Creation Lake

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Parts 1-2

Parts 3-4

Parts 5-6

Parts 7-8

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Neanderthals

Neanderthals are Creation Lake’s most overt and often used motif. Bruno Lacombe’s fascination with Neanderthal history and culture helps Kushner fully explore The Prehistoric Roots of Modern Social Organization. Bruno, long part of anti-capitalist leftist circles in France, has come to believe that there is no way to reform contemporary society and that real alternatives to capitalism are no longer possible. He has become an “anti-civver,” an individual opposed to organized society who advocates a return to the Neanderthal ways, customs, and social organization. He argues that the scientific community gets much wrong about Neanderthal culture and that Neanderthals were more complex and accomplished than they are given credit for. He claims that Neanderthals were able to navigate, understand the solar system, and hunt smaller game than they are thought to have eaten. These qualities in combination with their small social groups and harmonious living make them, in Bruno’s eyes, superior both to other early hominids and to contemporary human societies. Sadie learns about Bruno’s worldview and the importance he places on Neanderthals by reading emails that he exchanges with Pascal and the other Moulinards. Because Bruno’s emails are many in number and are interspersed throughout the entirety of the novel, they form a key undercurrent to the narrative, providing the ideological underpinnings of much of its faster-paced action. Sadie herself becomes caught up in Bruno’s ideas, and her retreat from espionage and society at the end of the novel can be read as a partial endorsement of Bruno’s argument about the benefits of simple living and a turn away from modernity. For Sadie, at least, Bruno’s ideas about the Neanderthals are compelling and become a key catalyst for both reflection and growth.

Agricultural Equipment

Guyenne’s planned transition from a network of small family farms, growing a variety of crops, to a unified site of industrial agriculture casts a shadow over much of Creation Lake’s action. This transition, a source of anger for both area farmers and leftist activists, catalyzes a series of anti-government and anti-industrial responses. The large-scale agricultural equipment necessary for commercialized and industrialized farming can be seen all over Guyenne, and it stands in stark contrast to the rural, agrarian character of the region. Industrialized agricultural equipment and the various acts of sabotage planned by the Moulinards to damage this equipment are mentioned over and over in the novel. This motif helps the author explore The Impact of Industrialized Agriculture and interrogate the role that commercial farming plays in environmental and social destruction. As the novel begins, Sadie’s contacts suspect the Moulinards of having damaged state-owned agricultural equipment to demonstrate their opposition to the government’s plans to build reservoirs that would deplete the region’s water table. That act of sabotage both introduces the Moulinards and gestures toward the confrontational nature of their work. The Moulinards view their eco-terrorism as a positive force within the greater Guyenne area, but the government—and Sadie’s shadowy contacts—view them as a threat. Agricultural equipment continues to pop up throughout the novel. Sadie cannot help but notice the large scale of these machines, and she sees them all over. Additionally, Bruno’s daughter died as a result of a tractor accident, and Sadie realizes that part of his opposition to the trappings of modern civilization is personal: Had older methods of plowing been in place, his daughter would be alive. Industrialized agricultural equipment thus speaks to the kind of sweeping, large-scale changes that have shaped modern agriculture and that imperil the fragile balance of nature in the French countryside.

Entrapment

Sadie’s use of entrapment is another of this novel’s key motifs. Entrapment, when a law enforcement officer or secret agent coerces a target into committing a crime rather than waiting to observe their target committing a crime of their own volition, is an illegal tactic. Sadie’s willingness to entrap suspects both as a law enforcement officer and as a spy speaks to her own dubious morals and helps Kushner explore The Ethics of Espionage. As an FBI agent, Sadie used entrapment to convince the subject of her investigation to commit a crime, and because his lawyers were able to prove that she had used this illegal tactic, he was acquitted in court. Sadie was fired from the FBI and became a spy-for-hire, doing contract work with shady and often unknown-to-her entities in Europe. Sadie’s European contacts often hire her because they want her to entrap their targets, and the ethical flexibility that cost her a government career becomes her greatest asset. Although Sadie has no moral qualms about entrapment, she is haunted by the particular FBI case that resulted in her termination, and as the story unfolds, she returns to it again and again in her mind. Because some of the players in that case begin to publicize Sadie’s ethical missteps, she worries that she will be charged. Eventually, she finds out that she is to be named in a civil suit. As Sadie recalls this case, she also thinks back to other instances in which she had entrapped a suspect rather than waiting for them to commit a crime of their own volition, and she realizes that entrapment has characterized her entire career. Sadie’s preoccupation with entrapment does not lead her to question her own ethics or interrogate her moral relativism, but it does scare her: She realizes that her habits are not sustainable and that continuing her espionage career will leave her vulnerable to prosecution or worse. Ultimately Sadie’s ruminations on entrapment prompt her to quit spying entirely, and her retreat to the Spanish seaside can be read both as a nod toward Bruno’s philosophy and as an acknowledgment of her own desire to leave her past behind.