Creation Lake

The interplay between history and modernity forms a key cornerstone of Bruno’s philosophy and a major part of Creation Lake’s thematic project. Through the fictional theorist Bruno, Kushner engages with the possibility that early hominids created happier and more harmonious societies than contemporary people, and this possibility informs the novel’s critique of both capitalist society and urban living.

Although all of Bruno’s theories are underpinned by the idea that industrial society is profoundly unhealthy for individuals and groups, much of what he writes in his emails to Pascal and the Moulinards focuses on Neanderthals. Neanderthals, Bruno argues, were better equipped to create social groups in which each individual member had an important role and was supported by each other member. He notes that even their flaws, like a genetic predisposition toward substance use disorders, might be better understood as positive attributes: “The gene for addiction […] might have served quite a practical purpose for Neanderthals” (55), Bruno writes, because it oriented them toward joy. Substance use indicated an interest in feeling good, and Bruno does not think that should be seen as a detriment. He also argues that Neanderthals were more complex than contemporary paleoanthropologists give them credit for: Bruno feels strongly that there is evidence suggesting that Neanderthals were able to hunt small animals alone, contradicting the establishment view that they required large communities to take down large creatures such as mastodons. He also sees evidence that they were able to navigate and that they understood the solar system. Their identities were thus complex, and they displayed real intelligence, but what is more important to Bruno is that they derived a sense of self from their likes, dislikes, and abilities, from group cohesion, and from one another. By contrast, Bruno argues that modern humanity is nothing outside of a capitalist framework. The modern individual is nothing other than a worker and a consumer of goods.

As critical as Bruno is of industrial capitalism, he has concluded that it is not possible to overthrow this system. While he was once hopeful that the workers of the world could unite and throw off the oppressive mantle of the ruling classes, he now thinks that workers are too embedded within capitalist systems and too dependent on production and consumption and that they derive their sense of self entirely from what they can purchase. For this reason, he argues that the only real path forward is to withdraw from society entirely. Here, he brings up Neanderthals again, as it is their social organization that he finds superior to that of modernity, and he argues that if people withdraw from society in groups, they should model themselves after Neanderthals.

Although the Moulinards do not share Bruno’s opinion that it is no longer possible to overthrow industrial capitalism, they do share many of his ideas about the superiority of rural life and of communal forms of social organization. Pascal explains to Sadie, “In cities, there is no support for parents. They are stressed and isolated and exhausted” (203). This is in part because of the way that capitalist society orients its citizens toward work and consumption. Both parents work long hours to make as much money as possible so that the family has the maximum amount of purchasing power. This leaves little time for parenting and household management. The Moulinards are communal, and everyone shares work duties, including childcare. This means that parents are not stressed or overworked: If they have too much to do, someone else can help them. It should be noted that the Moulinards’ society reproduces normative gender roles in that the men tend to work outside of the home while the women cook, clean, and care for the children. In escaping capitalist life, Pascal and his group have turned back the clock on equality and returned to a form of social organization in which women perform work that is uncompensated and often unrecognized.