Now Annihilation is a movie that recently came out with Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tessa Thompson and Oscar Isaac and was directed by Alex Garland, who had previously done Ex Machina. My dear friend and previous contributor Juan J. Perez suggested that I see it (he saw it twice) and then took this out of the library and we decided to write dueling reviews of it and record a podcast. I think it's going to be great.
Suffice to say, for the written element of this review, I have mixed opinions on the book, which is often the case. I am, however, more lukewarm on it than most of the books I come upon by myself. It is often strange and unsettling and obviously scaled to be written as part of a larger trilogy rather than its own thing. That said, I do think the Area X trilogy (which Juan has purchased and I would likely ask him to address on the podcast) is likely a stronger work, taken as a whole, rather than the individual part that is Annihilation. However, what makes this book is interesting is how far it differs from the film. They are textbook examples of how a novel can be completely transformed (sometimes improved upon) by a film adaptation. There are elements of the film that are an improvement upon the novel. Tessa Thompson, for example, does not exist in the novel, so far as I know (she is perhaps closer to the Anthropologist than the Surveyor), and her performance is one of the highlights of the film. Jennifer Jason Leigh is also fantastic, as she is always is (the same could be said for Natalie Portman). Yet I would like to see a version of Annihilation where Jennifer Jason Leigh plays the Psychologist as portrayed in the novel.
A note on plot: Annihilation concerns itself with an expedition to a highly-contaminated zone known only as Area X (in the film it is referred to as "the shimmer"). The landscape is framed by a lighthouse and a structure that the main character (the Biologist) believes is a tower, but that snakes underground and is believed to be a tunnel by other members of the expedition.
These are the Anthropologist, the Psychologist and the Surveyor. There is also the Biologist's husband. There are only 5 characters in this book, and one of them is quickly dispatched.
In a nutshell, the team crosses the border and they explore the area and they all end up getting killed (in a manner of speaking). The book is mostly intriguing as an exercise in the sci-fi/mystery hybrid genre. Do not go into it expecting The Sun Also Rises. The Biologist is very robotic. Actually most of the characters are robotic.
The most affecting parts of the book take place in the past, as she recalls her life with her husband, before and immediately after he returns from Area X. The book is also at its strongest when it unravels the mystery of just how many expeditions have been sent into Area X and over how many years.
It feels unsatisfying because the reader does not really get to the bottom of the Southern Reach, the shadowy government agency responsible for organizing the expeditions to Area X. It feels a lot like the mk ultra experiments from American history and the conspiracy from Stranger Things.
But do I really want to know? As I've said these types of books are generally not my preferred genre, though 25 years ago, I would have been much more excited by it. (Sphere was a favorite of mine growing up). Still the alien life form in this book is not as clever as Sphere, though it has an element of intelligence with the Crawler, which scrawls a continuous message in vines, snaking through the tower/tunnel (as opposed to the lighthouse). Most of the novel takes place in those two places, and the wilderness between, which I believe was said to be influenced by the Everglades. The writing is generally good, and there are definitely a number of words that I had never heard of before, but sometimes it feels like he's just showing off by using those. When reading this, you always feel like you're trying to figure something out, or solve the mystery. The best parts of the book, however, are about the relationship between the Biologist and her husband, such as here, where she is describing being out at a bar with him and his friends:
"Reality encroaches in other ways, too. At some point during our relationship, my husband began to call me the ghost bird, which was his way of teasing me for not being present enough in his life. It would be said with a kind of creasing at the corner of his lips that almost formed a thin smile, but in his eyes I could see the reproach. If we went to bars with his friends, one of his favorite things to do, I would volunteer only what a prisoner might during an interrogation. They weren't my friends, not really, but also I wasn't in the habit of engaging in small talk, nor in broad talk, as I liked to call it. I didn't care about politics except in how politics impinged on the environment. I wasn't religious. All of my hobbies were bound up in my work. I lived for the work, and I thrilled with the power of that focus but it was also deeply personal. I didn't like to talk about my research. I didn't wear makeup or care about new shoes or the latest music. I'm sure my husband's friends found me taciturn, or worse. Perhaps they even found me unsophisticated, or 'strangely uneducated' as I heard one of them say, although I don't know if he was referring to me.
...
'Ghost bird, do you love me?' he whispered once in the dark, before he left for his expedition training, even though he was the ghost. 'Ghost bird, do you need me?' I loved him, but I didn't need him, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. A ghost bird might be a hawk in one place, a crow in another, depending on the context. The sparrow that shot up into the blue sky one morning might transform mid-flight into an osprey the next. This was the way of things here. There were no reasons so mighty that they could override the desire to be in accord with the tides and the passage of seasons and the rhythms underlying everything around me." (72-73)
In short, for me the book is at its best (though the dialogue is oddly flat in a way) when it stays more grounded in the real world. Descriptions of the fantastic are sometimes beautifully rendered, yet I remain strangely personally unaffected. I don't need to extemporize about my lack of passion for mystery or sci-fi or fantasy novels because this isn't the place to do it. It's a book I would definitely recommend to anyone that saw the movie if only to shed light on the meaning of what happened--even though the novel and the movie are completely different. Plus Jennifer Jason Leigh would have been so much more awesome playing this Psychologist. She hypnotizes the group by saying "consolidation of authority," though the Biologist is immune because she has already been "contaminated" by Area X:
"Her demeanor more assertive than just a moment before, the psychologist said, 'You will retain a memory of having discussed several options with regard to the tunnel. You will find that you ultimately agreed with me about the best course of action, and that you felt quite confident about this course of action. You will experience a sensation of calm whenever you think about this decision, and you will remain calm once back inside the tunnel, although you will react to any stimuli as per your training. You will not take undue risks.
