ENGL 6040: VanderMeer Keynote (SP22)

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The end is nigh.
The end is now.
The end was already.

7 “What version is this?”
7 “Zero. It’s version zero.”
7 “Do you trust me?”
7 “I do.”
7 “I will.”
7 “Even when I’m not me.”
7 “I will, Moss.”
0 “And I will always be there.”
Even before I know you.
Even after I’ve known you.
Even then.
7 “Do you love me?”
7 “I do.”
7 “Hold on to me, then.”

“
One can only do justice to space travel by
recognizing it as—beyond the motives of
individual agents—a key d i s c i p l i n e o f
experimental anthropology: it is the hardest
school of naïveté-breaking procedures with
regard to the human condition, for through its
radically eccentric replacement formations for
the coexistence of humans with their own kind
and others in a shared whole it enforces an
unrelenting spelling course for even the smallest
details of the immanence machine (Sloterdijk
301).
Kathleen Neeley for Subterranean Press
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(post) reading
(post) theory
“
It wasn’t Charlie X’s fault, in a way, even though it
was all his fault. Charlie X just thought in the old
ways. Plants couldn’t feel pain, animals were
objects to be manipulated as products or
resources. Because he didn’t see the systems the
way Moss came see the systems. Because he
thought soft tech should serve the same master
as hard tech before it (VanderMeer 96).
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iterations
nonhumans
contaminations
joys
Kathleen Neeley for Subterranean Press
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Drawing Dead Astronauts
1. Pick one of the focal points below
2. Locate a resonant scene or moment in the novel
3. Compose an illustration that transduces that moment
or scene with/in line, shape, texture, form, space, color
and value
4. Share your illustration [Drive]
iterations versions nonhumans actors contaminations leaks joys …
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iterations
“
The compass that does not know its name. The
map that does not know its borders. The journey
in search of a destination (VanderMeer 313).
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iterations
“
They had failed in the last City, and the one before
that, and the one before that. Sometimes that
failure pushed the needle farther. Sometimes that
failure changed not a thing. But perhaps one day
a certain kind of failure might be enough
(VanderMeer 3).
Sylvia Wynter cities Frantz Fanon: ”I am willing to
work on the psychoanalytical level—in other
words, the level of the 'failures,' in the sense in
which one speaks of engine failures.” To which
Wynter adds, “For it is at this level that certain
discoveries can be made” (Wynter, “Towards the
{Sociogenic Principle” 37).
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(post) york
revisited
“
But by the same token, this repetition is precisely a part of what has always
interested me, that is, how does a formal repetition allow us to capture beings
that are otherwise inaccessible (Latour 9)?
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iterations
“
History would go on without her, the Compnay
and the foxes, and all the rest. And yet on it went.
Their quest, in some form. Even without them. The
future would still be the future, in some form.
Until the dead astronaut grew old. Or until the end
of the world. Whichever came first (VanderMeer
319).
It involves no progress and no solution because
nothing is broken for what comes. That is what life
{after aftermath is (Robertson 157).
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iterations
“
Real enough was the anchor that kept them from
falling apart. Through all the versions
(VanderMeer 16).
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iterations
“
Things that can be said. Things that can’t be said.
You know them both. Still the smokestacks belch
smoke. Still you tunnel under the bridge, you will
never be quit of the place. You will never be quit.
You will live always, even when you don’t. You will
never have the right to decide or to understand.
You will only have the right to help or not help.
Through all the versions. Yourself. Not yourself
(VanderMeer 203).
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nonhumans
“
You want. Things to be words. That are not
words. Could never be words. Your fox is some
other construct. We did not agree to that. We do
not call ourselves foxes. A thing you created that
is not me. To think an autopsy was a person. To
think a dissection meant a type of mind. If I went
rummaging through your carcass, would I find you
(VanderMeer 258)?
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nonhumans
“
In this City, as in all Cities, the three knew they
would find the foxes. Moss loved the foxes, while
Grayson suspected them—thought them already
too clever, believed, perhaps, the foxes had led to
their failures, as much as the insidious nature of
the Company had.
Chen had no opinion, for in his calculation
the foxes must always be part of the plan. So he
wasted no emotion on them one way or the other
(VanderMeer 27).
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nonhumans
