, whatever is unique and noteworthy in her biography that you might want to find out about is in her new book, The Hard Crowd, which will be published in April 2021. An excerpt of it appeared in the New Yorker here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20....
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 497 reviews
July 30, 2024
Now Longlisted for the Booker 2024
Rachel Kushner is that cool girl novelist who's also deeply smart and thoughtful. This book is closer to The Flamethrowers than The Mars Room but what they all share is an anarchic energy and a wayward trajectory epitomised by an unruly, unbound female protagonist-narrator (I'm discounting here Kushner's finding-her-feet-as-a-writer book Telex from Cuba).
Kushner's women have a kind of androgyny about them: they're sexy - here self-consciously and manipulatively so - but they also operate in environments that are more often gendered masculine: here as an ex-FBI-style agent now independent and possibly a bit rogue; in other books as part of a motorbike speed-racing group, and in prison.
The mood of this novel is unmoored: 'Sadie Smith', our protagonist, is operating under a pseudonym as she infiltrates a kind of eco-commune in France who may or may not be planning acts of violence. But Sadie's clients are shadowy and morally questionable - is she working for a government agency or for big corporate business interests who want to paint protesters as criminals and terrorists?
This sense of disorientation permeates the text and is complicated by the presence of Bruno's voice: a man with a troubling twentieth century past whose theories of Neanderthal man and whose retreat into the caves of France paint him initially as something between a crank and a cult guru but whose thoughts on how to live under late-stage capitalism form a parallel narrative to the main storyline - and seem to become increasingly judicious and perceptive.
This is not, I'd say, a book for readers who want a clear pull-through and who are uncomfortable with ambiguities at all levels. But for me, this is a fascinating exploration of where we are today, where we have come from and how we might be at a form of crossroads in terms of where our future lies. All that wrapped up (but never neatly or tidily) in a questing, searching, probing narrative that asks serious questions without making itself earnest.
Yep, Kushner is right up there on my list of exciting writers working today.
Many thanks to Random House, Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley
We've ceased to locate ourselves in a larger system, a grand design. We've cut the rope, my children.
Rachel Kushner is that cool girl novelist who's also deeply smart and thoughtful. This book is closer to The Flamethrowers than The Mars Room but what they all share is an anarchic energy and a wayward trajectory epitomised by an unruly, unbound female protagonist-narrator (I'm discounting here Kushner's finding-her-feet-as-a-writer book Telex from Cuba).
Kushner's women have a kind of androgyny about them: they're sexy - here self-consciously and manipulatively so - but they also operate in environments that are more often gendered masculine: here as an ex-FBI-style agent now independent and possibly a bit rogue; in other books as part of a motorbike speed-racing group, and in prison.
The mood of this novel is unmoored: 'Sadie Smith', our protagonist, is operating under a pseudonym as she infiltrates a kind of eco-commune in France who may or may not be planning acts of violence. But Sadie's clients are shadowy and morally questionable - is she working for a government agency or for big corporate business interests who want to paint protesters as criminals and terrorists?
This sense of disorientation permeates the text and is complicated by the presence of Bruno's voice: a man with a troubling twentieth century past whose theories of Neanderthal man and whose retreat into the caves of France paint him initially as something between a crank and a cult guru but whose thoughts on how to live under late-stage capitalism form a parallel narrative to the main storyline - and seem to become increasingly judicious and perceptive.
This is not, I'd say, a book for readers who want a clear pull-through and who are uncomfortable with ambiguities at all levels. But for me, this is a fascinating exploration of where we are today, where we have come from and how we might be at a form of crossroads in terms of where our future lies. All that wrapped up (but never neatly or tidily) in a questing, searching, probing narrative that asks serious questions without making itself earnest.
Yep, Kushner is right up there on my list of exciting writers working today.
Many thanks to Random House, Vintage for an ARC via NetGalley
September 21, 2024
Rachel Kushner – I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance! This is so good, guys! I picked up a discarded copy of The Flamethrowers a few months ago (why the hell was it discarded, I now ask myself!), but hadn’t yet read it. Then this one passed through my hands, and I couldn’t resist – the title, the cover, and the jacket blurb hooked me. The first page had me checking it out and bringing it home.
“Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.”
I had to know why a novel about a thirty-four-year-old woman, an American secret agent sent to a rural commune in France, would begin with this peculiar statement about Neanderthals. Well, to be honest, I sort of guessed the link between this area of France and its prehistoric caves and the Neanderthals, thanks to Beebe Bahrami, author of Café Neandertal. However, I was super curious about Kushner’s angle by bringing up the Neanderthals in the very first sentence. If you haven’t guessed already, I’ll warn you now: this is not a typical spy thriller. But… it had me turning the pages and itching to get back to it whenever I had to set it aside. And it’s funny too, in a gloriously subtle but snarky kind of way. After reading that first sentence, nearly 150 pages later the narrator, “Sadie”, tells us this:
“I used to smoke, perhaps on account of some percentage of Neanderthal in my lineage, although I’ll never know what percentage, not wanting my DNA in any database.”
If weird little things like that make you snicker too, then we just might get along. I’m not really explaining the point of the Neanderthals here though. See, Sadie has been sent by some shadowy private sector group to infiltrate an organization of rural activists, the Moulinards, in the region to find proof of sabotage and further plans of possible subversions. Bruno Lacombe, through email communications, is a mentor to the group. Sadie, in turn, has access to these communications. Bruno Lacombe is thoroughly immersed, perhaps obsessed is a better term, with the Neanderthals and the ancient way of life. He blames Homo sapiens for the mess we are in. Lately, it’s not too hard to get on board with his way of thinking.
“The use of fire for harm instead of good seems to have taken hold, suspiciously, and damningly, just as the Neanderthals began to disappear and Homo sapiens rose up, an interglacial bully who shaped the world we’re stuck with.”
Another word about Sadie. She doesn’t give a shit about anyone, except for Sadie. And that’s what makes her such a fantastic character. I mean, we all care, arguably in varying degrees, for our fellow humans. But don’t you sometimes wish – admit it! – that you could care just a little bit less?! Okay, perhaps I’d just like to be Sadie for a day. Or two. She’s the sort of person you might also run into in a Marcy Dermansky or Ottessa Moshfegh novel, minus the undercover agent skills. She has no background that we know of, besides some previous undercover work. She has no friends or loved ones – except for those she feigns an interest in. Sex is used to get what she needs – usually more information. She’s messy, she has “conventional” looks, she likes her beer a bit too much perhaps, and she’s irreverent.
“I try to be respectful of other women’s shortcomings. The dumb luck of good looks is akin to the fact that it may very well rain on the sea in times of drought, and will not rain where it is needed, on a farmer’s crops: grace is random, dumb and random and even a bit violent, in giving to the one who already has rather a lot, and taking from the one who has been denied, who doesn’t have a pot to piss in.”
We learn a bit more about Sadie through her very remote connection to Bruno. She gets closer to him by reading his thoughts on mankind and the stars and the underground world of caves. Her preoccupation with Bruno’s emails allows us to see under her skin, if that’s even possible. I, for one, caught a glimpse of a beating heart.
As an aside, I pay little attention to prize nominees, or winners for that matter. I hadn’t been aware this was on the Booker longlist when I brought it home. And it’s a complete coincidence that I’m writing this right after the shortlist was announced! In fact, I was mid-review when I scrolled through Instagram and saw the post. Read this. It’s intelligent, invigorating, funny, and refreshingly different from the usual reading fare.
“Coincidence is a term you choose for the good work it does to cover what some part of you knows, but a part that cannot be allowed to speak. The coincidence, as an explanation for things that are mysteriously aligned, is hiding what is not a coincidence and is instead a plot.”
“Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.”
I had to know why a novel about a thirty-four-year-old woman, an American secret agent sent to a rural commune in France, would begin with this peculiar statement about Neanderthals. Well, to be honest, I sort of guessed the link between this area of France and its prehistoric caves and the Neanderthals, thanks to Beebe Bahrami, author of Café Neandertal. However, I was super curious about Kushner’s angle by bringing up the Neanderthals in the very first sentence. If you haven’t guessed already, I’ll warn you now: this is not a typical spy thriller. But… it had me turning the pages and itching to get back to it whenever I had to set it aside. And it’s funny too, in a gloriously subtle but snarky kind of way. After reading that first sentence, nearly 150 pages later the narrator, “Sadie”, tells us this:
“I used to smoke, perhaps on account of some percentage of Neanderthal in my lineage, although I’ll never know what percentage, not wanting my DNA in any database.”
If weird little things like that make you snicker too, then we just might get along. I’m not really explaining the point of the Neanderthals here though. See, Sadie has been sent by some shadowy private sector group to infiltrate an organization of rural activists, the Moulinards, in the region to find proof of sabotage and further plans of possible subversions. Bruno Lacombe, through email communications, is a mentor to the group. Sadie, in turn, has access to these communications. Bruno Lacombe is thoroughly immersed, perhaps obsessed is a better term, with the Neanderthals and the ancient way of life. He blames Homo sapiens for the mess we are in. Lately, it’s not too hard to get on board with his way of thinking.
“The use of fire for harm instead of good seems to have taken hold, suspiciously, and damningly, just as the Neanderthals began to disappear and Homo sapiens rose up, an interglacial bully who shaped the world we’re stuck with.”
Another word about Sadie. She doesn’t give a shit about anyone, except for Sadie. And that’s what makes her such a fantastic character. I mean, we all care, arguably in varying degrees, for our fellow humans. But don’t you sometimes wish – admit it! – that you could care just a little bit less?! Okay, perhaps I’d just like to be Sadie for a day. Or two. She’s the sort of person you might also run into in a Marcy Dermansky or Ottessa Moshfegh novel, minus the undercover agent skills. She has no background that we know of, besides some previous undercover work. She has no friends or loved ones – except for those she feigns an interest in. Sex is used to get what she needs – usually more information. She’s messy, she has “conventional” looks, she likes her beer a bit too much perhaps, and she’s irreverent.
“I try to be respectful of other women’s shortcomings. The dumb luck of good looks is akin to the fact that it may very well rain on the sea in times of drought, and will not rain where it is needed, on a farmer’s crops: grace is random, dumb and random and even a bit violent, in giving to the one who already has rather a lot, and taking from the one who has been denied, who doesn’t have a pot to piss in.”
