Creation Lake-Rachel Kushner:

The protagonist and narrator of Kushner's novel is a 34-year-old American, former FBI agent and current freelance agent, who during the events of the book operates under the pseudonym Sadie Smith (a simple synonym for the excellent British novelist Zadie Smith after Sadie's conclusion that Smith is the most impersonal Anglo-American surname). The mission she is tasked with by her unknown but undeniably powerful employers? To infiltrate a commune of environmental activists based in a remote corner of the French countryside in order to investigate the extent to which its members may be involved in the recent sabotage of a state project for water management in the wider region. And if she is unable to extract sufficient evidence, she is simply asked to plant it.

Although the ostensibly leading figure in Le Moulin (the name of the coommune) is Pascal Balmy (a Parisian of elitist origins that he insists he has long since renounced), its real spiritual father is Bruno Lacombe, an old leftist who, having abandoned the world, now moves to a cave, thus nurturing his obsession with anthropology and specifically Neanderthal man, communicating with members only via email that Sadie has access to after hacking Bruno's account.

The dullness of the French countryside and the supposed idealism of Pascal and the Moulinards are deconstructed under the cynical gaze of Sadie, a relentless and delightfully morbid narrative voice as she struggles to understand the complex and often contradictory evolutionary theories that flood Bruno's emails, while also unabashedly offering her own opinions: dilemmas about the ethical dimension of espionage, questions about the effectiveness of eco-terrorism, doubts about the integrity of the revolutionary nature of the so-called (by many, certainly not her and myself) reformers of our time. Nihilism. Existential questions about the course of humanity so far, its future fate. All this, in the package of a breathtaking spy thriller.

With a slightly different reading approach, however, Creation Lake is the unorthodox chronicle of a love affair, that of Sadie and Bruno. The novel begins with Sadie rejecting Bruno's anthropological theories, reducing them to nothing more than the delusions of a lazy, demented old man. Gradually, however, the development of her mission reveals to her the core of human existence (what she herself calls "salt"), highlighting the wisdom of Bruno, who by the end of the novel has transformed into a particularly endearing figure in Sadie's mind, despite the fact that they practically never interact during the book.

Regardless of how you read it, Kushner has written a novel that is full of great ideas that manages to maintain its spark and flow like water (after the first 100 pages, at least).

This was my second time reading Creation Lake and what I got out of it is that there's gonna be a third one as well. I truly can't get enough this novel. I really consider it one of the most intellectualy curious and wildly enjoyable pieces of fiction to come out of this decade so far.

Until my third reading of it though, I guess it's time to re-read The Mars Room as well. I'll make sure to get into it.