where lies the strangling fruit...Area X - The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer

LIKED them

you never them!

i mean, i realised later that the awful clunky sentence-making was meant to tell us something about the narrator, but i'm not convinced by it at all! there are a couple of other things i'd point at, i'm at work now but maybe later, anyway he thanks his editor in the acknowledgements and his editor really doesn't deserve it afaict

i'm probably in for the ride now tho /:

yeah, i wasn't very affected by these -- i think maybe, perhaps reductively, is that i'm not convinced by the weirdness and ineffableness of whatever lies beyond the human, because there are no humans in these books

but maybe that was the point ~

"he sat on a stool, his favorite neoclassical composer playing on his laptop"

"he wished he had his neoclassical music on headphones for the full experience"

"He slipped out the front door, deciding to leave Chorry alone, put on his headphones, turned on some of the classical music that he loved"

when i read this i see a comment vandermeer left for himself in word that says 'learn names of some composers before submitting manuscript'

lol

that said i didn't feel the dropoff other posters said they ddi, i thought two and three were equally successful in their tension. i didn't like the structure of three though -- seemed like the benefits of doing all the stories in parallel were fairly minimal.

didn't realise there was a thread. neoclassical composers thing made me laugh as well, it was really jarring. also terroir. terroir terroir terroir. stop saying it. terroir. stop. terroir. it.

terroir didn't bother me that much, it's quite a nice word. hi btw

yeah, terroir was ok seeing as it's part of the point, but it cropped up enough to make me feel it was carrying more weight than a single word should be allowed to carry. i'm finding three a bit of a grind. agree about the minimal benefits. and yes, hi.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/03/oscar-isaac-reunites-with-ex-machina-director-alex-garland-for-sci-fi-thriller-annihilation/

I was going to say, odd to lead with a male casting when the book is almost entirely female, but I guess he'll be the husband who goes missing before the book begins?

jjl seems like an a+ psychiatrist

finally read the first one and caught a very strong solaris / stalker vibe but not much else.

postmodernism. yeah.

i think maybe, perhaps reductively, is that i'm not convinced by the weirdness and ineffableness of whatever lies beyond the human, because there are no humans in these books

but maybe that was the point ~

― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Friday, September 18, 2015 1:40 AM (one year ago)

^^ booming post

i bought all three books together but now i'm not really sure if i'm going to read authority and acceptance or return them

this thread needs a link to Annihilation (2018) -- Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac, Tessa Thompson, dir. Alex Garland, based on Jeff VanderMeer's book

Prev. posted on Rolling Fantasy, Science Fiction etc.:

Haven't read it. but the movie of the first one opens tomorrow, already rates 81, Universal Acclaim on metacritic. Directed by Alex Garland, who did Ex Machina, which I enjoyed and posted about upthread---seems like he's going for something deeper now, judging by a recent interview I can't find, and of course you have to be a good talker to make it in media, but his style seems attentive, resourceful, flexible, so maybe--a also like that he's working with Ex M lead Oscar Isaac again, and of course will see anything involving Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Here's the Garland interviewhttps://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17029500/annihilation-ex-machina-director-alex-garland-sci-fi. Excerpt:
It’s super original. So many stories are retellings of other stories in a really self-conscious way, to the extent that I almost feel like it’s ritualistic. Like, you see the beats of that particular story starting, and you think, “Wow. We’re doing this again. It’s happening again.” What is the ritual? Where’s the comfort? What’s the need [this is addressing]? Particularly because so many of them are not comforting; they’re kind of disturbing. It’s just a weird thing. And Jeff’s book seems to just sit totally outside that, which I thought was really interesting. But that in itself is not a reason to adapt it, I think. It was really the atmosphere. It was just the feeling of reading it was so strange. It’s got a very strong dreamlike aspect. Reading it is like being in a dream, in a weird way. I thought, “That’s really interesting, and I’d like to have a try...There’s also a sort of metaphorical element to it, a sort of unknowable expanding existential thing. But the top-line narrative can satisfy the people who are not interested in the metaphorical side.

― dow, Thursday, February 22, 2018

Also, this just in--from Subterranean Press newsletter:

We're pleased to let you know that we'll be getting in a very small quantity of the signed limited edition of The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer, due to be published later this year. Publisher: Cemetery Dance.

(For those keeping score at home, and minding their budgets, we'll also be announcing a very exclusive Jeff VanderMeer signed limited edition of our own soon.)

About this Special Edition:
Gathered together in this beautiful, oversized special edition is the complete text of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance) along with a massive bonus section of TOP SECRET MATERIAL that we're collecting exclusively for this special edition.

more info (price may start yer own cemetery dance---but description of ed. looks real nice)
https://subterraneanpress.com/southern-reach-trilogy

I thought Borne was a much more satisfying novel than any of the Southern Reach books, individually or collectively

There's a Borne sequel/companion novella out this week

OF COURSE ALEX GARLAND

god, the movie is somehow worse

So how come there seems to be so little discussion of how these books & the movie are just a big Strugatsky Bros / Tarkovsky “reboot”

it's discussed quite a bit on the Annihilation thread

the similarities are exaggerated imo

The basic premise is the same. But the plots and styles and what they're ABOUT are miles apart.

i read through all three of these books a few weeks ago and they've stuck with me more than i expected, given that i didn't enjoy them particularly while i was reading them

elliptical, allusive storytelling about investigations of the unknowable is really hard to pull off and i think this trilogy largely fails - the questions raised and the absences deliberately left by roadside picnic and stalker are fascinating but they're also satisfying stories in their own right, but vandermeer's attempts to do the same are just frustrating imo

Roadside Picnic also does a very good and odd thing of Hard-Bitten Capitalism running up hard against the Ineffable, which Area X is not interested in.