We learn a bit more about Sadie through her very remote connection to Bruno. She gets closer to him by reading his thoughts on mankind and the stars and the underground world of caves. Her preoccupation with Bruno’s emails allows us to see under her skin, if that’s even possible. I, for one, caught a glimpse of a beating heart.
As an aside, I pay little attention to prize nominees, or winners for that matter. I hadn’t been aware this was on the Booker longlist when I brought it home. And it’s a complete coincidence that I’m writing this right after the shortlist was announced! In fact, I was mid-review when I scrolled through Instagram and saw the post. Read this. It’s intelligent, invigorating, funny, and refreshingly different from the usual reading fare.
“Coincidence is a term you choose for the good work it does to cover what some part of you knows, but a part that cannot be allowed to speak. The coincidence, as an explanation for things that are mysteriously aligned, is hiding what is not a coincidence and is instead a plot.”
August 20, 2024
Forty thousand years too late, Neanderthals are finally getting a chance to stand erectus and take a bow. Apparently, our uni-browed cousins weren’t dumb jerks like your brother-in-law, dragging their hairy knuckles across the den. Not at all. According to “Kindred” (2020), a fascinating book by archaeologist Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Neanderthals used tools, made clothes and may have told stories and honored their dead. “They were state-of-the-art humans,” Sykes writes, “just of a different sort.”
In the 19th century, it felt easy to look down on these genetic neighbors of a different sort. After all, as the result of prehistory’s greatest mano-a-manoish battle, we won the deed to planet Earth. But in the early 21st century, Homo sapiens have lost their swagger. For all the wonders of modern culture — driverless cars, CRISPR, Taylor Swift — many of us fear we’re on the cusp of burning ourselves up.
Could the humble Neanderthals, who still lurk in our DNA, hold the secret to a better life? For Rachel Kushner’s new novel, “Creation Lake,” that question is the woolly mammoth in the room.
Since her 2008 debut, “Telex from Cuba,” Kushner has proved to be one of America’s most intellectually curious novelists, capable of interrogating radical political and cultural ideas in strikingly original plots. Her terrific 2013 novel, “The Flamethrowers,” roared through the world of avant-garde art. And now, “Creation Lake” — longlisted for the Booker Prize — bears all the hallmarks of her inquisitive mind and creative daring.
The first satisfying surprise is that Kushner has designed this story as a spy thriller laced with a killer dose of deadpan wit. The narrator, currently using the nom de guerre Sadie Smith, is an agent of chaos. Fired from her job with U.S. intelligence, she’s now working for the highest bidder. “It was a relief to be in the private sector,” she says, “where there are no supervising officers, no logbooks, and no...
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
In the 19th century, it felt easy to look down on these genetic neighbors of a different sort. After all, as the result of prehistory’s greatest mano-a-manoish battle, we won the deed to planet Earth. But in the early 21st century, Homo sapiens have lost their swagger. For all the wonders of modern culture — driverless cars, CRISPR, Taylor Swift — many of us fear we’re on the cusp of burning ourselves up.
Could the humble Neanderthals, who still lurk in our DNA, hold the secret to a better life? For Rachel Kushner’s new novel, “Creation Lake,” that question is the woolly mammoth in the room.
Since her 2008 debut, “Telex from Cuba,” Kushner has proved to be one of America’s most intellectually curious novelists, capable of interrogating radical political and cultural ideas in strikingly original plots. Her terrific 2013 novel, “The Flamethrowers,” roared through the world of avant-garde art. And now, “Creation Lake” — longlisted for the Booker Prize — bears all the hallmarks of her inquisitive mind and creative daring.
The first satisfying surprise is that Kushner has designed this story as a spy thriller laced with a killer dose of deadpan wit. The narrator, currently using the nom de guerre Sadie Smith, is an agent of chaos. Fired from her job with U.S. intelligence, she’s now working for the highest bidder. “It was a relief to be in the private sector,” she says, “where there are no supervising officers, no logbooks, and no...
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
September 2, 2024
First off, many thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for providing me with an ARC, in exchange for this honest review.
Of her previous works, I've only read Kushner's OTHER Booker nominated novel, The Mars Room, and this is much different - but had some of the same qualities and 'issues' that I experienced with that one. On the plus side - the story is unusual and often thrilling and intellectually stimulating; and the author writes really great prose and injects some much-needed humor into some fairly dire situations. Although somewhat reminiscent of Birnam Wood, it is much more philosophical and contemplative, and - for good or ill - lacks that book's Tarantino-esque flashes of ultra-violence.
Most of the 'problems' I encountered are more an 'It's not you, it's me' situation - there are LOTS of characters and many of them are so briefly defined that I had trouble keeping them all str8; luckily, since I read it on the Kindle, I made excellent use of the search feature - I'd have been completely lost with a hardcopy.
But other than the protagonist 'Sadie Smith' (not her real name!) and the other major character of Bruno Lacombe - who we mainly come to know through his email messages to the commune that Sadie is infiltrating - and may or may NOT otherwise make an appearance in the book itself - most of the other characters are fairly one-dimensional; and even Sadie and Bruno are so enigmatic that they are hard to grasp (which is kinda the point ... I think!).
I also didn't really cotton to the book's structure either- which is rendered mainly in brief passages that jump around in time and topic, again making it difficult for me to follow and put pieces together (Hey, I'm old and my brain is slow!!). The clues as to what is actually transpiring are doled out in drips and drabs, and I am still not sure I quite 'got it' all.
Interspersed with these short passages are longer diatribes that deal with philosophical, anthropological, and astronomical topics - these were usually quite interesting and relevant, although sometimes they seemed to be shoehorned in just so we knew Kushner is a LOT brighter than us mere mortals.
Regardless, I think it made for an intriguing and thought-provoking read, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kushner winds up on the shortlist once again. As it's the first of the Booker longlist for me to read, I am not quite sure of its chances of taking the prize, however. Should it win, I'd be tempted to reread it to see what I might have missed the first go-round.
PS: Oh, and BTW - Kushner entitles a chapter 'Lemon Incest' and in it talks about this infamous French song by that name - I had never heard it (or OF it) before this, so had to scope it out - it IS rather shocking - and tres bizarre!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzYnJ.... The title, although obvs. alluding to incest itself, is actually a pun on the French for lemon zest: 'un zeste de citron'.
Of her previous works, I've only read Kushner's OTHER Booker nominated novel, The Mars Room, and this is much different - but had some of the same qualities and 'issues' that I experienced with that one. On the plus side - the story is unusual and often thrilling and intellectually stimulating; and the author writes really great prose and injects some much-needed humor into some fairly dire situations. Although somewhat reminiscent of Birnam Wood, it is much more philosophical and contemplative, and - for good or ill - lacks that book's Tarantino-esque flashes of ultra-violence.
Most of the 'problems' I encountered are more an 'It's not you, it's me' situation - there are LOTS of characters and many of them are so briefly defined that I had trouble keeping them all str8; luckily, since I read it on the Kindle, I made excellent use of the search feature - I'd have been completely lost with a hardcopy.
But other than the protagonist 'Sadie Smith' (not her real name!) and the other major character of Bruno Lacombe - who we mainly come to know through his email messages to the commune that Sadie is infiltrating - and may or may NOT otherwise make an appearance in the book itself - most of the other characters are fairly one-dimensional; and even Sadie and Bruno are so enigmatic that they are hard to grasp (which is kinda the point ... I think!).
I also didn't really cotton to the book's structure either- which is rendered mainly in brief passages that jump around in time and topic, again making it difficult for me to follow and put pieces together (Hey, I'm old and my brain is slow!!). The clues as to what is actually transpiring are doled out in drips and drabs, and I am still not sure I quite 'got it' all.
Interspersed with these short passages are longer diatribes that deal with philosophical, anthropological, and astronomical topics - these were usually quite interesting and relevant, although sometimes they seemed to be shoehorned in just so we knew Kushner is a LOT brighter than us mere mortals.
Regardless, I think it made for an intriguing and thought-provoking read, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Kushner winds up on the shortlist once again. As it's the first of the Booker longlist for me to read, I am not quite sure of its chances of taking the prize, however. Should it win, I'd be tempted to reread it to see what I might have missed the first go-round.
PS: Oh, and BTW - Kushner entitles a chapter 'Lemon Incest' and in it talks about this infamous French song by that name - I had never heard it (or OF it) before this, so had to scope it out - it IS rather shocking - and tres bizarre!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzYnJ.... The title, although obvs. alluding to incest itself, is actually a pun on the French for lemon zest: 'un zeste de citron'.
September 19, 2024
Shortlisted for the Booker prize 2024, quite surprised this novel instead of Playground was chosen
A mix of spy novel and philosophy about how Homo Sapiens became the dominant species on earth. Protest and genuine concerns are being hacked into and usurped, similar to how Neanderthalers were done dirty
Violence is a reasonable response to a certain kind of threat
In Creation Lake are transported to 2010s Southern France (with Get Lucky of Daft Punk as soundtrack popping up repeatedly), where people speak Occitan. Sadie Smith, American, cynical, 34, is our narrator. She is tasked with infiltrating a commune that is in the way of mega waterbassins, dedicated to monocrop corn farming. Already once too enthusiastic for the FBI in inciting activists, she is now freelance and can use more dirty tricks to upend the commune. The philosophy part are from a mysterious Bruno, who lives in a cave and reminisces about Neanderthals in ever more wildly theoretical emails which form nearly half of the novel.
Then we also have a sub minister for agriculture slated for a visit, together with a thinly veiled Michel Houellebecq, forming a catalyst for Sadie to get the commune members into action.
I found the story rather slow for something branded as a spy novel. Rachel Kushner seems to acknowledge this as well, with on page 90 Sadie saying: It was time. Time to make something happen. Yet she only on page 150 meets the commune members. The first section of chapter 5, the Red and the Black, about the wartime experiences of Bruno, are quite touching, and Château de Gaumme’s bloody Cagot history is also really interesting, but somehow I found that the narrative just petered out a bit near the end of the book.
The complexity Sadie as main character offers, using sex to get her way, stealing and drinking while driving, yet also being looked down upon by the Paris elite and men in general and distrusted by women, is definitely the highlight of the book. She is a pawn of capitalism but also manages to exploit the patriarchy financially, making her a compelling main character. it is hard to say for instance who exploits who in the dynamic between Lucien and Sadie.
