I apparently read this on an extremely superficial level because I missed lots of the literary references. I think my favorite part involved the scientists who invented Protocol 42 and the absurdity of that.
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There are lots of literary references that are pretty obscure. I’d heard about the guy who wrote the novel without the letter e, but did not realize he was part of a group. There were references to French intellectuals I did not recognize at all. I googled a few just to get an idea of what they were about.
Disclosure, I’m not a fan, even as an adult of The Twilight Zone, didn’t watch Dexter, ( waving at Blake - but my daughter did so I know about that sociopath, only read couple Stephen King novels, and Sci-fi, other than Dune a gazillion years ago, not my genre.
So, fellow readers, would like to better understand this novel.
Feeling frustrated, I can’t quite grasp on to this merry go round.
Here is my take away, and would love for others to set me straight, clarify anything I’m just winging this.
******What causes the planes to duplicate?
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Is there some alien, higher intelligence, in the future, who can manipulate, like 3 D copying, and they are sending these duplicates back—— to test our reactions?
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Is there a blip a wrinkle in the universe, causing a worm hole opening, like string theory, revealing another parallel universe/ dimension?
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Are we just all a simulation of this higher intelligence, and computer programs ?
******How does society react to this anamoly?
Media- manipulates for their own purposes, ie Stephen Colbert, for good tv, resulting in catastrophe. Fake media sounds familiar.
Religious leaders- they see this through their own belief system, steeped in fear, and anger the fringe elements kill the aberrations, calling them the work of the devil.
Individual reactions -
Blake, in a twisted turn of events inflicts sociopathic horror on “himself” ….
Each character deals with their doppelgänger with varying degrees of acceptance.
Ironic the MIT geniuses resort to the questions from “encounters of a third kind” … when all of their rational hypotheses are exhausted, what’s left ——- text from Hollywood movie.
Honestly, I didn’t care about any of the characters, so when the Junes met the Marches, it was more mind game than tugging at my heart.….
So first plane takes off in March,……these people become known as the Junes.
Second plane also takes off in March, but these people are known as the Marches.
Ugh, head explosion emoji needed 
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I knew I was reading it on a superficial level and just seeing the tip of the iceberg. I also knew that when discussion started here, you would all uncover layers and nuances and references and background. And that’s just regarding the translation LOL!
So to some extent I felt - not exactly unworthy - maybe unenlightened? Like the book was kind of wasted on a reader who wouldn’t recognize the extent of brilliance in the writing. I don’t normally approach books as a puzzle or game but as a story. So that was my approach.
However, I do know that the March and June duplicates are identified by when the plane(s) landed, not when it/they took off. Whew!
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The book had me scratching my head at many points and I haven’t even found some of the games referred to by other readers.
@jerseysouthmomchess After reading the elucidating posts by others here, I think I’m leaning towards your #3 as the most likely explanation for the cloning of the planes. The text calligram (thanks for the explanation @mathmom) in the form of an hour glass that is disintegrating as we run out of time to correct our path seems to indicate that the simulation is at an end.
Regardless, my take on the book’s ending is this: We (humans) have failed whatever test was set for us and the moment when the missile will vaporize the third plane will mark the end of us, whether we are a part of someone else’s augmented reality game or intelligent, sentient beings that evolved over time from some primordial form of life.
I think the reason Le Tellier begins the story with Blake is to underline the idea that, abhorrent as Blake is, his actions aren’t as bad as the actions of our politicians and the inaction of the general population that is allowing it. We, collectively, are guilty of worse crimes than Blake’s murders for hire.
A nitpicking criticism — Regarding the translation (from the little French I remember my guess is that this has to be a translator error), there is an error at the beginning of Joanna June’s second letter to Joanna March. It just infuriates me to see this type of mistake in a book.
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Totally on the translator or their editor. In French it’s “Tu t’apelles désormais Wasserman” literally “You call yourself”, it’s a typo I often make, even though it totally irritates me when others do!
That’s an interesting idea that Blake is less bad than the people in charge. And his decision that there should only be one of him is interesting. If you didn’t agree to be cloned, is it fair to have that clone out there?