“
The Company never sang to Behemoth, asked
nothing of him except that he devour. In this way,
Behemoth read the ripples he left behind, the
rings. Knew thereby he was the lord of the water.
Free. To eat. To sleep. To shit. To pull himself back
and forth between the holding ponds. As if
Behemoth had been made to describe such a
path until the end of days (VanderMeer 131).
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nonhumans
“
This was the story: Over all the forest beyond their
home and the little shed, over all of it. Over all.
Ruled the forest mind. Which seemed to slumber
and not remember and be simple. To be made of
earth and trees and clouds and birds. But was
actually awake in a way no person could be
awake. Slumber that was not sleep. Mind that was
not mind. A person could never imprison that
mind, only destroy parts of it, bit by bit. But as
long as even a small piece remained, it could
never die. Would never die.
Might save you to save itself or, in the end,
might not even notice you small and huddled
against the wall of a tunnel (VanderMeer 184).
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contaminations
“
Dead astronauts were no different than living
astronauts. Neither could shed their skin. Neither
could ever become part of what they journeyed
through. Suits were premade coffins. Space was
the grave. Better to think of yourself as dead
already. There was freedom in that; liberated the
mind to roam quadrants farther than the body
(VanderMeer 106).
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contaminations
con (together with) + tangĕre (to touch)
“
Read once that salamanders can be poisoned by
touch. How any oil or soap, any unnatural thing
can hurt them. That you can hurt by touch. That
you can hurt another living being just by
existing in the world. Just by passing through the
world. That is all. That is all. Panic, wanting to pull
away, to preserve, to avoid causing damage
(VanderMeer 186)
What did contamination mean in this city, and
which way did it flow (VanderMeer 45)?
{Everything was contaminated. Nothing was
(VanderMeer 45).
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“Life in the Broken Places” (Jeff VanderMeer + FSG)
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contaminations
“
It had to be translated on either side, strained
through layers, halting, pushing forward.
Sometimes what translated into supposed words
was emotion or reaction. Approximates that had
to be trusted in the moment, before these
approximates became slippery and escaped into
the mire. Because the translation was a kind of
virus, and Moss trusted she was infecting the fish
and not the fish Moss.
(VanderMeer 66)
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contaminations
“
Moss was letting the blue fox into her mind. The
farther into that labyrinth the fox explored, the
more of the gift the fox would receive. For it
would understand their mission, gain more
understanding of the Company, and also see how
the foxes had helped them across so many Cities.
That was the hope.
(What bled through, into the head? Where
did they travel all unknowing? This in Moss’s mind
as disturbance, registering in Chen as a
possibility: v.2.1 = 2.2 + 2.3 + 3.0 + the things that
could pull a mind apart if examined close up.)
(VanderMeer 28)
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joys
“
Such joy in the sight. So much joy you feel that
the pain leaves you for a time. To see a river that is
full of wriggling red bodies. Tiny eyes so bright,
staring as one at you, and then swept downriver.
Changing the river, changing this world. A river
aflame. Dispersed and disbanded and yet ever
stronger in that fragmented state (VanderMeer
201).
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v.7.0
“The desert foxes, snapping their jaws and joyous,
ate up what was left of Moss. They gamboled and
leapt across the mist and meadow of her corpse
and devoured her bit by bit (VanderMeer 108).
joys
Loss of bounded self is only truly horrifying within
an anthropocentric framework that prizes human
being in its current state over all other forms and
ways of being. Active self-annihilation might,
paradoxically, offer a path toward ecosystemic {preservation (Wilk 13).
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joys
“
The joy of running, The joy of digging. The joy of
hunting earthworms through the dirt . The joy of
the wind against fur. The joy of muddy paws. The
joy of sleeping next to mate and kits. The joy of
climbing trees. The joy of swimming in streams.
The joy of mating and raising children. The joy of
dining burrows. The joy of playing in meadows.
The joy of snapping at fireflies at dusk. The joy of
napping on smooth stones, on moss, on beds of
ferns. The joy of the warmth on fur. We lived in joy,
the joy of living without interference, without
persecution, without unnatural threat. The joy of
running (VanderMeer 294).
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“
But, in the end, joy cannot fend off evil.
Joy can only remind you why you fight
(VanderMeer 301).
joys
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(post)
The end is nigh.
The end is now.
The end was already.