{"id":390,"date":"2023-11-09T06:52:50","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T06:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/?p=390"},"modified":"2023-11-09T07:01:48","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T07:01:48","slug":"herve-le-tellier-the-anomaly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/09\/herve-le-tellier-the-anomaly\/","title":{"rendered":"Herve Le Tellier: The Anomaly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Anomaly is a good reminder how artificial genre divisions are. It ticks all the boxes for a thriller: it is a dark, high stakes, suspenseful plot-driven story. It has tonnes of the common tropes: mysterious turbulence, arrogant Pentagon general, inexplicable stranger, nerdish math prodigy, prim FBI agent, double life contract killer. It is a page-turner, and it does not require bigger mental effort than reading Dan Brown. And yet, this book got one of the most prestigious French literary prizes, the Goncourt, in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

Then again, Le Tellier is not the only \u201creal\u201d writer to venture to the fields of science fiction\/speculative fiction. Just recently I\u2019ve reviewed Rosa Montero\u2019s dystopian Husky series [link<\/a>]. There are further examples: Robert Merle\u2019s Les Hommes Proteges (The Virility Factor); Kazuo Ishiguro\u2019s Never Let Me Go; Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s Gal\u00e1pagos, just to name a few I have actually read. Whether it even makes sense to delimitate \u201creal\u201d literature from other genres would be a much longer discussion, but it is indisputable that some authors crossed the boundary lines, and often what they created is enjoyable and thoughtful at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While not burdening the reader with literary or metaphysical weightiness, The Anomaly is a carefully written book, and the writing adapts to the narrating character, from sophisticated French cookies to Nigerian singer to seven-year old girl. The narrative reflects at least 10 characters whose point of view at different points, an unusually high number, but they are described in such depth and their stories are so gripping that it is easy to keep track of them. It\u2019s a basic, and I believe deliberate, contradiction that none of these deep and well-rounded characters seem to have any influence whatsoever on how the events unfold.*1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To save you spoilers, I placed some of my comments in footnotes \u2013 jump there if you don\u2019t mind too much information.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was reading The Anomaly as a thriller, with solemn intention of being entertained and nothing more. It works perfectly well as a thriller. But beware of stealthy metaphysics: some thoughts hidden in the text keep popping back to my head, rather like a disturbingly insightful fortune cookie.*2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, one more very positive feature \u2013 The Anomaly has a lot of subtle and less subtle humor, and it made me laugh out loud at least once, and smile a good many more times. Perhaps the funniest storyline is the two fresh graduate nerds concocting a topology study for FBI and falling to the temptation of inserting some childish jokes. In the novel, their prank spectacularly backfires into their face twenty years later. It\u2019s so hilariously funny exactly because it could easily come to pass in real life\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

  1. If we take the interpretation of the simulation, as suggested by the scientists and the ending of the book, we can argue that nothing what these characters felt or did had any influence on whether the simulation stopped or continued: seemingly the only relevant action belonged to the US President, when he ordered to shoot down the third plane. \u00a0 \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. All my adult life, I\u2019ve treated the \u201cdo we live in a simulation\u201d debate as totally irrelevant. I felt rather smug when a media celeb philosopher spelled out exactly my views in The Anomaly, saying that whether we live or not in a simulation does not have implications for our attitude in our everyday life, so we can totally disregard the question. Except that The Anomaly\u2019s ending throws doubt on this very comfortable intellectual posture. If we live in a simulation, would it not be in our interest to ensure that the simulation continues \u2013 and if yes, is there anything we could do about it? \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Anomaly is a good reminder how artificial genre divisions are. It ticks all the boxes for a thriller: it is a dark, high stakes, suspenseful plot-driven story. It has tonnes of the common tropes: mysterious turbulence, arrogant Pentagon general, inexplicable stranger, nerdish math prodigy, prim FBI agent, double life contract killer. It is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"If we take the interpretation of the simulation, as suggested by the scientists and the ending of the book, we can argue that nothing what these characters felt or did had any influence on whether the simulation stopped or continued: seemingly the only relevant action belonged to the US President, when he ordered to shoot down the third plane. \u00a0\",\"id\":\"ca901b35-8859-4cf0-8c2f-fcd96f1a78d0\"},{\"content\":\"All my adult life, I\u2019ve treated the \u201cdo we live in a simulation\u201d debate as totally irrelevant. I felt rather smug when a media celeb philosopher spelled out exactly my views in The Anomaly, saying that whether we live or not in a simulation does not have implications for our attitude in our everyday life, so we can totally disregard the question. Except that The Anomaly\u2019s ending throws doubt on this very comfortable intellectual posture. If we live in a simulation, would it not be in our interest to ensure that the simulation continues \u2013 and if yes, is there anything we could do about it?\",\"id\":\"d7f53c27-f96d-41cc-8903-d0698b80a658\"}]"},"categories":[5],"tags":[103,107,26,108,104,105],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookreviews","tag-herve-le-tellier","tag-science-fiction-2","tag-sf","tag-speculative-fiction","tag-the-anomaly","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hikingonpluto.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}