Annihilation
by Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Straus, & Geroux, 2014, 208 pages)
Annihilation
is one of those novels that you can't tear yourself away from, even
though you KNOW that you'll have nightmares because of it. That's
because VanderMeer has constructed a dense psychological narrative
that develops against a backdrop of unknown creatures, contamination,
murder, and psychological manipulation. The more you read, the more
you know that you don't know anything- none of the characters have
names, Area X (which they are sent to explore) is a big mystery in
itself, and even the narrator herself admits that she doesn't know if
anything she's been told about her expedition is true. So basically,
you accompany the narrator ("the biologist") into an
unknown and increasingly frightening wilderness filled with moaning
creatures and living words that grow on walls and ALL you want to do
is hold onto something that you DO know (i.e. the narrator). After
all, she's supposed to be your guide, your companion, in this area
that has been cut off from human civilization and possesses a
seemingly lethal secret.
We learn that previous expeditions into this area have not ended well (suicides, murders, etc)., but it's the expedition that came before the one we're reading about that is the most terrifying: apparently, all of the expedition members returned to their homes from Area X without knowing how they got back and only as shells of their former selves (no really- shells. The "real" people were probably killed by the creatures of Area X and their bodies replicated). They all subsequently died of cancer. Our biologist narrator was married to one of those explorers, and volunteered to explore and catalog Area X for a variety of complicated reasons, including her need to understand what her husband was looking for and her own obsession with isolated natural environments and the life forms that inhabit them.
Early
on, the biologist is "contaminated" by spores from an
unknown organism and from then on, the reader can never be sure who
is actually speaking: the biologist herself, or the thing that she is
changing into. Reading Annihilation
is like trying to walk across quicksand: each step threatens to send
you into an abyss, but you keep going somehow, hoping to find solid
ground. At the end, we are left with many more questions than
answers, but one answer we do have is the most terrifying of all: the
border that encircles Area X is expanding. Is this some kind of alien
invasion? If so, is it malicious or simply a case of one organism
using whatever it encounters as fodder to survive? I guess we'll just
have to wait for the next two novels for some answers. Hopefully,
there will be some answers. Otherwise, Jeff VanderMeer will be
getting some angry emails from me.
I loved this book so much. while you read it, you sort of get "colonized" by it, and it's just a matter of how you respond. are you going to freak out like the psychologist does? or keep plodding along, like the biologist?
ReplyDeletea neat trick that he doesn't name anyone. And I was just yesterday giving someone feedback on their story, telling them they had to name their characters. But hey, it's Jeff Vandermeer. He can get away with anything, and he makes it look easy.