Les furtifs par Alain Damasio (review)

Narrated within the combined literary genres of fantasy and science fiction, the abduction of the four-year-old daughter of Lorca and Sahar begins near Arles in 2040. The family is torn apart by the couple's differing reactions to the disappearance of their daughter Tishka. Sahar must mourn what she believes to be her daughter's death. She is one of group of a roaming, independent teachers called the proferrance (sic) operating subversively to the government. Meanwhile, her husband Lorca thinks that Tishka is still alive amid these bodiless, ephemeral creatures called les furtifs who have abducted his daughter. At 43, he joins the military whose mission is to pursue these aliens who are, at first, understood to be an enemy of the government. We readers learn increasingly about these beings (nicknamed fifs) as the storyline follows the reuniting of the parents and their daughter with twists and turns that are engaging for the reader. Lorca and Sahar alternate, among others, as narrators to tell us what they learn about Tishka's abductors. For example, the fifs are born in frissons that resemble jazz music and appear to respond to the sound of a hunting horn. This tie to music is reinforced by an online, downloadable rock album by Yan Pechin. In the story, a Balinese shaman whose music appears to speak to the aliens is especially intriguing when Tishka tries to communicate with her parents. The creatures also have their own written language that imitates diacritical marks which decorate the French words of the text. The narrative also fascinates this reader by the neologisms that are invented to speak about life in the future. These words account for the kinds of intrusion by these life forms who eventually give the French hope that their political lives will be marked by respect for the freedom of refugees from other less democratic societies. Eventually a revolution forms to advocate for an alternative to a technologically monitored French society that has become hypertracé. The advocates of freedom escape to an island where they join forces with the strangely free and admired—"Fuir, c'est créer" (250)—fifs in the activities of violent, determined revolutionaries. Civil war abounds as Tishka's parents endure all kinds of setbacks to ensure her survival. Lorca is philosophically inclined while Sahar threatens the ruling government with her unflinching ideas. Lorca is inspired by the works of Gilles Deleuze, and the character Varech provides a philosophical base for the political ideologies of the time. The story's language is intriguing. Invented dialects identify characters in the many dialogues that move the story. Likewise, the neologisms introduced throughout provide insights into how the French language could evolve because of the political, technological, and ideological innovations that the struggles for freedom entail. This admirably complex and simultaneously coherent novel is also a parable about the survival of political freedom and the costs of such a survival. A beautifully haunting work results, with remarkable narrative techniques, bold word composition, and ideological commentaries on our present world order.