I mentioned that I’d picked up several new series while my Facebook account was deactivated. This is one – Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy – consisting of “Annihilation”, “Authority” and “Acceptance”. I used my travel time this week to dig into the series and have gotten about two thirds of the way through the second book. Dangerous as it is to write about a series that you haven’t yet finished, I really feel the need to post some of the impressions I’ve collected now that I’ve passed the halfway point.
First and foremost – I have no idea how they’ve managed to turn this body of work into a movie – or even why chose to do so. I wanted to read these before the movie release so that I could go into the theater knowing what the author was trying to accomplish before it was all re-interpreted by Hollywood. The movie is scheduled for release on February 23 – next week. I’ve viewed the official trailer and I can see elements of the book but – based on those two and a half minutes – I was right to read before I saw it on the big screen. The movie looks to be entertaining but bears slight resemblance to what VanderMeer gave us in his books.
These are not happy or uplifting books – every page is packed with pain or unhappiness or dislocation or disconnection. For anyone who hasn’t read them – you’ve been warned. You’ll find nothing – at least up to and through the series’ halfway point – to celebrate – nothing encouraging – in these books. The Author’s messages about us, about who we are, about how we live, about how we fit into the world – are overwhelmingly depressing. If you’re coming off a breakup or divorce, if you’re just lost a job or a loved one, if you feel like you’re struggling with your sense of self or place within the world – these books are not for you. While I’m open to the possibility of a cathartic ending in Book 3 that provides some salvation for the characters and holds out a glimmer of hope for us as a society and species – based on what I’ve read so far – I’m not counting on it.
There is very little dialogue or action in these books – at least the first two. Most of what you’ll read comes to you in the form of internal monologue – in the first book from the Biologist and in the second from the Area X Director – called Control. Their names are unimportant to the point where you don’t even learn the Biologist’s name until Book Two. You drift through both books listening to what’s going on in their heads. When they do interact with others, it’s in short, clipped, almost content-free conversations – always characterized by a marked lack of trust and a lack of certainty that anyone is who they represent themselves to be. In some reviews, I’ve seen the whole thing characterized as dream-like but that’s not really how it felt to me. These are just people who have never learned to relate to anyone or anything outside themselves and who place little value on or interest in the possibility of an external relationship.
It’s incredibly de-personalized and both The Biologist and Control are profoundly broken characters – disconnected from everyone in their lives – families, spouses, colleagues. What we learn of their parents does not fit with the expectations that most of us carry around in our heads – both characters are second generation broken. There is no way to connect with or relate to these two characters. It doesn’t keep them from being fascinating – it just means you never wind up liking either of them all that much.
In addition to lead characters that don’t fit within their own society or culture, the book also suggests that – as a species – we no longer really fit into our own natural world. The two main characters make it clear that we’re losing our ability to relate to our own kind – something that may feel familiar given the all too tenuous nature of so many relationships these days. One of the conclusions you can draw from the work that Southern Reach does in Area X is that we’re also losing our ability to relate to and fit within the world we occupy. Area X is often described as a “pristine wilderness” but those who venture in seem incapable of connecting with it. It’s emptiness and lack of any human footprint makes it threatening and inimical. Basically, we’ve cut ourselves off from the rest of humanity and from the world in which we live. It’s profoundly sad.
Southern Reach – the organization – is a great example. After more than 30 years, it’s mission has been deprioritized, it maintains little contact with the government that established it, the staff has dwindled over time, it’s made little progress in its attempts to understand Area X and – as a result – you have a building full of workers that feel more like zombies than living, breathing humans. There’s a brief episode in the books where Control asks his Deputy why they still use paper files and records. The only answer you get is that the former Director insisted on doing it that way. It’s not significant to the story – at least not yet – but it struck me as just another way in which Southern Reach lacks a connection to the rest of the world and to the larger organization of which it is ostensibly a part.
I will say – even with all of this – it’s hard to put the books down. I wondered, halfway through Book One, if I’d really want to progress to Book Two. I eventually found that I had no choice. I wanted to see what happened to these sad, broken people – forgotten by the rest of the world – going through the motions – dealing with something they didn’t – never would understand. I also really wanted to see what more I could learn about Area X. More than halfway through Book Two, there have been no big reveals – its still a big, empty space – mapped but not understood – like a black hole – things go in but they don’t normally come out. The only exception so far has been the Biologist.
I’ll keep reading in hopes that Control can put a few pieces together – can connect with the Biologist – can answer some of these weird questions about this really bizarre place. Once I’m done, I’ll come back and let you know if any of this has changed.