Infinite Books

In Adam Thirlwell’s “The Future Future” we meet Celine, a 19-year-old, wealthy, married girl living in pre-revolution Paris when she finds herself in a problematic situation; someone is distributing pornographic pamphlets with her image, describing her habits and life. The accusations are false, but the series becomes popular, and soon, Celine is on everybody’s lips as a new, intriguing subject to talk about.

The sudden disgrace of Celine can be compared to today’s canceling culture. Celine’s friends order food from Balthazar restaurant, which reminds me of Balthazar restaurant, a modern-day upscale place in New York. Writers who make Celine’s social circle often talk about their scripts, not novels. “It was becoming more and more important to make a script into an opera. A script on its own was not enough, and maybe this was rational. To be real, it needed to be multiplied.” Again, one can’t escape comparing this approach to today’s film productions. It’s fun to find all those little hints when Adam Thirlwell winks at the reader, challenging us to look for resemblances in our world.

The dialog is modern, and the characters are similar to people today. It is almost as if the author put Celine and her friends on a transparent film of historical events, which moves behind them but mainly serves as a connection to modern times. It’s easy to imagine Celine as a wealthy socialite, a celebrity or influencer searching for meaning in her life but not too concerned about finding it. She often reflects on her feelings and relationships or others’ motives but is more of an observer than a person of action. However, she doesn’t stay in one place – we travel with Celine to colonial America, then to the Moon (where she befriends an alien), and back to Earth to land in Napoleon’s Paris.

The novel feels fresh in tackling the subject of history, touching even on the beginnings of our world. I enjoyed Celine’s musings and comparing them to modern times. However, the book sometimes felt like a dress with too many embellishments. Perhaps it was why I never became thoroughly interested in Celine’s life. There were glimpses when she seemed more relatable to me, especially while reading about female friendship and the issue of power, mainly in the hands of men, but overall, she stayed somehow distant. Ultimately, she enters the forest, and we see her becoming green, like the forest – or like a beautiful dream girl/woman who can live anywhere and nowhere.

THE FUTURE FUTURE by Adam Thirlwell, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023