This week, we welcome another great blog post from History Professor and Library Super User Matt Giddings!
Jeff VanderMeer and Weird Science Fiction
OR
“There’s a fungus among us, and it’s going to kill me.”
Jeff VanderMeer is a science fiction writer who lives and works in Tallahassee, Florida, a setting that has inspired his most well-known work (The Southern Reach series). However, today, I’d like to discuss some of his less well-known works – the Ambergris series. These books are, well, weird. Really, all of VanderMeer’s writing is, but I’d argue that these books are perhaps the weirdest.
The Ambergris series begins with a lengthy collection of short stories titled “City of Saints and Madmen” – the title refers to Ambergris, the city in which the majority of the stories are set and which is named for “the most secret and valued part of the whale.” Frankly, this set of stories defies easy description – one early edition of it had a short story on the inside of the dust jacket written in code (mercifully decoded and printed in the book in later editions). Ambergris is a moldy, dank, crumbling metropolis inhabited by humans who have, at some point in the past, driven the aboriginal inhabitants of the city underground. In this case, quite literally so, as these mysterious beings are called “Gray Caps” and seem to be fungus people. The Gray Caps lurk in the background throughout the stories, which mostly revolve around art criticism, madness, and an annual festival involving the reproductive habits of river squids.
VanderMeer followed this collection up with a novel, “Shriek: An Afterword.” Randomly, I grabbed this off the shelf last week (or perhaps a gust of dank crypt air, laden with spores, wafted from a crepuscular corner of the library and impelled me to select this particular tome- who can say?) and took a trip back up the river Moth to Ambergris. “Shriek” is a much more straightforwardly presented text, in this case the memoir of a famous Ambergrisian art critic named Janice Shriek (a character readers of “City of Saints and Madmen” will have encountered). Janice writes about the strange and strained relationship she has with her brother Duncan, who has become fascinated with the Gray Caps and the alleged atrocities they have committed against the residents of Ambergris.
What makes “Shriek” an interesting read to me is the text and the subtext. Janice recounts her brother's activities, sometimes quoting his diaries or letters but at other times recounting her suppositions about his life and works. Duncan, who is far from dead, annotates the work with his own commentary, providing a real view of his activities. Well, what he thinks is real. So, “Shriek” is a memoir by an unreliable narrator, with commentary by another unreliable narrator about subjects for which reliable narration may be impossible.
Or, to put it bluntly, it’s exactly the kind of work VanderMeer would write.
I’m a big fan of this whole series, and I like “Shriek” more than I thought I would. It’s connected to the central mystery of the series – those odd, unsettling, and potentially malevolent Gray Caps – which is the thing that I wished “City of Saints and Madmen” had spent more time explaining. There is a sequel, “Finch”, which is apparently a noir-ish murder mystery which I already have and will probably read next.
Have you read any of VanderMeer’s work? Do you like fungus or weird stories or madness? Come find me at the book club (or on the St. Augustine or Palatka campuses) and share!