Absolution should be recognized as a New Weird classic

I have to confess that I am not a fan of horror fiction. I have a stack of unread H.P. Lovecrafts sent to me by enthusiasts. M.R. James scares me silly. Even Elizabeth Bowen’s ghost stories remain neglected among her other much-loved books. I have, however, been impressed over the years by writers usually identified as belonging to the movement described in the late 1990s by M. John Harrison as the New Weird, which marries chiefly supernatural themes to realism or naturalism. As a stylist, Harrison remains the greatest of these writers. They included Angela Carter, China Miéville and Jeffrey Ford. The movement is naturally associated with the science fiction New Wave, whose best known practitioner was J.G. Ballard; followers had little interest in weird or supernatural fiction but were often readers of Lovecraft and co.

In the footsteps of Harrison, Jeff VanderMeer wrote books full of exotic characters and baroque cities such as his Ambergris series, but gradually he began producing the realistic characters and surreal landscapes associated with the New Weird. With the publication of his Southern Reach trilogy his prestige grew rapidly. The first of these, Annihilation, was filmed. He became a bestselling author with a wide audience. The work has been compared to Lovecraft, which meant “unreadable” to me. However, when I eventually overcame my prejudice, I did not for a moment think of Cthulhu or even Arkham town but realized I was in the hands of a remarkably good writer. Comparison could be made to later Harrison or Miéville, but the material was original and came from the author’s own unconscious.

Now, ten years on, he has produced a sequel to that sequence. In a way Absolution is a reflection on the original trio — a coda. I’m most reminded of the late Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass television series as it developed its mixture of eerie unexplained events and a bureaucracy investigating them.

Secrecy surrounds Sector 20 of a region mysteriously known as the Southern Reach, closed off to the public by the government. The zone being most closely examined is Area X. We are never told its exact location, but it is almost certainly part of Florida, into which extra-terrestrial matter has been introduced (without making any apparent difference to the planet) — driven, like a gigantic thorn into an orange. Many scientific investigators examining this “thorn” have attempted to bring back information, only to be infected physically and mentally, exhibiting strange hallucinatory symptoms which can’t be diagnosed. Most die of unknown cancers.

By the end, only bureaucrats and teams of biologists are left trying to examine phenomena such as a building called “the lighthouse,” manifesting as “the Creeper,” terrifying and unknowable, perhaps made of human matter, constantly changing form and dimension. Absolution is made up of three long novellas, each as deeply satisfying as the original novels. The first is set many years before Area X manifests, echoing the development of the first novels, pretty much all attempts to make sense of the horror having failed.

Some believe VanderMeer was influenced by the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic or Ballard’s Crystal World, but clearly his chief inspiration came from a long hike he made in Florida, where he has lived for many years, and his subsequent dreams. The entire oeuvre has the sense of waking dreams found in more than one writer of the fantastic. If the books remind me of anything it is Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater, controlled by a disciplined mind, a craftsman with a wealth of inspiration.

VanderMeer, like the late Brian Catling, has become a true original who can be read for the authority of his prose alone. While his original Sector 20 book was primarily a fine piece of genre work, this final volume is as stimulating as the best New Weird writers. VanderMeer has mastered his craft quite as much as his old heroes and transcends most of them.

Like his peers he has continued to focus on tone and brevity of affect. Largely dismissing their label, the masters of the New Weird produced remarkable, poetic prose, creating a much deeper and lasting meaning in their work. Harrison is perhaps the first to be recognized with non-generic awards. For a while it seemed that VanderMeer had given up his ambitions, but Absolution offers his old lyrical tautness and imaginative individualism — making it gloriously wild yet beautifully controlled. His is a fine talent which lovers of the fantastic and weird must surely appreciate. This novel and its companions should be recognized as classics of their kind.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.