The Anomaly

What a clever, intriguing, challenging book - that is also enormously readable and entertaining.

I don't know how to do justice to the plot without somehow diminishing it, but I'll make a stab at it.

An airplane flying from Paris to NYC in June 2021 hits an unpredicted storm, but emerges to sunny skies, and very confused air traffic controllers. Because, you see, that same plane with the same pilot, crew and passengers had landed in March 2021.

And now there are two of everything, with the second set of arrivals sequestered in a NJ military base as scientists, religious leaders and politicians try to figure out what happened and what it means.

Nifty science fiction story idea, right? But Le Tellier also treats us to thoughtful descriptions show more of the backstories of a dozen of the passengers, crew, scientists and other related parties, and how the outcomes affect them. There is something uniquely French about the philosophical and religious discussions of the meaning of this event, but the scientific analysis seems more distinctly American to me.

This will easily rise to the top of my best-books-of-2022 category. It's somehow intellectually provocative and playful at the same time. I will actually probably add it to my very small shelf of books I'm likely to read again. show less

I'm not sure how to talk about this in any useful way without spoilers, so this is your warning that the whole review is spoilery.

An airplane flies into a storm and calls for help. When they land, it becomes clear that this is the same plane that flew into a storm three months before and landed safely. The plane and all the people on board have been duplicated. The book explores what happens next by following the government agents tasked with dealing with this event and the pairs of people from the plane and their doppelgangers. In the hands of someone else, I suppose I might have really enjoyed this. If it had been a story that pulled the science fiction elements to the fore, I might have been really intrigued. Le Tellier offers some show more possible answers about what happened to duplicate the plane, but nothing definitive. And if the story had really made me care about the passengers as individuals, I might have been deeply invested. Le Tellier tries, but he never made me care about any of them. I wanted a book that made choices, and I think Le Tellier was interested in looking at many possibilities. (There *is* one really choice bit where he imagines a set of one of the duplicates being interviewed by Stephen Colbert--Le Tellier masterfully captures Colbert, his mannerisms, his bits of business, in that extended scene.) And the end annoyed me. A *third* version of the plane appears, the US president has it shot down, and this... ends the world? I guess? Sure, Herve. Whatever. The book was saved from being tossed hardily across the room by the fact other mammals in the house were already asleep when I finished it. Feh. show less

Brilliant mix of thriller and science fiction, engaging with a magic moment in which an Air France Boeing and its passengers, travelling from Paris to New York, get duplicated during a storm. The one Boeing lands in March, the duplicated one in June. The duplication raises all kinds of existential problems and questions, in particular for the passengers themselves, the security apparatus and the wider human community. This anomaly is dealt with in different ways. It is treated as a threat, a sign of God, an opportunity to mend ways, or as a sign of the end of time.

The way Le Tellier relates the story is by splitting the book in three parts. In part 1 we get to know various characters that were on the plane. In part 2, the second Air show more France plane re-appears and is guided to a Military airbase. Here the security forces and two Princeton computer geeks have to execute their own (ludicrous) protocol dealing with such eventualities. The crew and passengers are held in isolation and questioned. Meanwhile their doppelgangers are apprehended and ferried to the air base. In part 3, the various passengers and crew are allowed to engage with their alter egos and work out a new way of dealing with the aftermath of a shared identity. Those who want, can opt for a witness protection program and continue their lives as different persons.

