Publisher’s
write-up:
‘Author Clarissa Katsef is struggling to write her next book. She’s just
snagged a brand new artist residency in an ultra-modern apartment, with a view
of all of Paris, a dream for any novelist in search of tranquility. But since
moving in, she has had the feeling of being watched. Is there reason to be
paranoid? Or is her distraction and discomfort the result of her husband’s
recent shocking betrayal? Or is that her beloved Paris lies altered outside her
windows? A city that will never be quite the same, a city with a scar at its
center?
Stuck inside, in the midst of a sweltering heat wave, Clarissa enlists
her beloved granddaughter in her investigation of the mysterious, high tech
building even as she finds herself drawn back into the orbit of her first
husband who is still the one who knows her most intimately, who shares the past
grief that she has never quite let go.’
Note: I read the French version of the book
Cliquez ici afin de lire mon avis en français
Flowers of Darkness is a novel by Tatiana de Rosnay published in 2020. The
main character of the novel is Clarissa Kastel, an old writer past her prime in
her 70s, has just moved to Paris. It is not the Paris of today but in an
unspecified date in the future, highly impacted by climate change, artificial intelligence
and terror attacks. For instance, the Eiffel Tower no longer exists, destroyed
by a recent terrorist attack, and since this event, the city has changed a lot.
Clarissa moves into a residence that is dedicated to artists and
writers, called CASA where everything inside the house is managed by an AI
assistant, to whom Clarissa gives the name Mrs. Dalloway, named after the
character from Virginia Woolf’s novel. Clarissa has just been separated from
her husband and with her, she has her daughter and grand-daughter. Little by
little, Clarissa starts to feel uncomfortable in her new apartment. She tries
to raise the issue to CASA, but her complaints are ignored. So, is it an old
writer hallucinating things or is CASA really snooping into all details of her
life through their AI assistant? That is the main theme of the novel.
It is not the first time that a novel is talking about a dystopian
future where AI has full surveillance which controls our life. The repetitive
nature of the theme is not my problem as it is still possible to have a good
novel by the way in which it is presented. However, in this novel, she has
tried to bring in too many themes – climate change, artificial intelligence, surveillance
and even terrorist attacks (which was not at all necessary for this particular
novel) and she did not particularly go deep into any of these themes she had
chosen. Some were more important than others such as surveillance but overall,
none too profound to leave a mark.
It felt to me like reading a draft and not a novel published by a
well-established author given the number of references to Virginia Woolf or
Romain Gary at random, without much relevance. It felt like it was only to show
the dual identity of Clarissa, who is French and British, like the author of
the novel Tatiana de Rosnay herself (so, even the main character is a version
of the author herself).
To conclude, I had a very difficult read, and was not pleasurable at
all. The idea was interesting but with a horrible narration. I award the novel
a rating of two on ten.
Rating – 2/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
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