Absolution: Still feels freshly fascinating

Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer

These f—-ing people complaining about this f—-ing book. What the f—-ing f? Sure it’s f—ing weird, sure you don’t get any f—-ing answers, but if you f—-ing read the first three f—-ing books, what the f—- did you expect? Goodnight f—-ing Moon? The Very F—-ing Hungry Caterpillar? If you’re gonna f—-ing buy a Jeff Vanderf—-ingMeer book, then you better expect a f—-ing Vanderf—ker.

Sorry, sorry. Got a little too immersed in the final section of Absolution, and I’ve seemingly picked up the voice of that section’s narrator, Lowry, who if anything drops f-bombs at a more rapid pace than above (so if the above isn’t to your taste, this may not be the book for you). But I’m getting ahead of myself here. VanderMeer will do that to you. OK, let’s cycle back.

Absolution is the fourth book in Jeff VanderMeer’s SOUTHERN REACH series, which follows the attempts by the titular secret government agency to explore a part of coastal south Florida known as Area X that has been mysteriously transformed within its boundaries (which seem to be expanding) and which also transforms (and often kills) the folks the Southern Reach sends in. It’s a series that dives fully into the “creepy weird” and also poses far more questions than it answers, and Absolution is no different. While it’s book four, as noted, it’s actual a prequel, and truth be told, one could easily read this as a stand-alone, though having read the other three will make for a richer experience.

The novel is divided into three sections, the first of which (“Dead Town”) is set about two decades before the first book in the series, Annihilation, which followed an expedition into Area X that did not end well. At this point, though remote and a bit unworldly, Area X is not yet fully Area X so when a group of scientists move in to perform some experiments with alligators (it’s more complicated than that but we don’t have time here), they don’t know what they’re getting into. Not long after they set up camp, they’re overrun by carnivorous white rabbits, possibly with little cameras hanging around their necks (did I mention “creepy weird?) and soon after there’s running and screaming and blood and madness and violence and murder. We get much of our information about this via Old Jim, an agent for Central who is investigating what happened by looking through old files, a diary, transcripts of interviews, and other records in the archives (though again, it’s more complicated than that).

Section two, “The False Daughter”, jumps forward to a year and a half before Annihilation, with Old Jim now undercover at the local bar and also working with an agent posing as his estranged daughter (who exists in real life), though, and stop me if you’ve heard this before, it’s more complicated than that, with plots within plots, factions in Central, tension between Jim and his “daughter”, and another government group — the Séance and Science Brigade — also operating in the area.

The final section, “The First and the Last”, chronicles the doomed “First Expedition” into Area X about a year before Annihilation. The section is narrated by Lowry, a foul-mouthed, expletive-every-third-word, tripping-on-a-boatload-of-drugs member of the expedition who slowly goes mad as he faces the utter strangeness of Area X.

I’m not going to say much about plot partially because it would be far too involved, partially because I don’t want to spoil some points, and partially because plot often takes a back seat to atmosphere and theme in these works. There’s enough plot here to carry one through, and the book can be incredibly tense at times, but it’s the sort of book where it’s best to let plot fall over you rather than be followed by you, if that makes any sense (and if it doesn’t, welcome to Area X). The tone varies greatly. The first section is almost clinically detached with an observer reading multiple secondary sources, though the descriptions of what the biologists go through are harrowing and in some ways that detachment enhances the effect rather than mutes it. The middle part is the most character-driven and the most emotionally affecting part of the book, though it doesn’t lack for weirdness and body horror either, along with some nice use of duplicates/doppelgangers, a common thread throughout the series. And that final section, as the opening paragraph of this review might hint at, is sort of a full-bore gonzo mashup of William S. Burroughs, David Mamet, Hunter S. Thompson, and Quentin Tarantino with the f-bombs, tripping, body horror, and general weirdness. Some readers will definitely recoil at both Lowry’s language and personality, and the sheer number of f—ks can be a bit distracting, but I found this section utterly compelling and thought it contained some of the book’s best writing.

Absolution revisits many of the themes seen in earlier books: contamination, transformation, what happens when we come face to face with something truly alien, the way we layer human constructs of patterns and time over a natural world that exists outside those things, the terror and exhilaration of the unknown, identity, the concept of “monster/monstrous”, cover ups and infighting and paranoia. But though many of the topics/themes are familiar it doesn’t feel like we’re just treading over the same ground; there’s enough different here to still feel freshly fascinating. But if you think “revisiting” means “answering” prepare to be disappointed. After all, if we’re talking themes, one of the major ones of this series is the inability to always find answers, to categorize what can’t be categorized, to know what can’t be known. To give answers, to explain, would be a betrayal of the series as a whole I’d argue, and I’m glad VanderMeer doesn’t go down that path.

Finally, while I loved both this book and the entire series for its weirdness and alienness, I also want to note that VanderMeer also is a fantastic nature writer. His descriptions of the environment and its flora and fauna are often beautifully, vividly precise, and would be just at home in a top-notch non-fiction book on the natural world. They’re worth the price of admission alone (though they’re better with the creepy weird). Highly recommended.