Borne

There are parts of this book that are absolutely amazing, usually the more actiony sequences. Although I admire VanderMeer's melding of character-driven literary fiction and dystopian sci-fi, I'd really love to see him write a more traditional genre novel. I think it would be fantastic.

My struggle in reading and fully enjoying this novel came from the main character, Rachel. Rachel is a scavenger, scouring a dangerous wasteland for anything that will help her and her boyfriend Wick survive a little while longer. My problem with Rachel is that she is the most boring character in the book. Wick is a brooding and secretive bio-engineer/drug dealer. Rachel has a sentient shape-shifting plant thing named Borne. A giant flying murderous bear is battling a magician for control of the wasteland. The bear has even more murderous little bears and the magician has equally murderous modified children fighting for her. There's also a mysterious Company, the presumptive source of the apocalypse that led to this post-apocalyptic wasteland. But most of the novel focuses on Rachel and her attempts to act as a sort of parent to Borne.

I hate to say it, but I think I would have enjoyed this novel more if it had featured the alternating point of view structure (the Gone Girl, if you will) that I am otherwise growing tired of because ever other book is using it. I wanted to see more of the world of the novel, more of the giant murderous bear, more of the magician. But Rachel spends a great deal of the novel hiding in her apartment. This is perfectly understandable and believable (THERE'S A GIANT BEAR FLYING AROUND!), but it left me wanting more (HOW CAN THE GIANT BEAR FLY!?!)

Some books read too quickly. Or is it that some books end too soon? One hopes that an author gives us only as much story as they need to tell their tale, simply because extra might detract from the quality of the plot. But with my favorite books I wish I could pause the tale to spend more time with the characters and explore their world like the sandbox of a video game. Such was the case with Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach Trilogy. That spellbinding series was very much about an uncanny place and how the people who encountered it were affected by it. And now the same is true for me once again with VanderMeer’s latest novel, Borne, which is instead about people, animals, personhood, and how one’s identity is affected by trauma. It’s about survival in a post-apocalyptic world forever altered by advancements in biotechnology. Here all survivors have become scavengers among the ruins of a city now ruled by a tyrant in the form of a gigantic flying bear named Mord (which sounds incredibly silly but is actually anything but). Here technology masquerades as life and the line between technology and life increasingly blurs. Borne is a post-apocalyptic, weird, science fiction fable. It’s relentlessly creative, fascinating, and poignant. I kept trying to slow down while I read it, but the end arrived all the same. And just like it did for me, Borne will break your heart, as only the best books can: beautifully.