A
Literary Saloon
&
Site of Review.

Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.


Contents:
Main
the Best
the Rest
Review Index
Links

weblog

crQ

RSS

to e-mail us:


support the site



In Association with Amazon.com


In association with Amazon.com - UK


In association with Amazon.ca - Canada


the Complete Review
the complete review - fiction



Our Life in the Forest

by
Marie Darrieussecq


general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

To purchase Our Life in the Forest


Title: Our Life in the Forest
Author: Marie Darrieussecq
Genre: Novel
Written: 2017 (Eng. 2018)
Length: 116 pages
Original in: French
Availability: Our Life in the Forest - US
Our Life in the Forest - UK
Our Life in the Forest - Canada
Notre vie dans les forêts - Canada
Notre vie dans les forêts - France
Unser Leben in den Wäldern - Deustchland
from: Bookshop.org (US)
  • French title: Notre vie dans les forêts
  • Translated by Penny Hueston

- Return to top of the page -


Our Assessment:

B : slim, fairly effective dystopian vision

See our review for fuller assessment.



Review Summaries
Source Rating Date Reviewer
FAZ . 14/4/2019 Niklas Bender
Le Monde . 31/8/2017 Eric Loret


  From the Reviews:
  • "So wichtig der Entwurf einer abschreckenden Zukunft ist, Darrieussecq zielt mehr noch auf das Wie der Enthüllung ab. Nach und nach erfährt die Heldin die Wahrheit über sich und die Gesellschaft; wie in einem Krimi erzeugt die Autorin eine düstere Atmosphäre und erzählerische Spannung. (...) Darrieussecqs Text verdankt Theorie und Praxis der Psychoanalyse überzeugende Szenen und Motive. Das Spiel mit Assoziationsketten etwa ist spannend, der Roman lässt sie immer komplexer werden und führt die Robotisierungswünsche ad absurdum." - Niklas Bender, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

  • "Le nouveau roman de Marie Darrieussecq est plein des angoisses et des horreurs de l’époque : drones, attentats, clones, enlèvements (.....) (C)’est un texte post-traumatique (.....) Par-delà le plaisir politique et fictif, Notre vie dans les forêts est aussi, et comme souvent chez Darrieussecq, un délicat exercice d’auto-réanimation." - Eric Loret, Le Monde

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

- Return to top of the page -


The complete review's Review:

       Our Life in the Forest takes place in a dystopian near-future, narrated by Viviane (her 'fugitive' name), who has gone on the run with her clone, Marie (with Vivianne's actual name: "Marie too, obviously"), -- which she calls 'Sissy' -- now surviving in the forest in a community of other fugitives from what civilization has become. While her account does describe quite a bit of their life in the forest, Viviane also looks back to the life and situation she escaped from -- whose exact nature becomes clearer to her as she reflects on it and her experiences. She also feels that she physically doesn't have much time left -- and so, for example, notes at the outset: "I'm not in good shape. I won't have time to read this".
       The world Viviane left behind is one transitioning to an automated, AI-dominated one, with robots gradually taking over most human occupations and humans closely monitored and tracked (including via the implants they all have). There's also the matter of the clones -- with many in the forest with Viviane also with their (other) 'halves', Viviane explaining that:

[V]ery soon after my own birth, a surrogate mother gave birth to Marie, who has exactly the same genetic material as me, and who has always been presented as a life insurance policy, for me as much as my parents, since we all came from the same stock. A long-lasting body. If one of us needed a new organ, the transplants would be perfectly compatible. Marie = a supply of spare parts. The half = a safeguard. Anyway, that’s the way they spun it for us.
       The halves were always kept asleep, but Viviane would regularly go visit Marie -- but, for example: "We're not allowed to touch them. We're not allowed to touch our halves". Viviane had apparently already gotten some replacement-parts from Marie -- a kidney, a lung -- and when Viviane started having eye-trouble they removed one of her eyes; she did not get a replacement for that, however (which we know from the novel's opening sentence: "I opened my eye and bang, everything came into focus ") -- a fact that eventually gives her greater insight into the true(r) nature of the society she is part of (and then tries to break free from). .
       While the clones are physically the same age as their other, developmentally they lag far behind, and Vivian describes the struggle of getting them vaguely up to speed -- manageable, in some respects, but hardly completely. So also, for example, Vivian describes:
halves who had recently been reanimated. Their gestures were clumsy, not like children’s, more like adult-children, horses who had sprung in one go from being foals to being fully grown mares, without learning anything in between. They limped but they were lively. They ran around as fast as their legs could carry them, but got themselves in a muddle. They fell down laughing. They tussled with each other, they got told off, they set out again with their buckets to do the chores.
       Viviane worked as psychoanalyst -- as was Darrieussecq for a time --, and devotes considerable space to some of her professional experiences -- wondering then also: "Why, in the forest, am I thinking so much about my old job ?" Among the sessions she recalls are those with a patient who didn't want to talk or do anything -- "He didn't want anything to happen" -- so they would just sit there.
       It's a curious little novel -- the narrative well-propelled not only by Viviane now being a fugitive (though the authorities don't seem to go all-out in trying to hunt the fugitives down and bring them back into the fold (or get rid of them)) but also by her sense of physical decline and that she doesn't have much time left and her rush to get down what she feels she has to say. The sense of her being overwhelmed is effectively conveyed -- down to the end, where she admits: "I can no longer make sense of anything at all".

- M.A.Orthofer, 5 September 2026

- Return to top of the page -


Links:

Our Life in the Forest: Reviews: Marie Darrieussecq: Other books by Marie Darrieussecq under review: Other books of interest under review:
  • See Index of French literature at the complete review

- Return to top of the page -


About the Author:

       French author Marie Darrieussecq was born in 1969. She is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and has written several acclaimed novels.

- Return to top of the page -

© 2026 the complete review

Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links