Redheads and Neanderthals
A character obsessed with the origins of humanity, Bruno Lacombe, is especially fascinated by the competitors to Homo Sapiens, the Neanderthals. In response to genetic mapping, the narrator writes that Bruno has asserted that “we might employ our natural intuition to suppose that like typical redheads, the Neanderthals’ emotions were strong and acute, spanning the heights and depths.” What is most telling about this use of simile, perhaps, is the insight it gives into the workings of Bruno’s obsessive mindset. Although he relies on the hard science of genetics to form the basis of his opinion, his broad generalization of so-called “typical redheads” is utterly unscientific.
Repression of Origin of Species
Although presented in the form of an espionage thriller, the real focus of this novel is the origin of the species. Bruno argues to the narrator that the “deepest repression of all is the story of those who came first, before we did, long before the written-down.” He is forming a view of prehistorical evolution as a narrative that we have accepted consciously. The real truth, however, may lie within the subconscious of not written history but historical fact. Evolution may, in other words, we believe as history but collectively remember as truth passed down through nearly endless generations.
The Devil’s Laughter
A prostitute is relating an unusual experience with a client involving his being penetrated by her with a common object found in a standard toolbox. “She emits a sharp laugh, but her laughter seems false, as if a devil is forcing her to laugh at a joke she doesn’t find funny.” The narrator’s subjective observation indicates a suspicion that the story being told may not be entirely true. This is the source of the deception which allows the simile’s comparison to the devil. It is a form of trickery on her part. Sure enough, with her next words, the prostitute seems to confirm the narrator’s suspicion that this is a story she had retold many times to ensure the punch line has the intended effect upon listeners.
Going Underground
References to “the underground” are abundant throughout the novel both literally and figuratively. The narrator—an undercover operative infiltrating a group of radical environmental activists—observes that “When you live underground, among the things you discover is that you are not alone.” In this sense, the underground is a reference to survival by needing to pass yourself off as a member of a cultural subset where differences stick out in a potentially problematic manner. The more literal references to the underground build upon the same concept of survival except that the threat of not surviving permanently may be more literal in meaning as well. All this focus on the underground is connected to the significant part in the narrative played by the famous cave paintings in France thought to date back more than 20,000 years.
Modern Europe
At one point the narrator reflects on the reality of Europe versus the illusion of it being a place of posh cafes and an endless supply of pastoral frescoes on the walls of old buildings. “The real Europe is highways and nuclear power plants…windowless distribution warehouses, where unseen men…back up their empty trucks and load goods that they will move through a giant grid called `Europe.’” Those unseen men are further described as being mostly if Eastern European descent and the women with whom they engage in transactional sexual relations along their routes lacking EU documentation but definitely not being French while transporting within “a Texas-sized parcel of [Europe]which is called “France.”. Although portrayed as “real” the vision of the continent being described is actually a metaphor for how modern Europe no longer has very strong connections to its romanticized aristocratic past as a collection of highly individualized cultures splitting up a chunk of land according to ever-shifting national boundaries.
