This Book Was Not What I Was Expecting 

Im 100 pages from the end and so bored. She just compared feet squishing in mud to "overlubricated sex." 🙄 I have not been endeared to the writing style or characters. It might end up getting 1 star from me.

I felt for you here trying to tie down this very unusual book, like your book club member I am still not sure what the main message of the book is but I quite agree that it probably does not matter. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel despite being slightly mystified by it, by the end and after some reflection I felt it well deserved its place on the Booker list as it is so unusual and really quite unique. I also felt despite some quite dark undertones it was frequently quite witty, the comment about the age of the French man and position of his belt was one that bought a smile to my face too as it is quite a truism! Thanks for the review.

I’m reading this book and struggling to finish it. My opinion is that Booker dropped the ball with this one…

I was one of the book club readers who felt the point of this book was a bit unclear with the two halves not quite coming together for me. I felt it was a bit Emperors New Clothes and I was trying to see something that wasn't there.

I think I'm going to approach this book from a rather different direction, so if you don't like pretentious reviews then definitely don't read any further! (Also apologies to Bob the Bookerer, as I've already written something very similar on his review of the book!) When I finished this book, my first impression was that while I was intrigued by the Bruno sections, and felt there were some excellent passages, I wasn't sure that it added up to a great deal. The plot seemed to fall apart, and it wasn't clear to me what I was supposed to make of it. However, my mind has returned to it numerous times in the week since completing it, and I've come to think the problem is that I simply misunderstood what the author was trying to do. I fell for the publishing hype about it being a modern spy novel or thriller, but now I think RK never had any interest in producing that kind of novel. Instead, I think she intended this to be a critique of the vacuousness of modern life! The key for me was hearing some interviews with Rachel Kushner, and noticing that she liked to read an extract from near the beginning of the book, where Sadie's driving her car and looking for the location. I think that was RK hinting to us that we should take that section as our guide to what's actually going on. In the passage, Sadie explains that she feels rental cars to be rather disposable, and doesn't exercise much care while driving them. She's simply using them while she tries to find the directions to her 'destination'. Stretching that to fit her actual life, she spends her time trying out temporary generic characters (Sadie, Amy) and then carelessly 'driving' each new persona through the lives of the various people she meets. Just as with the rental cars, she doesn't care what damage she inflicts on the other humans, since she sees them all as part of a trivial disposable existence where nothing really means anything. (She frequently sees these real life characters as part as a film rather than as reality.) What Sadie really yearns for is to discover a deeper more profound life. As she reads Bruno's musings, she starts to tap into his sense that there's something of much greater weight lying way below the surface, and that we're just living at one end of a giant tree of humans/hominids etc. The Cagots, who have inhabited Vantome, seem to her to be a halfway point between the ancient Neanderthals and modern humans, and through them she feels a link going right back to the creation of humanity itself - hence the book's title. She's also fascinated by the star map that Bruno outlines for her. We end the book with her seemingly having called time on her work as an agent. In effect, she's ceased inhabiting the trivial and random world of modern humans - the plot fizzling out is intentional on the part of Rachel Kushner, since we're not supposed to actually attach any importance to the disposable world of modern humanity. Now, Sadie is living largely alone, tracing Bruno's patterns in the sky, and looking for directions to a more profound existence - one where we're connected to all of the other humans through time, just like Bruno in his cave, hearing countless voices from the deep past. Judging from the final few lines, it's not clear that she's actually found her location yet, but she feels she knows where to look. I might be wildly off-base with this assessment, and perhaps RK just wrote a half-baked spy novel, but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt!

I am about 100 pages in and don't know what I think. I don't love it but don't hate it. I'm just not gripped. I will keep going!

I still have no idea what this book was trying to say. I think I will re read it before the winner announcement.

I'm reading it now. I like new structure, etc. but I'm 200 pages in and having a hard time caring what happens next.

Your mention of Sadie, looking at the night sky made me think of this lyric from Billy Bragg’s A New England: “I saw two shooting stars last night I wished on them, but they were only satellites It's wrong to wish on space hardware I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care.”

About what you said about Sadie enjoying having the upper hand in situations: I went to an event with Rachel Kushner this week and she said that Sadie likes to think she’s in a French film noir movie, but she isn’t of course 😂.

I think the publisher did this book a real disservice by marketing it as a thriller. I did like the book, but I really had to take a minute to adjust my expectations. I found it more comic than thrilling, really. Sadie was such an idiot and I laughed at her throughout. I've been pondering how this book shifts in meaning if perhaps Sadie is viewed as an unreliable narrator, which she almost certainly was. There's a lot to ponder in this book, and that's why I loved it.

Yes. It lacked a thematic center. Yes the end fizzled out. yet. She gave us this Sadie Smith character. Who I'll always equate with Becky Sharpe, Lady Eustace, etc., in my head. I wouldn't be mad if it won. But I'm still kinda rooting for James.

This is a good book club book because it generates a lot of conversation as people try to figure out the point of it.

💙

I liked the novel. The commune ostensibly wants to undo some of the ills of modern humanity (though it ends up as corrupt and disorganized as anything else) but maybe humanity itself was the mistake. Maybe the evolutionary accident that ensured our survival over neanderthals was where things went wrong. Except Bruno was wrong too and early homo sapiens actually weren’t all that bad.

Another wonderful video.

Hi Eric, I’m listening to Creation Lake and I’m experiencing it as satire?? Am I reading it wrong? I was watching Who Do You Think You Are on BBC iPlayer. It was the episode with Olly Muirs. I was thinking of you as his father’s family came from Latina.

I don't think I'll attempt this one. Thank you.

It sounds like my kind of book. Thanks

Maybe Plato's description of the cave-dwellers in The Republic wasn't meant as a parable? What if they really were trogs?

Your excellent and fair appraisal confirms my response at page 142 of Creation Lake.

A good review for a difficult book. Also like odays tee shirt. Robyn (a kiwi)

Sounds a fascinating book, about infiltrating communes.