While the email sections started off incredibly strong (with this banger of an opening sentence: Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.) the whole theme of reality and fiction we tell about history and against the mainstream narrative never became more than conceptually interesting. I did find Bruno expounding on his formative experiences in the war, including him finding a dead German soldier and losing his family in concentration camps, ending up Oliver Twist like in Paris after the war, interesting, but that was unfortunately only a small part of these sections.
Naivety is punished in this novel and anyone believing in a clean cult in opposition to capitalism will be disappointed. It hardly mattered if the eco people ever, or even, meant harm. Their protest and genuine concerns are being hacked and usurped, similar to how Neanderthalers were by Homo Sapiens.
A book I can admire more intellectually than that I loved it while reading it.
Quotes:
Charisma doesn’t originate inside the person called “charismatic”. It comes from the need of others that special people exist.
Stealing puts reality in sharper relief.
Currently, he said, we are headed toward extinction in a shiny, driverless car, and the question is: How do we exit this car?
I am a better driver after a few drinks, more focused.
Certain crimes are natural enough, even serious ones. Murder is understandable if you think about it.
He believed he deserved to fall in love (everyone believes they deserve this) and, in his specific case, with someone like me.
He had not changed the world. Instead, he had merely become famous.
Vito announced that I had trampled on his dream.
I told him that’s what dreams are for.
But Smith isn’t even a name. It’s a place holder.
Violence is a reasonable response to a certain kind of threat
Adulthood had sanded him into someone profoundly unremarkable.
Love confirms who a person is, and that they are worth loving. Politics do not confirm who a person is.
Renouncing individuality, that’s for rich kids
Part of what I appreciate about you, Burdmoore, is your directness and your simplicity of mind.
You fight for a lost status quo, he said, and your victory is what?
A slightly more functional capitalist relation.
That’s all.
A mix of spy novel and philosophy about how Homo Sapiens became the dominant species on earth. Protest and genuine concerns are being hacked into and usurped, similar to how Neanderthalers were done dirty
Violence is a reasonable response to a certain kind of threat
In Creation Lake are transported to 2010s Southern France (with Get Lucky of Daft Punk as soundtrack popping up repeatedly), where people speak Occitan. Sadie Smith, American, cynical, 34, is our narrator. She is tasked with infiltrating a commune that is in the way of mega waterbassins, dedicated to monocrop corn farming. Already once too enthusiastic for the FBI in inciting activists, she is now freelance and can use more dirty tricks to upend the commune. The philosophy part are from a mysterious Bruno, who lives in a cave and reminisces about Neanderthals in ever more wildly theoretical emails which form nearly half of the novel.
Then we also have a sub minister for agriculture slated for a visit, together with a thinly veiled Michel Houellebecq, forming a catalyst for Sadie to get the commune members into action.
I found the story rather slow for something branded as a spy novel. Rachel Kushner seems to acknowledge this as well, with on page 90 Sadie saying: It was time. Time to make something happen. Yet she only on page 150 meets the commune members. The first section of chapter 5, the Red and the Black, about the wartime experiences of Bruno, are quite touching, and Château de Gaumme’s bloody Cagot history is also really interesting, but somehow I found that the narrative just petered out a bit near the end of the book.
The complexity Sadie as main character offers, using sex to get her way, stealing and drinking while driving, yet also being looked down upon by the Paris elite and men in general and distrusted by women, is definitely the highlight of the book. She is a pawn of capitalism but also manages to exploit the patriarchy financially, making her a compelling main character. it is hard to say for instance who exploits who in the dynamic between Lucien and Sadie.
While the email sections started off incredibly strong (with this banger of an opening sentence: Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.) the whole theme of reality and fiction we tell about history and against the mainstream narrative never became more than conceptually interesting. I did find Bruno expounding on his formative experiences in the war, including him finding a dead German soldier and losing his family in concentration camps, ending up Oliver Twist like in Paris after the war, interesting, but that was unfortunately only a small part of these sections.
Naivety is punished in this novel and anyone believing in a clean cult in opposition to capitalism will be disappointed. It hardly mattered if the eco people ever, or even, meant harm. Their protest and genuine concerns are being hacked and usurped, similar to how Neanderthalers were by Homo Sapiens.
A book I can admire more intellectually than that I loved it while reading it.
Quotes:
Charisma doesn’t originate inside the person called “charismatic”. It comes from the need of others that special people exist.
Stealing puts reality in sharper relief.
Currently, he said, we are headed toward extinction in a shiny, driverless car, and the question is: How do we exit this car?
I am a better driver after a few drinks, more focused.
Certain crimes are natural enough, even serious ones. Murder is understandable if you think about it.
He believed he deserved to fall in love (everyone believes they deserve this) and, in his specific case, with someone like me.
He had not changed the world. Instead, he had merely become famous.
Vito announced that I had trampled on his dream.
I told him that’s what dreams are for.
But Smith isn’t even a name. It’s a place holder.
Violence is a reasonable response to a certain kind of threat
Adulthood had sanded him into someone profoundly unremarkable.
Love confirms who a person is, and that they are worth loving. Politics do not confirm who a person is.
Renouncing individuality, that’s for rich kids
Part of what I appreciate about you, Burdmoore, is your directness and your simplicity of mind.
You fight for a lost status quo, he said, and your victory is what?
A slightly more functional capitalist relation.
That’s all.
September 18, 2024
[4.5+]
Booker Shortlist 2024
“…when you attempt to escape the world, to leave it behind, you bring things with you.”
Our unnamed narrator is an American spy. Current alias Sadie Smith worked for the FBI as an undercover agent, but was fired after an undesirable outcome on a case. She has a facility for languages, and is now freelancing for shadowy types in the private sector. The case at the center of this story is in the Guyenne region of France, where “Sadie” needs to infiltrate anarchic eco-activists who are conspiring to prevent their small farming community from going corporate. Her role is to find out whether they plan on acts of terrorism.
We start in media res, where “Sadie” has already taken up residence with target-adjacent Lucien, in a big farmhouse. She cringes every time she has sex with him, but this is the price she is willing to pay for access. As a spy, she’s a natural chameleon, a smart cookie, daring, and self-contained. Her life is one of subterfuge and delusion—her second skin-- that she may not even comprehend her own motives by now. Moreover, she seems to have a growing drinking problem, which kept me on edge while reading.
Creation Lake is less an espionage story than it is an identity story---Sadie discovering things about herself (and how our ancestors stamped us) that she wasn’t anticipating, her outlook and core beliefs. The Le Moulin anarchists have a spiritual and intellectual leader, Bruno Lacombe, who lives in a cave and sends his distillation of thought and philosophy by email. Sadie has hacked into these emails from Bruno to another leader, Pascal Balmy. In this iteration--her spy costume this time--she is a translator, and Lucien intends to hook her up with Pascal and his comrades to translate a book they anonymously wrote.
During her stay, “Sadie” connects to Bruno’s ideology of the ancient past as a way to understand and approach today’s problems and foster a better future. He talks about the Thal (Neanderthal) and other human-esque species preceding the Thal. Bruno believes we can learn from them. He has a startling insight into the cave paintings at Lascaux and other illustrations in other caves. I’ll leave that for the reader to discover.
I admit that, while reading, I thought there were several siloed threads that weren’t clearly related. Sadie’s past, murky AF; the current target; and the agendas of many characters who populate this group of activists---they seemed to be floating out there, but without a precise connection. There are also a few risky moves on Sadie’s part, in furtherance of her own desires. She is sleek when she treats the subversives transactionally. We aren’t supposed to necessarily fathom the raw Sadie, her lack of morals and pronounced, consummate capitalism. There are times she appears to be tearing herself down in order to rebuild, and is often blind to her own flaws.
The book is about Sadie’s evolution; the spy identity is a vehicle for transformation and adds tension to the story. Bruno elegantly exhorts his followers to think bigger, like reading the stars the way a sailor would read the sea. Sadie is touched by the celestial matters that Bruno waxes on about.
Kushner’s gorgeous prose elevates this novel (and all her novels) to a step that’s out of Time. In talking metaphorically about technology, Bruno states, “Cave frequencies…are not three to thirty megahertz. Cave bandwidth crosses moments, eras, epochs, eons. You have to learn to go inside the monophony, to tease it apart. Eventually, you uncover an extraordinary polyphony…There’s a feeling that everyone is here.” There’s a bit of The Flamethrowers here, in that there’s an underground, radical movement in which the protagonist is involved, looking for identity and also making herself a conduit for the people she meets. In Creation Lake, she plays one person off of another.
Learning about Sadie is a novel’s worth—she’s a lot to unpack, and it is through the other figures that we learn about her character. It’s hard to parse because our own moral compass can get in the way of apprehending her. But, through her personal (and interpersonal) behaviors and actions, and the conduct of the activists, and, of course, Bruno, there’s room to grasp the indeterminate and enigmatic Sadie/not Sadie.
Thank you to Simon and Schuster for sending me a finished copy for review.
Booker Shortlist 2024
“…when you attempt to escape the world, to leave it behind, you bring things with you.”
Our unnamed narrator is an American spy. Current alias Sadie Smith worked for the FBI as an undercover agent, but was fired after an undesirable outcome on a case. She has a facility for languages, and is now freelancing for shadowy types in the private sector. The case at the center of this story is in the Guyenne region of France, where “Sadie” needs to infiltrate anarchic eco-activists who are conspiring to prevent their small farming community from going corporate. Her role is to find out whether they plan on acts of terrorism.
We start in media res, where “Sadie” has already taken up residence with target-adjacent Lucien, in a big farmhouse. She cringes every time she has sex with him, but this is the price she is willing to pay for access. As a spy, she’s a natural chameleon, a smart cookie, daring, and self-contained. Her life is one of subterfuge and delusion—her second skin-- that she may not even comprehend her own motives by now. Moreover, she seems to have a growing drinking problem, which kept me on edge while reading.
Creation Lake is less an espionage story than it is an identity story---Sadie discovering things about herself (and how our ancestors stamped us) that she wasn’t anticipating, her outlook and core beliefs. The Le Moulin anarchists have a spiritual and intellectual leader, Bruno Lacombe, who lives in a cave and sends his distillation of thought and philosophy by email. Sadie has hacked into these emails from Bruno to another leader, Pascal Balmy. In this iteration--her spy costume this time--she is a translator, and Lucien intends to hook her up with Pascal and his comrades to translate a book they anonymously wrote.
