*Don’t be alarmed – the following
review has no spoilers!
Alex
Garland’s rendition of Annihilation
is set for release sometime (hopefully) within the year. The film is an adaptation of the first novel
in Jeff Vandermeer’s ‘Southern Reach’ trilogy, which also includes the sequels Authority and Acceptance, and is sometimes collectively referred to as Area X.
Garland is most well-known at the moment for having directed last year’s
superb artificial intelligence thriller, Ex
Machina. So, in anticipation of the
upcoming adaptation, I decided to get a copy of Vandermeer’s book and read it
for myself. Cards on the table: I’ve
never read anything by Vandermeer before, but based on the reviews and
reactions toward Annihilation that I encountered,
I went ahead and bought the whole damn trilogy (you can purchase it as an
omnibus edition from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, titled Area X). I was taking a
chance, but then I was also pretty confident in my decision.
Now, having finished the first installment in the
trilogy, I can definitively say that my confidence was well-founded. Annihilation
is a strange, unsettling, perplexing, yet also hauntingly beautiful work of
fiction. I find myself hard-pressed to
settle on a label for what kind of fiction, or what genre Vandermeer is writing
in. Many have called this science
fiction, and it certainly is… to a degree.
Yet I wouldn’t hesitate to associate it with the Lovecraftian “new weird,”
somewhat in the vein of China Miéville.
The shortcomings of human perception, the potential for madness, an
unforgiving nonhuman world… all of the ingredients are there. Alternatively, the novel also reads at times
like a kind of eco-thriller, a text with conservationist undertones. The narrator is a biologist who constantly
reminds readers that true objectivity is impossible – that no matter how much
she tries to remove herself from what she observes, her act of observation is
always a part of the ecosystem under her surveillance. Modern eco-critics condemn the invasiveness
and corrosiveness of industrial and postindustrial technologies, but Vandermeer
reverses this concern, imagining instead an unsettling scenario in which humans
are no longer the invaders. Something
else, rather, might be trying to invade us.
Lovecraftian indeed.
The narrative recounts the progress of an expedition sent
into the mysterious space known only as “Area X.” Their mission isn’t entirely clear, even to
them; but their primary purpose seems simply to be to investigate the region,
locate specific places mapped by previous expeditions, and learn as much as
they can about what happened – “what is still happening” – in Area X. The biologist, who also serves as the primary
narrator, is accompanied by three other specialists: a surveyor, an anthropologist,
and a psychologist. All four characters
are women, and the novel passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors. Almost none of their conversations are about
men. The only significant male character
in the novel is the biologist’s husband, who appears only in her recollections
and who was “lost” on an earlier expedition (I’ll leave the juicy details of
this development for those who wish to read the book). The novel’s style is sparse: there are no
proper names, of people or places, that would help us identify the exact
location or historical period in which the novel is set. The only proper names unveiled in the novel
are: The Southern Reach (the vague government entity that holds jurisdiction
over Area X), Rock Bay (an ambiguous location that the narrator visited in her
past, on one of her field assignments), and Area X itself, if we can even
consider “Area X” to be that “proper” of a name. Even the locations within Area X are
hopelessly anonymous (the black pine forest, the marsh flats, the abandoned
village, the lighthouse… and a source of ever-present unease, the Tower).
The
novel’s pace is swift and compelling, making it hard to put down. The narrator’s process of discovery is our
process of discovery; and even when her realizations end up complicating our
impressions of what exactly is going on in Area X, we feel the need to know
more. The text never feels as though
Vandermeer is trying to misdirect us, primarily because his narrator is so
impressively critical of her own observational perspective. She seems to be constantly aware of potential
flaws in her reasoning, even if her awareness is sometimes slightly
delayed. A somewhat unsettling and
destabilizing event (I can’t be more specific) occurs surprisingly early in the
text, rendering the remainder of the novel perpetually uncertain; but the
narrator never presumes her objectivity or her accuracy. Her intense self-reflection never becomes
overbearing or daunting, but rather entices us as readers to somersault with
her through the valences and obscurities of her environment. Area X is no normal ecosystem, that much is
certain… and that negativity may be the only
certainty.
The
novel concludes on a satisfying yet not entirely revelatory note, and I’ll say
no more in this respect. Conceptually,
Vandermeer’s text is grappling with some fascinating topics mainly having to do
with the difficulties or paradoxes of symbiotic biology (the narrator is a
specialist in something called “transitional ecosystems”) and the fragility of
human selfhood within and among such interconnected lifeforms. Ultimately, knowledge itself comes under fire
as the narrator-biologist increasingly ponders how anything like a coherent set
of facts could be derived from organisms and ecosystems that are constantly in
flux, sometimes violently so. Vandermeer
even manages to include some speculative inquiries on language and
communication (language plays a central part in the narrative of Annihilation, although I’m not entirely
sure we can actually describe this phenomenon as “language” – but you’ll figure
that out as you read…). Ultimately,
transitional ecosystems and symbiotic organisms are also communicational entities, forms that actively infiltrate and
augment their hosts (the work of Michel Serres comes to mind, specifically his
1980 book, The Parasite). Something is definitely communicating in Area
X… but I’m still not sure I know exactly what it is yet.
Of
course, there are still two more books to go.
More to come…
