Annihilation (6pts): An Environment Where Nothing Makes Sense

     Despite only being 5 chapters long, Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation manages to cram a whole lot of exploration, self-analysis, and plain weirdness into them. It's a wonderfully bizarre novel that throws the reader into the journal of a biologist exploring Area X, a location closed off from the public where expeditions are being sent to record their findings. Things get weirder and weirder with every chapter, and I believe that the environment of Area X plays a major role in amping up the strangeness.

For starters, the description of the metaphysical border around Area X unnerved me a lot. I'm a person who enjoys science and logic, and to read about a border that could only be described as some block of light had my brain scrambling to find an explanation as to how that was possible. This brain-scramble happened multiple times while reading the novel, and I occasionally had to re-read parts in order to make sure I was understanding what was happening. Going back to the border, the fact that it could only be crossed by being hypnotized made me question if Area X was of this world at all. The first thought I had was that it was some sort of interdimensional space that could only be accessed through the mind. The novel doesn't really give any answers to what Area X is, which bothered me at first, but after finishing the novel it made me realize that it didn't really matter at all. Area X just...exists, and we just have to accept it.

The scene with the human-eyed dolphin spoke to me as well. I love marine life, and I know for a fact that I would be absolutely terrified if I saw a dolphin with human eyes. It's uncanny, which matches the rest of Area X, and it also left me with more questions. Is Area X creating mutant animals with human DNA? It's revealed later on that the samples the biologist took from the village had modified human cells within them. How is the environment doing that in the first place? Is Area X using the dead bodies of its previous inhabitants to create new mutated life? Or maybe even the bodies of those who were involved in previous explorations? Who knows, but I believe that these questions aren't answered on purpose.

Finally, we come to the crowning jewel of Area X-the tower and its Crawler. What a tremendous ending scene that was! Throughout the novel, the biologist ventures into the tower little by little, but never sees the Crawler until the end. Attempting to comprehend what the Crawler looked like and what sensations the biologist experienced when seeing the organism was impossible. My imagination was running wild, trying to piece together details to get a visual on the Crawler. I kept pressing my mind to come up with an image, before I came to a realization. It's a thing that's not meant to be understood, not even meant to exist within our laws of nature. You cannot comprehend the Crawler with just the 5 human senses alone. And I think what I took away from Annihilation is that we will never be able to understand everything the world has to offer, because it is constantly changing, and will never stop changing until the end of time itself.

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