Quarterly Review // Jan-April Wrap-up - Jordan Casstles
Dark Constellations – Pola Oloixarac (trans. Roy Kesey) In 2024, through the efforts of the Argentinian Ministry of Genetics, privacy is dead. Technology capable of tracking the entire experiential histories of individuals and their ancestors via their genetic code is now in the hands of the powers that be, and the powers that be may do with it as they will. With this deeply unsettling premise as a starting point, Oloixarac weaves a byzantine and Borgesian narrative which stretches from the 1880s to the near future and reveals the dark heart of contemporary surveillance culture to the reader. While the manner in which the narrative has been divided up and presented may be initially confusing for some readers, the path that the author has developed slowly becomes more intuitive to follow and readers will quickly find themselves subconsciously synchronising with the slow but steady rhythm of the text. Caveat lector: this is not a light read. Expect some explicit sexual content and some p...