So what struck me, raised my interest? Le Tellier has found an interesting prism, with the duplicating plane, for exploring some existential questions, neatly elaborated in personal cases. First, there is the gimmick of the hired assassin, who goes missing from the hangar (creating a fire, escaping, taking on a different identity), travels back to Paris and kills his alter ego (chopping up his body in acid, making him disappear). Problem fixed. Second, there is the response of the security apparatus (isolation of the June flight, implementation of a silly protocol dreamed up by a couple of nerd students, mobilization of Nobel Prize winners, presidential coordination with Xi Jinping and Macron), which Le Tellier uses to analyse the banality of power (both political and scientific). Third, is the response of society as a whole and religious pundits/fanatics – le Tellier shows how the security forces try to coax consensus out of all religious leaders, crafting a uniform message of harmony and peace. But that proves futile once the religious fanatics go to town on this unusual event: an opportunity to announce the end of times, or take action, such as the futile killing of a young actress and her alter ego after presenting their case in a famous late night talk show. Fourth, and probably most interesting, are the impact of dealing with 3 missing months of life, for a number of key personalities that have been introduced in part 1. What happens if your alter ego fell pregnant, changing the dynamic of a love relationship (well, the non pregnant alter ego decides to cut loose and change her identity, despite secretly hoping to regain her lover). What happens when an obscure writer produces a master piece and kills himself, only for his alter ego to return in public life and enjoy the newly gained fame (well the latter is exactly what happens, and moreover, he exhibits a totally care free view on life while attracting a new love life). What happens when a relationship that was dead in the water anyway, is viewed upon by the disappointed party three months on? (some kind of wisdom shines thru, but also a kind of infinite sadness and a knee-jerk response to warn his alter ego for what is coming and if at all possible to behave differently to save the affair). What happens when your daughter has been abused by her PTSS afflicted dad in the three months of your absence? What happens when a boy suddenly finds himself saddled with two envious moms? (well, he simply proposes a rational time-sharing system that his mom(s) could never have devised). What happens when a patient with fatal pancreatic cancer gets a second chance at saving his own life, through a new procedure? (well, this the saddest case – the man dies again and his brother, wife and kids have to undergo the same painful process twice…). It is in the individual cases that Le Tellier can table and discuss the big questions in life. Brilliant idea. show less

This seems to be either a philosophical novel cast as a pastiche of a science-fiction disaster thriller, or a science-fiction disaster thriller that is making fun of the French tendency to turn everything into philosophy. Or possibly both. Something strange happens to an Air France flight from Paris to New York when it passes through a storm cloud in March 2021, and there are repercussions on the individual lives of the passengers and crew, a good dozen of whom are named characters in the novel.

I found the initial exposition of the characters' back-stories quite engaging, and the working out of the consequences for them in the closing chapters a little bit less so, but I got rather fed up with the middle section, where Le Tellier show more brings in every Hollywood cliché he can think of and then tries to excuse it by making fun of himself (one "top scientist" summoned to discuss the problem can't stop giggling when she realises that she is sitting with a bunch of generals at the famous conference table from Doctor Strangelove; another character is charmed to find himself being debriefed by an FBI psychologist using the actual interview script from Close encounters of the third kind...).

It is all very French: we never find out for sure what the anomaly means or what caused it, and all is not put right at the end; similarly, many of the characters have stories that are resolved in ways that are deliberately messy and unsatisfying. We are supposed to reflect on questions of mortality and identity, the reality of the world and the irreversibility of time, not on heroes and villains. And we are quite likely to wind up asking ourselves whether it was really worth being put through all those red herrings about wormholes and quantum physics and weak jokes about Trump and Macron just for that. Maybe, just maybe, because Le Tellier is a competent and efficient storyteller even when he's trying to deny that there is a story to tell, but I'm not really convinced.

Whatever else, it's also a nice demonstration of the risks of setting a book on a well-defined date in the near future. When he was writing (in 2019?) and when the book came out in August 2020, Le Tellier obviously never thought that Covid-19 would still be the only disaster we would be talking about in early 2021, or that the idea of 240 "normal" people simply getting on a plane from Paris to New York and being allowed to disembark without endless health formalities would itself seem like science-fiction... show less

The beginning chapters move quickly from one character to the other over the course of months: a man starts his profession as a hitman; an author and translator writes a book, then kills himself for reasons unknown; an architect and his girlfriend break up; and more. As time slowly moves on, however, we realize that all of them have something in common. They were on the same flight, that hit turbulence, and landed in New York in March. But three months later, another plane with the same 200+ passengers emerges from the clouds.