I've heard Vandermeer has been annoyed about the association and insisted on a whole other bunch of influences which he listed in the books?

have you got a link for that? i enjoyed the books, tho the first the most, which combined organic/psychic/linguistic fear (that last important) with mystery and inconclusiveness.

roadside picnic is obv wonderful but as JM says doing something different. v working class, v making use of new technologies in a commercial way. area x is an environmental threat and a biologically uncertain zone.

it feels odd that he shd get so antsy about it. that said, authors and stuff they’ve written. it’s a sensitive matter (and in fact i sympathise having gone off the deep end at someone who i felt had ripped me off. i mean i was right but i was rong)

I cant find what he said. Maybe it was on twitter

In the past month or so I have read the Borne semi-trilogy and once again I'm wondering why I gave that much of my time to someone who thinks "food stuffs" is two words

I feel like these books could convince committed vegans to start eating meat again. I am finding I want to buy a car and learn to drive just so I can accelerate global warming.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EydihauWEAEdpxT.jpg

lol

lol thom. 'The Strange Bird' was way better than Borne, and the best thing I've read from him apart from the Area X books.

His bad books are very bad, and he writes way too many books, it's unbecoming.

the strange bird was a lot better than borne!

dead astronauts was worse than both tho

i can't understand having the self-confidence to write even one mediocre book

WHERE LIES THE STRANGLING FRUIT THAT CAME FROM THE HAND OF THE SINNER I SHALL BRING FORTH THE SEEDS OF THE DEAD TO SHARE WITH THE WORMS THAT GATHER IN THE DARKNESS AND SURROUND THE WORLD WITH THE POWER OF THEIR LIVES WHILE FROM THE DIMLIT HALLS OF OTHER PLACES FORMS THAT NEVER WERE AND NEVER COULD BE WRITHE FOR THE IMPATIENCE OF THE FEW WHO NEVER SAW WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN. IN THE BLACK WATER WITH THE SUN SHINING AT MIDNIGHT, THOSE FRUIT SHALL COME RIPE AND IN THE DARKNESS OF THAT WHICH IS GOLDEN SHALL SPLIT OPEN TO REVEAL THE REVELATION OF THE FATAL SOFTNESS IN THE EARTH. THE SHADOWS OF THE ABYSS ARE LIKE THE PETALS OF A MONSTROUS FLOWER THAT SHALL BLOSSOM WITHIN THE SKULL AND EXPAND THE MIND BEYOND WHAT ANY MAN CAN BEAR, BUT WHETHER IT DECAYS UNDER THE EARTH OR ABOVE ON GREEN FIELDS, OR OUT TO SEA OR IN THE VERY AIR, ALL SHALL COME TO REVELATION, AND TO REVEL, IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE STRANGLING FRUIT—AND THE HAND OF THE SINNER SHALL REJOICE, FOR THERE IS NO SIN IN SHADOW OR IN LIGHT THAT THE SEEDS OF THE DEAD CANNOT FORGIVE. AND THERE SHALL BE IN THE PLANTING IN THE SHADOWS A GRACE AND A MERCY FROM WHICH SHALL BLOSSOM DARK FLOWERS, AND THEIR TEETH SHALL DEVOUR AND SUSTAIN AND HERALD THE PASSING OF AN AGE. THAT WHICH DIES SHALL STILL KNOW LIFE IN DEATH FOR ALL THAT DECAYS IS NOT FORGOTTEN AND REANIMATED IT SHALL WALK THE WORLD IN THE BLISS OF NOT-KNOWING. AND THEN THERE SHALL BE A FIRE THAT KNOWS THE NAMING OF YOU, AND IN THE PRESENCE OF THE STRANGLING FRUIT, ITS DARK FLAME SHALL ACQUIRE EVERY PART OF YOU THAT REMAINS.

i still have fond memories of reading these books. they hit me at the exact right time. that creature doing the writing was so memorable! and trippy. i know everything is psychedelic now but i thought that there was stuff in these books that hit upon those feelings of being on psych drugs that other things don't get to. deeper dream feelings. whereas some of the psychedelic nature horror movies that have come out since these books came out don't really. including the bad movie made out of these books.
i just had a dream last night where i was taking old moldy sausages out of a freezer and they slowly turned into what looked like long dead frozen creatures and i put them all into a black trash bag and walked outside and the backyard of my house had a stream of what looked like moving white concrete or clay running down a hill and then i saw there was a huge black pool of thick liquid that people were playing in and i couldn't understand what the blackness was. i kept walking so that i could put my trash on the curb.
not every book or movie can get me to that place that already exists in my head. but these books did it.

I’ve held off on going beyond the first book (on the advice of many people), but man… Annihilation blew my mind.

Or: Scott OTM

Scott you need to write a novel

Raymond the whole trilogy is worth reading imho, the middle one is a little meh but the final one had me biting my damn fingernails