The superficial level is the most important one. Because if you don’t want to read the book for the story – because it’s intriguing or exciting or touching or whatever – then what’s the point?
The Anomaly worked for me on the basic story level, and uncovering the layers enhances my understanding and appreciation of the work.
I suppose that’s true of any kind of art, right? I can look at a painting and enjoy it, be drawn to it, be intrigued by it – but it’s not until I delve into a little Art History that I get a real feeling for what the artist was trying to do.
I tend to lose perspective about midway through our discussions. I always like a book much more after we’ve talked about it, and then I’ll recommend it to someone and they’ll hand it back to me later with a face like this: 
or 
or 
. I probably shouldn’t recommend books we’ve discussed. 
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Yep. I read that sentence about three times in a row, thinking they couldn’t have made the classic your/you’re blunder – but it seems they did.
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Thanks for your post.
Agree!!
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@mathmom, thank you for posting the painting! That was one of the passages in the book that I read without thinking too much about (probably because I was zooming toward the end), and I’m glad to see the actual work.
Joanna June wrote, “Joanna Ashbury sounds a little like John Ashbery, and that reminds me of his long poem Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, that I promised myself I’d read, if you remember. He talks about a painting by Parmigianino from the cinquecento.”
It is a VERY long poem, but even a quick skim reveals that the poem, as well as the painting, reflects back some of the themes of The Anomaly, e.g.:
This otherness, this
“Not-being-us” is all there is to look at
In the mirror, though no one can say
How it came to be this way. A ship
Flying unknown colors has entered the harbor.
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Yes.
I like the book but definitely read it on the superficial level. To be honest, I did not realize how superficially till the start of the discussion.
Per usual, I will get so much more out of the book through this discussion.
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I’m puzzled as to what was supposed to have been the “right” solution so that the 3rd plane wouldn’t have come to be blown up? At some point, whomever was doing the simulations would end up with things getting overcrowded.
In Groundhog Day, the same guy kept getting reset to reliving the same day and it didn’t create more clones.
Was there another flight in China too, or did they “get it right”?
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I would love to know what the Chinese solution was. Were there any hints that I missed?
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The Chinese weren’t sharing info with the US or presumably the rest of the world. They appear to have had the 2 planes before the US/France incident but played coy when they were informed by the US of the situation.
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I know I’ve read articles positing that we actually are living in a simulation but I’m not going to link them here because frankly I just don’t understand them. Both they and this book make me feel like I did as a high school junior when the (very handsome) new teacher tried in an attempt to be relevant to have our class analyze Simon & Garfunkle’s “I am a rock.” In retrospect, I really feel for him as we sat there, dumb as rocks, as he played and replayed the song, saying “listen, really listen, to the lyrics” until mercifully someone said, “Wait, maybe’s he’s not a rock?”
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On pages 260-261, someone tries to talk with US prez about 2 identical China planes but since not many details are known and it is time for the media, there is no indication this is pursued and it is not mentioned by the prez.
Regarding thr Chinese planes, I assumed they did away with the plane, the passengers, the evidence just buried it all.
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Setting aside all the esoteric aspects of the book for a minute, answer me this: How would you feel if you were a passenger on that plane?
Do you think you would welcome your doppelgänger as an identical twin and make the best of it, like the two Slimboys and the two Adrianas? Or would you wish you had the steely psychopathic resolve of Blake? 
I keep wondering…What if I met myself? Would I hate the sound of my voice? Would my mannerisms be endearing or annoying? Would we have good chemistry, or would I find my personality intolerable? And could I really bond with someone who knows every detail of everything I’d ever said, done or thought? Could I trust her not to divulge information that I wanted confidential or had been entrusted to me by others? And then there’s the whole husband thing…Being married to one of me can be a challenge, two would probably have him heading for the hills.
The doubles in The Anomaly are the same – and yet they’re not. We humans are continually changing and lot can (and does) happen in three months: Victor June is puzzled by Victor March’s suicide, Lucie June does an about-face in her relationship with André, etc. Since our brains are constantly working and memories are triggered by different stimuli, would my double some day share stories of events or people that I had completely forgotten?
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