During her stay, “Sadie” connects to Bruno’s ideology of the ancient past as a way to understand and approach today’s problems and foster a better future. He talks about the Thal (Neanderthal) and other human-esque species preceding the Thal. Bruno believes we can learn from them. He has a startling insight into the cave paintings at Lascaux and other illustrations in other caves. I’ll leave that for the reader to discover.
I admit that, while reading, I thought there were several siloed threads that weren’t clearly related. Sadie’s past, murky AF; the current target; and the agendas of many characters who populate this group of activists---they seemed to be floating out there, but without a precise connection. There are also a few risky moves on Sadie’s part, in furtherance of her own desires. She is sleek when she treats the subversives transactionally. We aren’t supposed to necessarily fathom the raw Sadie, her lack of morals and pronounced, consummate capitalism. There are times she appears to be tearing herself down in order to rebuild, and is often blind to her own flaws.
The book is about Sadie’s evolution; the spy identity is a vehicle for transformation and adds tension to the story. Bruno elegantly exhorts his followers to think bigger, like reading the stars the way a sailor would read the sea. Sadie is touched by the celestial matters that Bruno waxes on about.
Kushner’s gorgeous prose elevates this novel (and all her novels) to a step that’s out of Time. In talking metaphorically about technology, Bruno states, “Cave frequencies…are not three to thirty megahertz. Cave bandwidth crosses moments, eras, epochs, eons. You have to learn to go inside the monophony, to tease it apart. Eventually, you uncover an extraordinary polyphony…There’s a feeling that everyone is here.” There’s a bit of The Flamethrowers here, in that there’s an underground, radical movement in which the protagonist is involved, looking for identity and also making herself a conduit for the people she meets. In Creation Lake, she plays one person off of another.
Learning about Sadie is a novel’s worth—she’s a lot to unpack, and it is through the other figures that we learn about her character. It’s hard to parse because our own moral compass can get in the way of apprehending her. But, through her personal (and interpersonal) behaviors and actions, and the conduct of the activists, and, of course, Bruno, there’s room to grasp the indeterminate and enigmatic Sadie/not Sadie.
Thank you to Simon and Schuster for sending me a finished copy for review.
Want to read
September 26, 2024i was very kindly sent this book, and also a very cute green hat that says CREATION LAKE on it.
so now i really hope i like the book so i can wear the hat.
my life is so hard.
so now i really hope i like the book so i can wear the hat.
my life is so hard.
August 30, 2024
An intelligent, carefully-crafted play on an existential thriller partly inspired by Rachel Kushner’s fascination with leftwing, French crime writer Jean-Patrick Manchette. Set in 2013, Kushner’s narrative centres on an agent provocateur known, for now, as Sadie Smith. Ignominiously fired from her job as a covert operative for internal American intelligence, Sadie’s currently selling her services to the highest bidder. All we really know about Sadie is she’s 34, fluent in several European languages, and once embarked on a doctorate in rhetoric. The perfect background for her current assignment working for a shadowy grouping of powerful, monied figures. Sadie’s journey begins in Paris where she presents as the stereotypical, wide-eyed American abroad, rather like Sally in The Dud Avocado; but it’s a ruse that provides access to her targets through a complex process of seduction and infiltration.
Sadie’s expertise lies in environmental activism, what her employers would label eco-terrorism. She’s been charged to gain access to a communal farm overseen by faded politico Pascal Balmy who’s suspected of orchestrating a series of attacks on French infrastructure: forms of industrial sabotage intended to disrupt the forward march of agribusiness. During background surveillance, Sadie manages to hack Pascal’s email accounts, monitoring his contact with Bruno Lacombe a philosopher/anthropologist who’s retreated from the world, installing himself in a cave on his property close to Pascal’s group in southern France. Pascal and Bruno are both broadly anti-capitalist, direct descendants of the radicalism of May ’68. But while Pascal remains convinced that capitalism can be fought from within, building on the situationist ideals of Guy Debord, Bruno’s drawn to a kind of anarcho-primitivist, anti-civilisation stance. He’s become obsessed with the paths not taken: prehistory and the culture of the Neanderthals, a “world before the fall, before class and domination.” For Bruno disrupting capitalism is no longer the answer, what’s needed is a shift in consciousness, to think beyond and outside it.
Although it’s effective read purely as a slightly-satirical variation on a conventional spy story, Kushner’s novel works well as a loose companion piece to her earlier The Flamethrowers: where that examined Italian leftist politics in the seventies, this could be viewed as an exploration of what came next. Kushner’s piece is impressively researched. She expertly interweaves fact and fiction indirectly referencing: Deleuze’s nomadism; key political texts like The Coming Insurrection, infamous journal Tiqqun; and elements of French social and political history from the climate change activism that led to the formation of Les Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth Uprising) to the fight for Larzac and the Tarnac Nine; violent police tactics and growing clashes over megabasin projects in rural France. Many of her fictional characters have real-life counterparts: Bruno parallels aspects of philosopher Bruno Latour; hapless politician Platon is a version of the controversial Manuel Valls; a prominent French novelist Michel Thomas conjures provocative author Michel Houellebecq. Thomas’s cameo also establishes a link to Houellebecq’s Serotonin which Kushner’s story sometimes overlaps.
Sadie’s an intriguing creation, world weary and cynical, she views the world as chaotic and ultimately lawless – she sometimes reminded me of Musil’s man without qualities. Like Reno in The Flamethrowers she often appears less engaged in action than in representing and interpreting everything around her. And like Reno years before, she soon realises women in far-left circles are routinely relegated to the periphery, the women of Pascal’s commune are mostly assigned to childcare and serving coffee. A situation that suits Sadie’s agenda, making her far less likely to be fingered as a potential saboteur. Although Sadie’s experiences will take her in a wholly unexpected direction, one which elegantly solves the mystery of Kushner’s ongoing juxtaposition of Bruno’s musings and Sadie’s activities. Although this may prove a little too dry for some readers, and I don't entirely agree with Kushner's underlying arguments, I found it surprisingly absorbing, ambitious and inventive.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Jonathan Cape for an ARC
Sadie’s expertise lies in environmental activism, what her employers would label eco-terrorism. She’s been charged to gain access to a communal farm overseen by faded politico Pascal Balmy who’s suspected of orchestrating a series of attacks on French infrastructure: forms of industrial sabotage intended to disrupt the forward march of agribusiness. During background surveillance, Sadie manages to hack Pascal’s email accounts, monitoring his contact with Bruno Lacombe a philosopher/anthropologist who’s retreated from the world, installing himself in a cave on his property close to Pascal’s group in southern France. Pascal and Bruno are both broadly anti-capitalist, direct descendants of the radicalism of May ’68. But while Pascal remains convinced that capitalism can be fought from within, building on the situationist ideals of Guy Debord, Bruno’s drawn to a kind of anarcho-primitivist, anti-civilisation stance. He’s become obsessed with the paths not taken: prehistory and the culture of the Neanderthals, a “world before the fall, before class and domination.” For Bruno disrupting capitalism is no longer the answer, what’s needed is a shift in consciousness, to think beyond and outside it.
Although it’s effective read purely as a slightly-satirical variation on a conventional spy story, Kushner’s novel works well as a loose companion piece to her earlier The Flamethrowers: where that examined Italian leftist politics in the seventies, this could be viewed as an exploration of what came next. Kushner’s piece is impressively researched. She expertly interweaves fact and fiction indirectly referencing: Deleuze’s nomadism; key political texts like The Coming Insurrection, infamous journal Tiqqun; and elements of French social and political history from the climate change activism that led to the formation of Les Soulèvements de la Terre (Earth Uprising) to the fight for Larzac and the Tarnac Nine; violent police tactics and growing clashes over megabasin projects in rural France. Many of her fictional characters have real-life counterparts: Bruno parallels aspects of philosopher Bruno Latour; hapless politician Platon is a version of the controversial Manuel Valls; a prominent French novelist Michel Thomas conjures provocative author Michel Houellebecq. Thomas’s cameo also establishes a link to Houellebecq’s Serotonin which Kushner’s story sometimes overlaps.
Sadie’s an intriguing creation, world weary and cynical, she views the world as chaotic and ultimately lawless – she sometimes reminded me of Musil’s man without qualities. Like Reno in The Flamethrowers she often appears less engaged in action than in representing and interpreting everything around her. And like Reno years before, she soon realises women in far-left circles are routinely relegated to the periphery, the women of Pascal’s commune are mostly assigned to childcare and serving coffee. A situation that suits Sadie’s agenda, making her far less likely to be fingered as a potential saboteur. Although Sadie’s experiences will take her in a wholly unexpected direction, one which elegantly solves the mystery of Kushner’s ongoing juxtaposition of Bruno’s musings and Sadie’s activities. Although this may prove a little too dry for some readers, and I don't entirely agree with Kushner's underlying arguments, I found it surprisingly absorbing, ambitious and inventive.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Jonathan Cape for an ARC
September 7, 2024
What kept popping into my head while reading this book were two other favorites of mine. The oddball, skeptically mystical undercover female narrator brought to mind Sarah Gran's Claire DeWitt and the the City of the Dead, while the refusal of the plot to lie down and die was reminiscent of the classic private-eye novel The Last Good Kiss, by James Crumley. To be compared to either is a compliment; that it reminded me of both is the highest praise.
This was, among (many) other things, an anti-romance novel. It is a story whose Happily Ever After depends on disconnection. Sex? Horrible. The author does not want a husband, or a bunch of besties, or even a personal history to look back on. She wants to swim, and walk on the cliffs, and live simply. In Creation Lake, we follow her on her journey, and she will not be an easy character to forget.
Although the novel is serious, it is also ridiculous, and often quite funny. (Note the chapter headings, and I've learned that descriptions of bad drivers can be every bit as funny as descriptions of bad meals.) It's a known characteristic of most novels that the first chapter is written, rewritten and rewritten again, polished to perfection, to set its hooks in the reader before the real story gets underway. In Kushner's hands, every chapter feels like the first. It's set in a grimy, rural France, where we don't encounter nattily dressed Frenchmen strolling the Grand Boulevards, but instead shrink-wrapped pallets of Nutella growing soft in the punishing sunlight of a Carrefour loading dock. Leftover radicals watching their world become more and more foreign by the day. Although the necessity of plot sometimes distracts the story from its bizarre worldview, there's always room for this sort of thing:
I loved every stinkin' page of this book. Except for p. 88.