A fascinating "what if" that explores the nature of reality, individuality and second chances. Exactly what caused the "anomaly" becomes less important than what each character decides to do with it. Some manage to show more get along with their doppelgangers, some most definitely do not. Some have to live with a similar set of circumstances all over again, while others can learn from the first person's mistakes and make other choices. And the ending... I will be pondering this one for some time, and may have to reread it to feel like I've fully comprehended it. A lot of characters and moving pieces without a lot of answers, this is a good recommendation for fans of LOST and Annihilation. show less

This completely startling and singular novel (well, if you were into the TV show Lost, and the movie The Truman Show, maybe a bit familiar) was so remarkable that I had to reread it again as soon as I finished. I very rarely do that, and this time it wasn't for love (Lonesome Dove), it was to marvel at the unique plot and to make sure I hadn't missed anything by blowing through it so quickly! A flight from Paris to NYC in March of 2021 (no pandemic cited, whew, you couldn't have had both) powers through the most awful cloud formations and violent turbulence, with the plane nearly breaking apart, into the sudden gleam of bright sunlight and a successful landing. Then, in June 2021, three months later, a flight from Paris to NYC (no show more pandemic cited, whew, you couldn't have had both) powers through the most awful cloud formations and violent turbulence, with the plane nearly breaking apart, into the sudden gleam of bright sunlight and a successful landing. The very same plane, pilot, passengers, weather – TWICE, THREE MONTHS APART.

Eleven of the passengers, including the pilot, comprise the cast of characters, in addition to a moronic US president and a rash of scientists and government officials, each trying to cope with and decipher the uniquely challenging circumstance. I feel like I read with my mouth hanging open and with my brain struggling to comprehend how this could have possibly happened, which explanation could be correct, and how the duplicated and original passengers and their families could conceivably handle the situation. And then there's the ending...

Truly an unforgettable must-read, winner of the Goncourt Prize in France, and winner of my eternal admiration for both author and translator.

Quotes: " She wishes she could abandon her body and dissolve into everything outside."

"Love means not being able to stop your heart trampling all over your intelligence." show less

This was shortlisted for the Clarke Award last year, but lost to Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman (a good winner, I enjoyed it a lot and thought it well done). The Anomaly… Well, when I started it, I wasn’t so sure, but by the time I finished I thought it would also have made a good winner.

An Air France flight from Paris to New York enters a hurricane just off the coast of the US. The book briefly describes the lives of some of its passengers - including a French author who writes a book titled The Anomaly, and then commits suicide. Having a book within a book which share a title is always a hostage to fortune. But…

Three months later, the same aircraft appears in the skies off the US. It’s identical in every way - plane and show more crew and passengers completely duplicated. The US promptly hides them on a military base and invokes a first contact protocol, but no one knows what’s going on. Eggheads from assorted disciplines, including the world’s religions, are consulted. Eventually, they all settle on the “the universe is a simulation” as an explanation, and the duplicated flight is simply a glitch. The Anomaly then charts the subsequent lives of assorted passengers who get to meet their originals from the previous flight - with a range of different outcomes, from good to bad.

In parts, The Anomaly reads like something Michel Houellebecq might have written, although not as pessimistic (I’m a fan of Houellebecq's novels). It has the same level of detail and research, and it foregrounds analysis, rather than emotional interiority. Which is a definite plus for me. I’m not about the “feels”, I’m about clarity and verisimilitude. The Anomaly scores on both.

On the other hand, The Anomaly thinks it’s cleverer than it actually is. Its plot is not dissimilar to some recent popular TV shows. Which is not unusual when non-genre authors write genre - although the situation is slightly different in France. But non-genre writers’ takes on genre tropes often proves as interesting, and sometimes more so, as the best the genre has to offer. Le Tellier’s take here is neither ground-breaking nor especially startling to a genre reader, but he not only makes a good fist of the trope, he wraps it in a novel that’s well-written and interestingly structured (it’s Oulipo, apparently).

As I said earlier, it would have been a good winner of the Clarke Award. show less