Doubling, Decay and Discontinuity: Pathology and the (post)human body in Marie Darrieussecq’s Notre vie dans les forêts

Abstract

This article focuses on the portrayal of corporeal and textual embodiment in Marie Darrieussecq’s novel Notre vie dans les forêts (2017), a science fiction dystopia in which all bodily diseases have been cured by advancements in cloning technology. In so doing, it explores how the novel’s paradigm of bodily enhancement questions both the physical limits of the human body and the ways in which corporeal changes redefine contemporary notions of subjectivity, life and death. Drawing on posthuman theory and critical theories of the body, the analysis begins with a reading of human doubling and the portrayal of cloning, before considering the text’s depiction of bodily decay and dissection as a decentering of Darrieussecq’s human subjects. The final section concludes with an exploration of textual discontinuity and its significance for the interpretation of this work. As such, this paper demonstrates how Notre vie dans les forêts encourages its readers to contemplate the innate pathologies of the human condition, allowing them to find new life in the forces of decay and disorder that connect all living subjects.