This was, among (many) other things, an anti-romance novel. It is a story whose Happily Ever After depends on disconnection. Sex? Horrible. The author does not want a husband, or a bunch of besties, or even a personal history to look back on. She wants to swim, and walk on the cliffs, and live simply. In Creation Lake, we follow her on her journey, and she will not be an easy character to forget.
Although the novel is serious, it is also ridiculous, and often quite funny. (Note the chapter headings, and I've learned that descriptions of bad drivers can be every bit as funny as descriptions of bad meals.) It's a known characteristic of most novels that the first chapter is written, rewritten and rewritten again, polished to perfection, to set its hooks in the reader before the real story gets underway. In Kushner's hands, every chapter feels like the first. It's set in a grimy, rural France, where we don't encounter nattily dressed Frenchmen strolling the Grand Boulevards, but instead shrink-wrapped pallets of Nutella growing soft in the punishing sunlight of a Carrefour loading dock. Leftover radicals watching their world become more and more foreign by the day. Although the necessity of plot sometimes distracts the story from its bizarre worldview, there's always room for this sort of thing:
The narrator encounters a bitter radical named Nadia who's been ostracized from a commune, driving a beater car down a country highway. Our narrator accepts a ride. Nadia is hard-up and shamefacedly asking for help:You know, she could have set this book in Manitoba or Iowa, but Kushner's a miracle worker and this is an example of why. Not only does it deftly puncture the American ideal of France, but provides an excuse to think seriously about Neanderthals and early h. sapiens.
"It's a little one-story building with a black door. That's where I'm staying. When you come up, can you bring some food? Things have been tough for us."
"Us?"
"Me and Bernadette."
"Bernadette?"
"You can meet her."
She went around and opened her trunk.
There was a live pig in there, pinkish, coated in white bristles. It began to scrabble at the sight of Nadia, grunting and sniffing with its sheered-flat pig nose.
She clapped her hands one time and pointed.
The pig hurled itself up and over the lip of the trunk and landed on the ground, not on its feet like animals are supposed to, but it righted itself from its inelegant side-flop and stood watching her as if for further commands, sniffing with that nose that looked molded into the shape of a cup.
I loved every stinkin' page of this book. Except for p. 88.
July 25, 2024
An American spy, working in the private sector after being sacked by the security services - infiltrates a commune in rural France, intent on finding (or manufacturing) evidence of eco-terrorism. All the time, she becomes obsessed with the group's deity, a man nobody has seen in a quarter of a century, a mysterious philosopher intent on restoring the culture of the neanderthal to curb the damages of modern progress.
This stunning novel may be framed as a spy narrative, but opens up to discuss philosophy and anthropology, satirises the bourgeois nature of eco-activism, and asks what is the true cost of human progress and capitalism.
Creation Lake is gripping, thought provoking and always surprising. One of the year's standout memorable novels, I would not be at all surprised to find it on the Booker longlist when it's announced next week.
This stunning novel may be framed as a spy narrative, but opens up to discuss philosophy and anthropology, satirises the bourgeois nature of eco-activism, and asks what is the true cost of human progress and capitalism.
Creation Lake is gripping, thought provoking and always surprising. One of the year's standout memorable novels, I would not be at all surprised to find it on the Booker longlist when it's announced next week.
August 9, 2024
2,5
I liked ‘The Mars Room’ and ‘The Hard Crowd,’ but I had some trouble with Kushner’s new book. This book is filled to the brim with information, theories and ideas about the Neanderthals, the Cagots, astrology etc. And even though Kushner is very smart and I admire her knowledge, I personally didn’t really care about all the anthropology. I would have liked to learn more about the characters and what motivated them, but I felt I hardly got to know them. Also, this was presented as a spy novel about eco-terrorism, but nothing much happens and except for the ending it wasn’t very thrilling.
Most people on Goodreads seem to love it and maybe my expectations were just too high, but this was not my kind of book and I found myself to be rather disappointed.
Thank you Jonathan Cape and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
I liked ‘The Mars Room’ and ‘The Hard Crowd,’ but I had some trouble with Kushner’s new book. This book is filled to the brim with information, theories and ideas about the Neanderthals, the Cagots, astrology etc. And even though Kushner is very smart and I admire her knowledge, I personally didn’t really care about all the anthropology. I would have liked to learn more about the characters and what motivated them, but I felt I hardly got to know them. Also, this was presented as a spy novel about eco-terrorism, but nothing much happens and except for the ending it wasn’t very thrilling.
Most people on Goodreads seem to love it and maybe my expectations were just too high, but this was not my kind of book and I found myself to be rather disappointed.
Thank you Jonathan Cape and Netgalley UK for the ARC.
September 10, 2024
Okay wow, where did this come from?
Well, well, well. After previously disliking everything this author has ever written, and writing her off as "not for me," I was shocked by how much I actually loved this. It rocked.
This book had me completely enthralled. Always had me guessing and not in a plot sense, but for me trying to work out what this book was saying or doing. It’s exhilarating and thought-provoking. Disguised as a spy novel, it’s really full of themes exploring what it’s like to be an outsider; to be on the outskirts of common thinking —for better or worse.
Our protagonist is one of the most fascinating narrators I’ve read in a long time: selfish and destructive. Note: I didn’t say self-destructive —our narrator is not a menace to herself, she’s a menace to others. Her purpose is to make other people self-destructive. It’s her job. Now is she good at her job? That’ll be for you to decide.
This book is both wild and deep. Cold as ice yet tells us a whole lot about ourselves. Lots to chew on. One of those books I could analyze forever. I need time to ruminate. But I will say, it’s a firecracker in my eyes. Quite the turnaround of not caring for Kushner’s past works to bring completely in love with her new one. Okay, gimme time to think.
Quote I liked (very cynical, I might add:
“In my own salt, my own core, this is what I knew: Life goes on a while. Then it ends.
There is no fairness.
Bad people are honored, and good ones are punished.
The reverse is also true. Good people are honored, and bad people are punished, and some will call this grace, or the hand of God, instead of luck. But deep down, even if they lack the courage to admit it, inside each person, they know that the world is lawless and chaotic and random. This truth is stored in their salt. Some have access. Others don't. A gift or a curse, that my salt is right here, with me all the time? A gift.
I'd rather be driven by immutable truths than the winds of some opinion, whose real function is to underscore a person's social position in a group, a belief without depth.”
Well, well, well. After previously disliking everything this author has ever written, and writing her off as "not for me," I was shocked by how much I actually loved this. It rocked.
This book had me completely enthralled. Always had me guessing and not in a plot sense, but for me trying to work out what this book was saying or doing. It’s exhilarating and thought-provoking. Disguised as a spy novel, it’s really full of themes exploring what it’s like to be an outsider; to be on the outskirts of common thinking —for better or worse.
Our protagonist is one of the most fascinating narrators I’ve read in a long time: selfish and destructive. Note: I didn’t say self-destructive —our narrator is not a menace to herself, she’s a menace to others. Her purpose is to make other people self-destructive. It’s her job. Now is she good at her job? That’ll be for you to decide.
This book is both wild and deep. Cold as ice yet tells us a whole lot about ourselves. Lots to chew on. One of those books I could analyze forever. I need time to ruminate. But I will say, it’s a firecracker in my eyes. Quite the turnaround of not caring for Kushner’s past works to bring completely in love with her new one. Okay, gimme time to think.
Quote I liked (very cynical, I might add:
“In my own salt, my own core, this is what I knew: Life goes on a while. Then it ends.
There is no fairness.
Bad people are honored, and good ones are punished.
The reverse is also true. Good people are honored, and bad people are punished, and some will call this grace, or the hand of God, instead of luck. But deep down, even if they lack the courage to admit it, inside each person, they know that the world is lawless and chaotic and random. This truth is stored in their salt. Some have access. Others don't. A gift or a curse, that my salt is right here, with me all the time? A gift.
I'd rather be driven by immutable truths than the winds of some opinion, whose real function is to underscore a person's social position in a group, a belief without depth.”
August 14, 2024
When Rachel Kushner comes out with a new novel, attention must be paid. Typically, her themes are pollical: dangerous Italian political currents in Flamethrowers, the horror of incarceration in Mars, and often, a pervading outlaw sensibility.
The anti-hero of Creation Lake, who goes by the pseudonym Sadie Smith, is also a sort of outlaw. Again, Kushner tackles a meaty topic: environmental activism (threads of Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood come to mind). It’s an espionage novel but not really; its key question appears to be “is it at all possible to control the future and are we coded somehow to destroy our own humanity?”
The core of the narrative is about Sadie’s undercover work-for-hire to undermine a group of environmental activists, specifically, to disrupt the Moulinards. They are a French farming cooperative that wants to stop the government from constructing a “megabasin” to advance corporate farming.
To this end, she becomes fascinated by the Moulinards’ muse, a man named Bruno, who lives in a cave and believes that each of us inherits code, blueprints, or maybe a set of instructions from those who came before us. His musings on the possible superiority of the Neanderthal man make for fascinating reading. Bruno believes codes are like genetic lice crawling from ancestors to descendants.
Sadie’s employers, who are never revealed, are morally questionable, but so are Pascal and many of the other Moulinards. For that matter, so is Sadie. Readers who need someone to root for will not find it in this novel. What they will find are counter-histories and plunges into the past that beg the question “what does it mean to be human.” While Sadie Smith remains, to the last, an enigma, the forces that shape her begin to be revealed.
As a character-based reader, I wondered from time to time whether Creation Lake was a book for me until it became evident it was. As always, Rachel Kushner leaves the reader with a lot to reflect on. I am very grateful that Simon & Schuster provided me with an early copy in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 stars.
The anti-hero of Creation Lake, who goes by the pseudonym Sadie Smith, is also a sort of outlaw. Again, Kushner tackles a meaty topic: environmental activism (threads of Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood come to mind). It’s an espionage novel but not really; its key question appears to be “is it at all possible to control the future and are we coded somehow to destroy our own humanity?”
