From the very first lines of the prologue, we discover a police investigation narrated by the woman who is going to lead it. A disappearance, commonplace for a crime novel. A couple and their eight-year-old son. Except that we are in 2049. Following a revolution that broke out 20 years earlier after yet another crime deemed unpunished by a population exasperated by the laxity of the justice system, we are plunged into a dystopian France living in the age of Transparency. No more curtains and binoculars, no more secrecy and shameful little habits. Families will live in vivariums exposed to the curious eye of passers-by and neighbours, whose job is to make sure no violence disturbs the family cocoon. Let’s live happily, let’s live exposed! If there is nothing to hide, then no one should be afraid of showing themselves. A new world in which you can no longer beat your wife, or mistreat a child or an elderly person in a care home, since the slightest suspicion of a crime immediately triggers a reaction from the neighbours, all on high alert about what is happening next door. Impossible to drop a wrapper in the wrong bin without risking a denunciation, no point in trying to gorge on junk food in secret on your sofa or lighting a cigar without a reprimand from the Ministry of Health…
The family that has disappeared lives in one of these upmarket, ultra-secure glass neighbourhoods. So how can three people evaporate in a world where no one can hide anything? We are far from a nightmarish story like “The Handmaid’s Tale” or “Black Mirror”, but this universe is so close to our own that it can become credible and chilling. In the age of social media, where everyone exposes their life to the eyes of all, the question of the boundary between this world and ours quickly arises.
In cold, incisive prose, the author takes us into live trials where the people vote online on the sentences to be inflicted on offenders. For life, press 3. For acquittal, press whatever you like. All opinions are allowed. Transparency has replaced liberty in the national motto in order to guarantee everyone’s safety. People who refuse to live under a glass dome are inevitably suspected of wanting to hide suspicious things. They live in walled-up buildings outside Transparency, where living is an aggravating circumstance in the event of a trial. The others like to be seen, show off by displaying a perfect life and frozen smiles. Only a few smoked-glass panes are allowed in the shower area and for the toilets. And for the “weekly conjugal duty”, to avoid window-shopping, a romantic sarcophagus is dedicated to the discipline, in which to isolate yourself, with an emergency button linked to the police station in case of a sudden migraine or less playful moods.
Through her sanitised pen, the author pushes readers to reflect in a very fertile and stimulating way, and one would like to note down a great many sentences that resonate with the disturbing evolution of our contemporary societies.
“All it takes is an alarm for them all to wake up, watching through the windows the savagery of men, curious about the slightest event, a marital dispute, or an arrest”.
FGM
