Mécanismes de survie en milieu hostile par by Oliva Rosenthal

Abstract

Reviews 281 Rosenthal, Oliva. Mécanismes de survie en milieu hostile. Paris:Verticales, 2014. ISBN 978-2-070-14634-5. Pp. 192.16,90 a. They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but the colorized still from the 1960 British sci-fi classic Village of the Damned gracing the cover of Rosenthal’s tenth novel gives a strong indication of the eerie, mysterious foreboding found inside.As the novel opens the reader is immediately immersed in a post-apocalyptic world in which the unnamed narrator leaves another female “abandonnée sur le bas-côté de la route, de toute façon je ne pouvais plus rester avec elle, ça devenait trop dangereux” (11). We never learn who these people are precisely, why one had to be left behind, and why the other is on the run. The only constant is fear and uncertainty: “[L]à-haut ils m’attendent, là-haut ils me tueront, je n’aurai pas la force de courir, ni de crier, ni de tuer alors qu’ici je peux reconstruire une dernière fois tout ce par quoi je suis passée avant de finir” (26). It is only over the novel’s five long chapters, and especially in the last one,“Le retour,”that the narrator and reader are finally able to piece together who these people may be and whether the abandoned girl on the first page is truly dead, dead to the narrator, or if perhaps there is no difference between those two states. Reaching the novel’s conclusion, however, requires a great deal of patience. Although aesthetically pleasing, the writing frequently turns overly abstract and opaque: “Je dois aplatir le monde. Dès que le relief s’abîme, on est moins exposé aux mauvaises surprises. Dans un monde en deux dimensions, il est rare qu’un être, un objet ou un événement imprévu surgissent” (55). This abstruseness and lack of narrative line are compounded by what initially appears to be a completely separate second text, interspersed within the first and demarcated by italics. These random paragraphs, whose subjects revolve around near-death experiences, crime scene investigations, and medical emergencies, are much more concrete and scientific. Eventually the two texts begin to intersect, albeit tangentially, and parallels can be drawn, ultimately creating a commentary on and development of the themes and actions presented in the primary narrative, with a concomitant increase in tension.As the narrative progresses through chapters describing an intense and traumatic childhood game of hide-and-seek or the protagonist’s relationship with her friends after her move to Paris at the age of 18, we learn that really all that we are—all our surroundings, friends, family, and foes—can be a “milieu hostile.” Should one leave everything behind and dedicate oneself to photographing the invisible, as one of the survivors of a near-death experience does, should the narrator try to “creus[er] un pli nouveau où me loger, un pli intérieur et hors de portée” (167), or can one find the means necessary to discover solace? Bradley University (IL) Alexander Hertich ...