The core of the narrative is about Sadie’s undercover work-for-hire to undermine a group of environmental activists, specifically, to disrupt the Moulinards. They are a French farming cooperative that wants to stop the government from constructing a “megabasin” to advance corporate farming.
To this end, she becomes fascinated by the Moulinards’ muse, a man named Bruno, who lives in a cave and believes that each of us inherits code, blueprints, or maybe a set of instructions from those who came before us. His musings on the possible superiority of the Neanderthal man make for fascinating reading. Bruno believes codes are like genetic lice crawling from ancestors to descendants.
Sadie’s employers, who are never revealed, are morally questionable, but so are Pascal and many of the other Moulinards. For that matter, so is Sadie. Readers who need someone to root for will not find it in this novel. What they will find are counter-histories and plunges into the past that beg the question “what does it mean to be human.” While Sadie Smith remains, to the last, an enigma, the forces that shape her begin to be revealed.
As a character-based reader, I wondered from time to time whether Creation Lake was a book for me until it became evident it was. As always, Rachel Kushner leaves the reader with a lot to reflect on. I am very grateful that Simon & Schuster provided me with an early copy in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 stars.
September 12, 2024
If you pick this up on the assumption that it is a typical spy thriller, you will be sorely disappointed. Neither James Bond nor George Smiley would be at home in this book. Instead, it's a character study, an exploration of 21st century political conflicts, a delving into the deepest past of humankind looking for answers to current problems - and it's very funny.
I see that it reminded Left Coast Justin of Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, a point well taken. It also brought to my mind Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood, with its brilliant skewering of hapless eco-terrorists. And the way in which Kushner casually strews intellectual concepts around the most mundane of circumstances put me in mind of Olga Tokarczuk's writing in general.
"Sarah Smith" is an undercover infiltrator, set on entrapping targeted groups into felonious behavior, thus taking them off the stage to the benefit of those who employ her. Initially she worked for the FBI, but after being fired she began working for whomever was willing to pay her. She has no moral qualms about enticing people into activities they wouldn't have planned on their own; all she cares about is how much she will be paid. The setting for this book is rural, impoverished France, and her marks are a group of environmentalists who object to planned actions by agribusiness and the government. How far does she need to push them to insure that they will be arrested and convicted?
Along the way Kushner provides entertaining descriptions of the inhabitants of the countryside, the political radicals, the elite power brokers, French film, and Italian food, among other things. Her most beguiling character is a man named Bruno, a former activist who decamped to the countryside after the events of 1968 sputtered out, and now lives alone in a cave. He emerges periodically to use his daughter's internet connection to send cryptic messages to the enviros. For the most part these emails are concerned with the nature of the Neanderthals and how that might resonate in today's world, but he also riffs to great effect on the sea explorations of Polynesians.
This has been longlisted for the 2024 Booker, and I truly hope it makes it to the shortlist. Kushner packs a lot into this book, and even though the plot isn't traditionally "thrilling", I didn't want to put it down. Definitely one of my more enriching reading experiences of the year.
I see that it reminded Left Coast Justin of Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, a point well taken. It also brought to my mind Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood, with its brilliant skewering of hapless eco-terrorists. And the way in which Kushner casually strews intellectual concepts around the most mundane of circumstances put me in mind of Olga Tokarczuk's writing in general.
"Sarah Smith" is an undercover infiltrator, set on entrapping targeted groups into felonious behavior, thus taking them off the stage to the benefit of those who employ her. Initially she worked for the FBI, but after being fired she began working for whomever was willing to pay her. She has no moral qualms about enticing people into activities they wouldn't have planned on their own; all she cares about is how much she will be paid. The setting for this book is rural, impoverished France, and her marks are a group of environmentalists who object to planned actions by agribusiness and the government. How far does she need to push them to insure that they will be arrested and convicted?
Along the way Kushner provides entertaining descriptions of the inhabitants of the countryside, the political radicals, the elite power brokers, French film, and Italian food, among other things. Her most beguiling character is a man named Bruno, a former activist who decamped to the countryside after the events of 1968 sputtered out, and now lives alone in a cave. He emerges periodically to use his daughter's internet connection to send cryptic messages to the enviros. For the most part these emails are concerned with the nature of the Neanderthals and how that might resonate in today's world, but he also riffs to great effect on the sea explorations of Polynesians.
This has been longlisted for the 2024 Booker, and I truly hope it makes it to the shortlist. Kushner packs a lot into this book, and even though the plot isn't traditionally "thrilling", I didn't want to put it down. Definitely one of my more enriching reading experiences of the year.
September 19, 2024
It's been decades since I encountered a novel with a similarly "wired" first-person narrator. That book was Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted. In the case of "Amy" or "Sadie" in Creation Lake, the protagonist is very much free to roam the wide world, having found work as a mercenary secret agent. Her assignments are the perfect fit for her fluid sense of identity, ability to take on the traits of others, and ever-changing beliefs and credos. Other characteristics that strongly suggest a personality disorder include her difficultly forming close relationships, lack of empathy or respect for others, and profound emotional detachment. And yet she is quite fascinating and even endearing for much of the story.
Despite - or perhaps because of - a keen intelligence, Amy/Sadie also has unrealistically high self-esteem. This makes for a delightfully dry, condescending tone and contributes to some of the best comedy in the novel:
"...each of these travel centers offering local products. Lavender oils, for instance, always made at monasteries, as if the monks worshipped lavender instead of God. Or dried truffles, mustards, and glass jars of jellied meats that look like cat food, and which French people call a 'terrine' and eat as if it were not cat food."
"...The pursuit of a man who has lost hope in the world is a desperate business, and I could imagine that his defeated air made Michel Thomas the target of a particular type of female... I pictured viragos fighting over Michel Thomas, never mind that he had the sexual energy of a grandmother with bone density issues.
Kushner manages to pepper the novel with many pithy aphorisms as well. These are frequently a propos of almost nothing taking place and yet interesting and thought-provoking:
"Charisma does not originate inside the person called 'charismatic'. It comes from the need of others to believe that special people exist."
I'm still not entirely sure what to make of this novel. It does seem that Kushner has selected a unique, mentally atypical (read "unwell") main character in Amy/Sadie, and then structured the story in a manner that is faithful to that amateur spy's skewed understanding of the people and places she encounters. Call me crazy but I liked it.
Despite - or perhaps because of - a keen intelligence, Amy/Sadie also has unrealistically high self-esteem. This makes for a delightfully dry, condescending tone and contributes to some of the best comedy in the novel:
"...each of these travel centers offering local products. Lavender oils, for instance, always made at monasteries, as if the monks worshipped lavender instead of God. Or dried truffles, mustards, and glass jars of jellied meats that look like cat food, and which French people call a 'terrine' and eat as if it were not cat food."
"...The pursuit of a man who has lost hope in the world is a desperate business, and I could imagine that his defeated air made Michel Thomas the target of a particular type of female... I pictured viragos fighting over Michel Thomas, never mind that he had the sexual energy of a grandmother with bone density issues.
Kushner manages to pepper the novel with many pithy aphorisms as well. These are frequently a propos of almost nothing taking place and yet interesting and thought-provoking:
"Charisma does not originate inside the person called 'charismatic'. It comes from the need of others to believe that special people exist."
I'm still not entirely sure what to make of this novel. It does seem that Kushner has selected a unique, mentally atypical (read "unwell") main character in Amy/Sadie, and then structured the story in a manner that is faithful to that amateur spy's skewed understanding of the people and places she encounters. Call me crazy but I liked it.
September 27, 2024
3 stars? 4 stars? No stars at all? I’m having an awfully difficult time writing this review. The instant I start typing, the long dormant English grad student in my brain perks up his head and looks eagerly around. So many shiny things to play with! Metaphors! Symbols! Allusions! It’s hard not letting him have his way but really, there’s a time and a place for that kind of thing, and this ain’t it.
Distilled to its essence, my reaction to the book: I enjoyed "Creation Lake" but I didn’t know what to make of it even as I was reading. I can understand the rave reviews on GR and elsewhere. I am far less sympathetic to the London Review of Books write-up (“a sloppy book whose careless construction and totalising cynicism come to feel downright hostile” — don’t sugarcoat it, dude, tell us what you really think). I’m somewhere in-between, leaning toward the first group. I enjoyed the intellectual pleasure of puzzling out what Kushner might have been trying to do, what she in fact did (as opposed to what I imagined she was doing), and yes, reading to find out what would happen. But all this wasn’t enough to put me in the camp of the 5-star givers. Maybe because in the end "Creation Lake" engaged me more in my mind than in my heart. The tension implicit in a novel of intrigue -- will Sadie be found out? who will she betray? -- was real enough but insufficient. And yet... there was something about it I admired. It definitely inspired my curiosity.
In short: “Creation Lake” is — how shall I put this? — it’s one of those books with parts that light up like flares in the night, and in those moments when you are momentarily blinded by the brightness, you're distracted from the question tugging at the back of your mind: What the hell is this book about?
GAMES AND THEMES (thoughts I play with as I think about the book):
“Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.”
Hell of an opening. Not quite “Call me Ishmael” but it does what it’s supposed to: makes one want to keep reading. The strangeness of it -- I defy anyone to read it without thinking "what?" -- creates in the reader a sense of uncertainty. Kushner clearly wants the reader to feel off-balance. Who to believe, who to trust? Kushner doesn't make it easy for the reader. No need to add to the many plot summaries that have been posted here before. Anyway, “plot” is almost besides the point in a book like this. There is a more or less coherent story, something akin to a spy novel. Sadie Smith, the narrator, is by her own admission a liar. In fact, Sadie Smith is not even her real name. She informs us that too. Her “assignment” is to infiltrate a subversive commune in rural France and find out if its members are planning an act of sabotage. Is she a spy? A provocateur? A pawn? It’s unclear whether Sadie knows.
Back that odd bit of Neanderthal psychology. Who is this “he”? Is he serious? Off his rocker? Speaking in code? The book doesn’t really definitively answer these questions but that too is beside the point. We do learn that "he" is Bruno Lacombe, that he holds a special place in the hearts and minds of some characters, and that he lives in a cave.