'You will continue to see a structure that is made of coquina and stone. You will trust your colleagues completely and feel a continued sense of fellowship with them. When you emerge from the structure, any time you see a bird in flight it will trigger a strong feeling that you are doing the right thing, that that you are in the right place. When I snap my fingers, you will have no memory of this conversation, but will follow my directives. You will feel very tired and you will want to retire to your tents to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's activities. You will not dream. You will not have nightmares.'" (22)
Much of the pleasure of the text comes from peeling back the layers of mystery that envelop Area X. The ending to Annihilation is somewhat anti-climactic, necessarily as it sometimes must be for the opening segment in a planned trilogy. The ending of the novel is perhaps more satisfying than the movie, because the reader does not feel that someone has pulled over something on them quite the way the viewer may at the ending of the film. The film is much more ambitious than the novel in many ways, but in a way I found the novel more appealing in its presentation. That said, as compared to other films, Annihilation is in a class above its peers; the novel is not really something that distinguishes itself within the medium (apart perhaps from its genre-fiction-subsets). It comes across as a kind of fever dream that is very intriguing and beautifully portrayed, yet ultimately somewhat hollow and manufactured for its positioning as part of a larger work.
"Reality encroaches in other ways, too. At some point during our relationship, my husband began to call me the ghost bird, which was his way of teasing me for not being present enough in his life. It would be said with a kind of creasing at the corner of his lips that almost formed a thin smile, but in his eyes I could see the reproach. If we went to bars with his friends, one of his favorite things to do, I would volunteer only what a prisoner might during an interrogation. They weren't my friends, not really, but also I wasn't in the habit of engaging in small talk, nor in broad talk, as I liked to call it. I didn't care about politics except in how politics impinged on the environment. I wasn't religious. All of my hobbies were bound up in my work. I lived for the work, and I thrilled with the power of that focus but it was also deeply personal. I didn't like to talk about my research. I didn't wear makeup or care about new shoes or the latest music. I'm sure my husband's friends found me taciturn, or worse. Perhaps they even found me unsophisticated, or 'strangely uneducated' as I heard one of them say, although I don't know if he was referring to me.
...
'Ghost bird, do you love me?' he whispered once in the dark, before he left for his expedition training, even though he was the ghost. 'Ghost bird, do you need me?' I loved him, but I didn't need him, and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. A ghost bird might be a hawk in one place, a crow in another, depending on the context. The sparrow that shot up into the blue sky one morning might transform mid-flight into an osprey the next. This was the way of things here. There were no reasons so mighty that they could override the desire to be in accord with the tides and the passage of seasons and the rhythms underlying everything around me." (72-73)
In short, for me the book is at its best (though the dialogue is oddly flat in a way) when it stays more grounded in the real world. Descriptions of the fantastic are sometimes beautifully rendered, yet I remain strangely personally unaffected. I don't need to extemporize about my lack of passion for mystery or sci-fi or fantasy novels because this isn't the place to do it. It's a book I would definitely recommend to anyone that saw the movie if only to shed light on the meaning of what happened--even though the novel and the movie are completely different. Plus Jennifer Jason Leigh would have been so much more awesome playing this Psychologist. She hypnotizes the group by saying "consolidation of authority," though the Biologist is immune because she has already been "contaminated" by Area X:
"Her demeanor more assertive than just a moment before, the psychologist said, 'You will retain a memory of having discussed several options with regard to the tunnel. You will find that you ultimately agreed with me about the best course of action, and that you felt quite confident about this course of action. You will experience a sensation of calm whenever you think about this decision, and you will remain calm once back inside the tunnel, although you will react to any stimuli as per your training. You will not take undue risks.
'You will continue to see a structure that is made of coquina and stone. You will trust your colleagues completely and feel a continued sense of fellowship with them. When you emerge from the structure, any time you see a bird in flight it will trigger a strong feeling that you are doing the right thing, that that you are in the right place. When I snap my fingers, you will have no memory of this conversation, but will follow my directives. You will feel very tired and you will want to retire to your tents to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's activities. You will not dream. You will not have nightmares.'" (22)
Much of the pleasure of the text comes from peeling back the layers of mystery that envelop Area X. The ending to Annihilation is somewhat anti-climactic, necessarily as it sometimes must be for the opening segment in a planned trilogy. The ending of the novel is perhaps more satisfying than the movie, because the reader does not feel that someone has pulled over something on them quite the way the viewer may at the ending of the film. The film is much more ambitious than the novel in many ways, but in a way I found the novel more appealing in its presentation. That said, as compared to other films, Annihilation is in a class above its peers; the novel is not really something that distinguishes itself within the medium (apart perhaps from its genre-fiction-subsets). It comes across as a kind of fever dream that is very intriguing and beautifully portrayed, yet ultimately somewhat hollow and manufactured for its positioning as part of a larger work.
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