The future. Near? Distant? It’s hard to say. A woman writes in an old notebook in a forest, hurrying to get everything down. She’s cold, tired, falling to pieces. She and her companions are fugitives from the status quo and the government will find them, soon. They’ve done their best, but is that enough? What does it achieve? There isn’t much time but someone has to record the truth. And so this woman, formerly a psychologist, turns her gaze upon herself: her privileged position as one of the social elite, measured not by wealth or status but by the fact that she has a ‘half’, a clone, identical in all ways to herself, a second body kept in permanent sleep, yet always ready to replace any of her organs or body parts that malfunction. Hers is a story of gradual ethical awakening, of questioning, prompted by the arrival in her office one day of an unusual patient: the ‘clicker’. Darrieussecq’s novel is a curious beast: somewhat half-baked, somewhere along the line between sci-fi novel and ethical fable. It will inevitably be compared to Kashuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, but differs in one crucial aspect: a lack of heart...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2019/02/05/our-life-in-the-forest-marie-darrieussecq/ ( )

Our Life in the Forests by French author Marie Darrieussecq, is a book both strange and familiar. It’s strange because it’s set in a dystopian otherworld of clones and advanced technologies, and it’s familiar because the created society uses the common tropes of speculative fiction: haves and have-nots; clones disconcertingly like humans; inescapable surveillance systems; and rebels who have fled back to nature. Comparisons with Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) are inevitable because of the theme of organ-harvesting…
The narrator is one of the rebels. An orphan with no family ties (and only memories of a difficult relationship with her mother), she has fled to the forest at the instigation of a like-minded soul, and they have rescued the ‘halves’, i.e. the clones ‘bred’ to provide replacement body parts for their failing bodies. These ‘halves’ have been kept in a vegetative state in the Centre since birth: they are said to have no brains and therefore no feelings. Like other ‘lucky ones’ who have a clone, the narrator has already accessed some body parts. She’s had a lung transplant and a kidney transplant, and now she needs an eye.
However, this narrator, a psychologist by trade, has developed an attachment to her clone and – having visited her daily at the Centre and now in the forest taught ‘Marie’ to walk and behave somewhat like a human – she is repelled by the idea of harvesting her organs again.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/08/10/our-life-in-the-forest-by-marie-darrieussecq... ( )

Viviane est psychologue, elle vit en l'an lointain où manifestement la pollution, l'évolution, la technique ont bouleversé la vie. Dorénavant on peut avoir son clone ou une jarre pour stocker les organes dont on pourrait avoir besoin en cas de maladie.
Viviane est partie de chez elle et vit en clandestinité, elle nous relate dans son journal ce que fut sa vie.
Un livre d'anticipation qui fait froid dans le dos.....excellent. ( )