If I may sum up, then: An unknown person (“he”) of questionable sanity is speaking to us (via email), his words shared with us by an anonymous woman who, by her own admission, lies, manipulates and betrays people, uses sex and protestations of love to get her closer to her goal, has innocent people arrested, all without any remorse. She’s on a mission of some kind that requires her to interact with people she doesn't care about but pretends to befriend. She doesn’t know who hired her, nor does that fact seem to trouble her in the least. She clearly doesn't hold humanity in very high regard. Her thoughts are often sardonic, self-aggrandizing. There are pieces of autobiography but they’re filled with big holes: She was a grad student in rhetoric at one time. She rode with a biker gang. She set innocent people up for arrest. She had her breasts enlarged. (She feels obliged to tell us this, for some reason.) She hails from a place that doesn’t really exist.
Is any of this true?
[more to come]
Distilled to its essence, my reaction to the book: I enjoyed "Creation Lake" but I didn’t know what to make of it even as I was reading. I can understand the rave reviews on GR and elsewhere. I am far less sympathetic to the London Review of Books write-up (“a sloppy book whose careless construction and totalising cynicism come to feel downright hostile” — don’t sugarcoat it, dude, tell us what you really think). I’m somewhere in-between, leaning toward the first group. I enjoyed the intellectual pleasure of puzzling out what Kushner might have been trying to do, what she in fact did (as opposed to what I imagined she was doing), and yes, reading to find out what would happen. But all this wasn’t enough to put me in the camp of the 5-star givers. Maybe because in the end "Creation Lake" engaged me more in my mind than in my heart. The tension implicit in a novel of intrigue -- will Sadie be found out? who will she betray? -- was real enough but insufficient. And yet... there was something about it I admired. It definitely inspired my curiosity.
In short: “Creation Lake” is — how shall I put this? — it’s one of those books with parts that light up like flares in the night, and in those moments when you are momentarily blinded by the brightness, you're distracted from the question tugging at the back of your mind: What the hell is this book about?
GAMES AND THEMES (thoughts I play with as I think about the book):
“Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.”
Hell of an opening. Not quite “Call me Ishmael” but it does what it’s supposed to: makes one want to keep reading. The strangeness of it -- I defy anyone to read it without thinking "what?" -- creates in the reader a sense of uncertainty. Kushner clearly wants the reader to feel off-balance. Who to believe, who to trust? Kushner doesn't make it easy for the reader. No need to add to the many plot summaries that have been posted here before. Anyway, “plot” is almost besides the point in a book like this. There is a more or less coherent story, something akin to a spy novel. Sadie Smith, the narrator, is by her own admission a liar. In fact, Sadie Smith is not even her real name. She informs us that too. Her “assignment” is to infiltrate a subversive commune in rural France and find out if its members are planning an act of sabotage. Is she a spy? A provocateur? A pawn? It’s unclear whether Sadie knows.
Back that odd bit of Neanderthal psychology. Who is this “he”? Is he serious? Off his rocker? Speaking in code? The book doesn’t really definitively answer these questions but that too is beside the point. We do learn that "he" is Bruno Lacombe, that he holds a special place in the hearts and minds of some characters, and that he lives in a cave.
If I may sum up, then: An unknown person (“he”) of questionable sanity is speaking to us (via email), his words shared with us by an anonymous woman who, by her own admission, lies, manipulates and betrays people, uses sex and protestations of love to get her closer to her goal, has innocent people arrested, all without any remorse. She’s on a mission of some kind that requires her to interact with people she doesn't care about but pretends to befriend. She doesn’t know who hired her, nor does that fact seem to trouble her in the least. She clearly doesn't hold humanity in very high regard. Her thoughts are often sardonic, self-aggrandizing. There are pieces of autobiography but they’re filled with big holes: She was a grad student in rhetoric at one time. She rode with a biker gang. She set innocent people up for arrest. She had her breasts enlarged. (She feels obliged to tell us this, for some reason.) She hails from a place that doesn’t really exist.
Is any of this true?
[more to come]
September 24, 2024
So the Booker shortlist announcement has come and gone and I still have five novels to read but that’s ok because I am thoroughly enjoying this little reading assignment.
Kushner’s Creation Lake is a hard to categorise novel on a list that appears to celebrate some interesting yet often plotless books. Marketed as an eco-terrorism spy novel it is, in fact, much more interesting than that.
If you have read Kushner before you might know to expect her acerbic wit, intense curiosity for obscure topics and a level of intellect that is both thrilling and intimidating.
This is the kind of book where you have to be prepared to let go of plot while the author takes you on some meandering yet fascinating side trips into Marxist history, Neanderthal culture, the Cagot rebellion, and cave-dwelling in rural France. The whole thing pulsing along to Daft Punks “Get Lucky”. Yes, its a heady mix. It might not entirely work but boy it has some moments of brilliance.
Not the best book on the list, but it is the funniest. Read it for character and for Kushner’s sardonic, dexterous style.
Kushner’s Creation Lake is a hard to categorise novel on a list that appears to celebrate some interesting yet often plotless books. Marketed as an eco-terrorism spy novel it is, in fact, much more interesting than that.
If you have read Kushner before you might know to expect her acerbic wit, intense curiosity for obscure topics and a level of intellect that is both thrilling and intimidating.
This is the kind of book where you have to be prepared to let go of plot while the author takes you on some meandering yet fascinating side trips into Marxist history, Neanderthal culture, the Cagot rebellion, and cave-dwelling in rural France. The whole thing pulsing along to Daft Punks “Get Lucky”. Yes, its a heady mix. It might not entirely work but boy it has some moments of brilliance.
Not the best book on the list, but it is the funniest. Read it for character and for Kushner’s sardonic, dexterous style.
September 6, 2024
4.0 Stars
This was such a wonderfully unexpected novel. From the premise, I expected a slick, action packed spy novel full of the usual cliche action.
Instead I was so surprised to find this brilliant, razor sharp narrative. I loved the distinct voice of our female protagonist. It was such a good balance between humorous and biting.
The entire narrative is framed around the psychology of Neanderthals. It was the most obtuse juxtaposition and yet completely works.
I would highly recommend this novel to readers looking for an offbeat literary thriller.
This was such a wonderfully unexpected novel. From the premise, I expected a slick, action packed spy novel full of the usual cliche action.
Instead I was so surprised to find this brilliant, razor sharp narrative. I loved the distinct voice of our female protagonist. It was such a good balance between humorous and biting.
The entire narrative is framed around the psychology of Neanderthals. It was the most obtuse juxtaposition and yet completely works.
I would highly recommend this novel to readers looking for an offbeat literary thriller.
September 9, 2024
** ½ rounded up
For better or worse, we all are now reviewing Rachel Kushner’s hotly anticipated new novel in the shadow of Brandon Taylor’s vicious takedown in the London Review of Books (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n...), which ends its first paragraph with the wickedly unkind zinger:
Unfortunately, Creation Lake is a sloppy book whose careless construction and totalising cynicism come to feel downright hostile. As I read, I kept wondering, why did you even write this?
Told in first person by an American spy-for-hire, pseudonymously monikered Sadie Smith, we hear the inner thoughts of a woman who infiltrates small leftists grouplets, incites them to take perilous actions that would undermine their own safety, and then vanishes while her victims face the very real and serious consequences of state repression.
I did not feel quite as offended as Taylor. Creation Lake has moments of humour and slyness that were enjoyable to read. The world Sadie Smith enters is on the face of it quite interesting. However, I felt the writing largely flat and the depiction of leftist circles boring. The manipulated are largely washed up 60s radicals, disoriented and sad but hardly a foil to our cynical and nihilistic protagonist. There is nothing to cheer for here, just a bitterness permeating everyone. Kushner also constantly takes the reader on these odd tangents about neanderthals and early humans, which Taylor correctly points out, felt like plotting by Wikipedia entry.
I had high hopes for CREATION LAKE. It was my pick to win when the longlist was announced (based on gut rather than anything I had heard of the text). Now I don’t see it making the shortlist, nor does it deserve to do so.
#bookerprize #bookstagramreadsthebooker #bookerprizelonglist #americanliterature #bookprizes #fiction #literaryfiction #books
For better or worse, we all are now reviewing Rachel Kushner’s hotly anticipated new novel in the shadow of Brandon Taylor’s vicious takedown in the London Review of Books (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n...), which ends its first paragraph with the wickedly unkind zinger:
Unfortunately, Creation Lake is a sloppy book whose careless construction and totalising cynicism come to feel downright hostile. As I read, I kept wondering, why did you even write this?
Told in first person by an American spy-for-hire, pseudonymously monikered Sadie Smith, we hear the inner thoughts of a woman who infiltrates small leftists grouplets, incites them to take perilous actions that would undermine their own safety, and then vanishes while her victims face the very real and serious consequences of state repression.
I did not feel quite as offended as Taylor. Creation Lake has moments of humour and slyness that were enjoyable to read. The world Sadie Smith enters is on the face of it quite interesting. However, I felt the writing largely flat and the depiction of leftist circles boring. The manipulated are largely washed up 60s radicals, disoriented and sad but hardly a foil to our cynical and nihilistic protagonist. There is nothing to cheer for here, just a bitterness permeating everyone. Kushner also constantly takes the reader on these odd tangents about neanderthals and early humans, which Taylor correctly points out, felt like plotting by Wikipedia entry.
I had high hopes for CREATION LAKE. It was my pick to win when the longlist was announced (based on gut rather than anything I had heard of the text). Now I don’t see it making the shortlist, nor does it deserve to do so.
#bookerprize #bookstagramreadsthebooker #bookerprizelonglist #americanliterature #bookprizes #fiction #literaryfiction #books
September 22, 2024
4,5
This was my first Rachel Kushner and I liked it very much. I'd put her in that category of super smart authors, like Rebecca Makkai and Eleanor Catton, who have interesting things to say but are also happy to take on the challenge of presenting it in the form of a thrilling narrative.
In 'Creation Lake', Sadie is a spy working for mysterious private sector clients who instruct her to infiltrate (left wing) protest organisations and convince them to radicalize and become violent (in order for the police to step in and round up the gang...). Sadie is not only brilliant, but also completely amoral and has no problem befriending and then framing well-meaning people. But as the novel proceeds perhaps she is not as much in control as she thinks.
This is not really a spy novel though, or at least not only. A lot of the fun is in the original French countryside setting and the teachings of old 1968 idealists, especially Bruno who writes fascinating emails on Neanderthals and prehistoric life.
