Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mission Impossible
(Beowulf Rides Again)

An uncharted tower lies buried in the accumulated sediment of history. Living words lead downward to dangerous beasts. Something, an Event, happened here but no one remembers it. Interesting distractions are everywhere but nothing can be trusted. Everything has meaning but nothing makes sense, doesn’t fit together into a whole that’s clear. Shady innuendo abounds. Someone is lying. No one who has been here before has come back unscathed. All the clues are here but… . Is it reality? A dream? A drug-induced illusion? A set-up by some unfriendly authority? Or, perhaps, just an author’s adventurous adolescent fantasy? And, most important, what is at the bottom of that buried tower?

Other readers have identified similarities or references to other modern writers in Annihilation. I think many of these are apt and very likely. However, I think the book’s inspiration may be much more culturally embedded. This involves the poetic epic of Beowulf, written in Old English sometime around the first millennium but referring to even more ancient events in 6th century Scandinavia. Beowulf’s ‘Crawler,’ the beast in Annihilation’s Tower, is Grendel, whom Beowulf defeats by tearing off his arm. But this is not the end of the saga. Grendel’s mother is a much more serious foe than her son. Beowulf must fight her in her lair deep under a lake. The outcome is a draw.

Vandermeer’s story uses many similar tropes to those of the author of Beowulf - the ghoulish monster threatening the (relatively) civilised world, the hero’s plunging into the depths to confront the ultimate challenge alone, Beowulf’s abandonment by his colleagues in his last (deadly) battle, and even the reference to the injured arm (the psychologist’s in Annihilation). The generally mysterious background and location is similar in both emphasising their saga-like character.

And just as Beowulf contains subtle biblical references, so too does Annihilation with its mention of sacrifice, personal transformation, resurrection, and spiritual continuity. What interests me most is the author’s concluding reference to a thorn inserted into humanity’s gene pool from elsewhere. I suggest that this thorn is in fact language itself, an Event beyond recall and a possible biblical reference (Babel’s Tower) that indicates the power of language and its inherent destructiveness. It is also Beowulf’s final foe, the indestructible dragon, against which he cannot prevail. The very word ‘annihilation,’ representing all language, is a hypnotic command (or magical spell) provoking suicidal efforts.

Hence my outrageous subtitle above.

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