/lit/ - Literature

>>20977550
Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy - Jeff VanderMeer (2014)

This edition has a few changes, as explained in this interview:
JV: I did cut about three pages from Authority and trim some other sections a tad in anticipation of a continuous read from those who pick up the omnibus. I also altered just a couple of little things in Annihilation and Acceptance for continuity reasons.
https://weirdfictionreview.com/2014/11/weirdness-in-the-southern-reach/

As I finished each book of this trilogy I wrote about it, rather than writing about the entire trilogy at once. I was surprised about how what I thought about the series changed in the days that followed after I finished. My feelings on it have greatly benefitted from it being a group read and the longer duration that it's been between finishing it and posting. What I think about it now is far less harsh, though not any more favorable. So, mostly a matter of tone. I've left what I originally wrote at the time, since it's a reflection of how I felt immediately after reading. I've replaced the preface I originally wrote with this one, because it was far too angry. The only part I'll reuse is this excerpt: It's like a puzzle where every piece is blank and then after you put it all together, you draw on it to create your own meaning.

Annihilation
This is the sort of story where everything is genericized, which for the characters also makes them also dehumanized. That was surely the intention, but it's not a style that I prefer. Stories like this require a lot of suspension of disbelief for their initial premise, let alone everything else that follows.

The most significant problem for me with this is the lack of believability. It was like someone telling me a very goal-oriented fictional story that's very convenient. The protagonist was like a puppet being strung along. It was if she had no greater purpose than for the plot to be revealed. None of the characters held any interest to me, which severely lessened how engaged I could be.

Throughout the entire book the most recurrent feeling I had was how distant and clinical everything felt. As I read it was like, ah, so that's what's happened. I had a sense of almost complete indifference, even more so than how the protagonist seemed to feel. I wasn't able to bring myself to care about any of it. I seemed to be able to tell which parts were meant to be emotionally resonant, but they were entirely muted for me.

Maybe the book's spooky ambience and a few scary scenes, which to me weren't really presented that way, again it all felt very mechanical, were enough to delight many readers. For me though it was though everything were just going through the motions and had minimal redeeming value. Once again though, my reactions are an outlier, in their intensity at least.
Rating: 2/5