'James' is still my favourite on the Booker shortlist, but this is a close second.
This was my first Rachel Kushner and I liked it very much. I'd put her in that category of super smart authors, like Rebecca Makkai and Eleanor Catton, who have interesting things to say but are also happy to take on the challenge of presenting it in the form of a thrilling narrative.
In 'Creation Lake', Sadie is a spy working for mysterious private sector clients who instruct her to infiltrate (left wing) protest organisations and convince them to radicalize and become violent (in order for the police to step in and round up the gang...). Sadie is not only brilliant, but also completely amoral and has no problem befriending and then framing well-meaning people. But as the novel proceeds perhaps she is not as much in control as she thinks.
This is not really a spy novel though, or at least not only. A lot of the fun is in the original French countryside setting and the teachings of old 1968 idealists, especially Bruno who writes fascinating emails on Neanderthals and prehistoric life.
'James' is still my favourite on the Booker shortlist, but this is a close second.
September 4, 2024
it should be a crime punishable by death to bore me so badly with a philosophical thriller set in france
September 20, 2024
Rachel Kushner has taken an overworked genre – the spy novel – and created a literary, thought provoking work. The main character, “Sadie” is an undercover agent. She worked for the US government, but after a mishap, her “employers” are now private people with their own agendas. Sadie has been sent to rural France to infiltrate a communal group of agricultural activists. The reader watches as Sadie enters the group (first by having a “relationship” with the best friend of the group leader) and then cunningly (and ruthlessly) expands her position. Sadie is well trained, but, as in all good novels about an undercover agent, the risk of detection is always looming. Many of the activists are developed characters. We see the ups and downs (mostly downs) of communal life as well as the effect of the members’ different economic backgrounds on their approaches to achieving their goals.
However, the undercover agent aspect of Creation Lake is only one part of the novel. Threaded throughout the story line is correspondence from an “old time” activist who has exited the active world and turned to delving into the existence and development of Neanderthals and early humans. This aspect of the novel was unique in its substance and extremely well written. Rachel Kushner’s ability to give early humans great relevance in a story about an undercover agent in current times was outstanding.
I also applaud the complexity of the character of Sadie. She is smart, practical and extremely witty – but that doesn’t keep her from being very human or making mistakes. Throughout most of the novel, Sadie’s moral compass is focused only on getting her job done. In addition, her observances bring a great deal of humor to the novel. I did not think there could be such a thing as a truly literary spy novel – but Rachel Kushner has written it!
However, the undercover agent aspect of Creation Lake is only one part of the novel. Threaded throughout the story line is correspondence from an “old time” activist who has exited the active world and turned to delving into the existence and development of Neanderthals and early humans. This aspect of the novel was unique in its substance and extremely well written. Rachel Kushner’s ability to give early humans great relevance in a story about an undercover agent in current times was outstanding.
I also applaud the complexity of the character of Sadie. She is smart, practical and extremely witty – but that doesn’t keep her from being very human or making mistakes. Throughout most of the novel, Sadie’s moral compass is focused only on getting her job done. In addition, her observances bring a great deal of humor to the novel. I did not think there could be such a thing as a truly literary spy novel – but Rachel Kushner has written it!
September 14, 2024
the best thing about this book is brandon taylor’s roast of this book
August 28, 2024
Rachel Kushner should be a household name. But she is a recognizable force in the literary world with numerous prestige nominations (the current book is longlisted for the Booker), and approbations from such heavy hitters as George Saunders ("I'll read anything that she writes)." Her curiosity is far ranging, and her heroines are fearless. Kind of like her. "Sadie Smith," heroine/narrator of Creation Lake, operates under the radar and we never learn her true identity while delving deeply into her motivations and behaviors. Never mind. Through "Sadie's" infiltration of an eco terrorist group in southwestern France we explore such diverse subjects as Neanderthal dreaming and conceptual art, the rise of homo sapiens, the creation of megabasins that constitute a form of fracking involving water table and river destruction, celestial navigation. Her facts are well researched and woven into a spy thriller that contains the kind of page turning propulsive energy we've come to expect from Ms. Kushner. Can't wait to see where she takes us next.
September 18, 2024
This was just okay.
Very smart and written well, though not particularly enjoyable.
Very smart and written well, though not particularly enjoyable.
August 4, 2024
Not a badly written book, but also not particularly entertaining or edifying. I'm not sure why I stuck with it, and wouldn't suggest it to anyone as a must read.
September 3, 2024
I wanted so badly to love this book but it just didn’t capture me like I wanted it to. I had high hopes for it, the concept and plot line sounded SO good. Plus, look how damn gorgeous the cover is! But what was missing here for me was characters. There were just none that I fell in love and wanted to root for or even a character I loved to hate. None of them made me want to get attached and that’s important for me when reading. I didn’t hate it either but I didn’t love it, I guess the right word to describe ny feelings is indifferent.
August 10, 2024
3.25/5 eARC gifted by the publisher
“At first, we all got kind of sucked in. But when you pull away, it starts to seem like madness."
What I liked
-the dry humor
-interesting anthropological facts and philosophical musings
-political commentary - especially on left vs right, horseshoe theory, different ways of progressiveness. This might be the most political book on the longlist and I appreciate how relevant these concepts are. Even though they made me a bit pessimistic about humanity’s future 🥲
What didn’t work for me
-the FMC having major pick-me girl energy (is this intentional? It kinda makes this book read like a James Bond parody and I couldn’t take it seriously lol)
-all the cute little facts detracts from character development and plots. It was fun in the beginning but got tiring in the end. I feel the author was trying to hard to appear smart 😅
-the ending felt rushed
I think these books explore similar concepts in more detail:
-THE DELUGE by Stephen Markley
-SAPIENS by Yuval Noah Harari
-WHO WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE by David Reich
“At first, we all got kind of sucked in. But when you pull away, it starts to seem like madness."
What I liked
-the dry humor
-interesting anthropological facts and philosophical musings
-political commentary - especially on left vs right, horseshoe theory, different ways of progressiveness. This might be the most political book on the longlist and I appreciate how relevant these concepts are. Even though they made me a bit pessimistic about humanity’s future 🥲
What didn’t work for me
-the FMC having major pick-me girl energy (is this intentional? It kinda makes this book read like a James Bond parody and I couldn’t take it seriously lol)
-all the cute little facts detracts from character development and plots. It was fun in the beginning but got tiring in the end. I feel the author was trying to hard to appear smart 😅
-the ending felt rushed
I think these books explore similar concepts in more detail:
-THE DELUGE by Stephen Markley
-SAPIENS by Yuval Noah Harari
-WHO WE ARE AND HOW WE GOT HERE by David Reich
September 10, 2024
American protagonist Sadie Smith (an alias) infiltrates an environmental activist group in southwestern France. Sadie is a former FBI agent whose last job had gone awry, resulting in her dismissal. Now working for the private sector (in what we presume is an organization sponsored by big business), she is trying to set up the activists to be arrested for ecoterrorism. The group follows in the footsteps of its former mentor, Bruno, who has retreated from society, lives in a cave, and studies Neanderthals. Sadie has hacked into emails between Bruno and the activists and is increasingly influenced by his views about renouncing technology and returning to the old ways of the Neanderthals. It is structured such that we hear from Sadie in first person and from Bruno via his writings.
In this case, the agribusiness interests desire to flood the region’s underground reservoirs to provide water in “megabasins” for their own crops, thus leaving the rural French farmers out of luck. I interpreted it as a novel about deceptive appearances. Just about everyone is trying to project an image inconsistent with their real persona. Sadie is cynical and jaded woman who has previously succeeded in a field dominated by men but is not above using the lures of her sexual presence to seduce her way into a position where she has access to the targeted eco-group.
This is not your typical espionage thriller. It is more a novel of ideas. It combines satire, environmental issues, deception (of self and others), and an (extremely) unreliable narrator in a creative manner. I enjoyed the humor the author inserts periodically, and the ironies, such as the idea of a man living in a cave writing emails to a commune. I read it due to its longlisting for the Booker Prize, and in my opinion, certainly deserves its place on the list.
“For nine-tenths of human time on earth, people went underground. Their symbolic world was formed in part by activities in caves, by modalities and visions that darkness promised. Then, this all ceased. The underground world was lost to us. The industrial uses of the earth: the digging, fracking, tunneling, are mere plunder and do not count, Bruno said. Modern people who build bomb shelters, planning to survive some version of apocalypse also do not count, he said. Yes, they go underground, but not in mind of a human continuum, a community. They think ‘I’ll be the clever one, the one who survives mass death.’ But why would you want to survive mass death? What would be the purpose of life if life were reduced to a handful of armed pessimists, hoarding canned foods and fearing each other? In a bunker, you cannot hear the human community in the earth, the deep cistern of voices, the lake of our creation.”
In this case, the agribusiness interests desire to flood the region’s underground reservoirs to provide water in “megabasins” for their own crops, thus leaving the rural French farmers out of luck. I interpreted it as a novel about deceptive appearances. Just about everyone is trying to project an image inconsistent with their real persona. Sadie is cynical and jaded woman who has previously succeeded in a field dominated by men but is not above using the lures of her sexual presence to seduce her way into a position where she has access to the targeted eco-group.
This is not your typical espionage thriller. It is more a novel of ideas. It combines satire, environmental issues, deception (of self and others), and an (extremely) unreliable narrator in a creative manner. I enjoyed the humor the author inserts periodically, and the ironies, such as the idea of a man living in a cave writing emails to a commune. I read it due to its longlisting for the Booker Prize, and in my opinion, certainly deserves its place on the list.
“For nine-tenths of human time on earth, people went underground. Their symbolic world was formed in part by activities in caves, by modalities and visions that darkness promised. Then, this all ceased. The underground world was lost to us. The industrial uses of the earth: the digging, fracking, tunneling, are mere plunder and do not count, Bruno said. Modern people who build bomb shelters, planning to survive some version of apocalypse also do not count, he said. Yes, they go underground, but not in mind of a human continuum, a community. They think ‘I’ll be the clever one, the one who survives mass death.’ But why would you want to survive mass death? What would be the purpose of life if life were reduced to a handful of armed pessimists, hoarding canned foods and fearing each other? In a bunker, you cannot hear the human community in the earth, the deep cistern of voices, the lake of our creation.”
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