The Question of Who has the Authority?

One of the greatest challenges for any author writing a trilogy is to preserve in each successive book the momentum of the plot as well as the interest of the reader. Not all authors can achieve these goals, however Jeff VanderMeer accomplishes both of these objectives plus adds to our understanding of Area X without solving its mysteries in his second novel of the Southern Reach Trilogy, Authority. Like Annihilation, Authority is told from the limited point of view of the main character. Whereas Annihilation is told from the first person point of view through the journal of the biologist on an expedition into Area X, Authority is told from the third person through the eyes of Control, the new director of Southern Reach.

What is perhaps most fascinating in VanderMeer’s novels is his ability to effectively relate the details of both the biologist’s and Control’s observations from very different perspectives with clarity and realism. In the case of Annihilation and the biologist, we see the details relating to species of plants and animals and the ecology of Area X in which they thrive and change. In Authority, we see both the overt communication and the subtle nuisances of character in the staff working for Southern Reach. We see their quirks, their strengths and weaknesses, and their value or possible threat to the goals of Southern Reach. First and foremost, we learn about Control.

The opening segment of part one takes us into Control’s recurring dream of standing on a cliff overlooking a cove which is ever-changing, where behemoths “glide…like submarines or bell-shaped orchids or the wide hulls of ships, silent, ever moving, the size of them conveying such a sense of power that he can feel the havoc of their passage…” then he falls and keeps falling. Control’s dream ties us to the first novel, Annihilation, in which the biologist observes strange behemoths in the sea by the Lighthouse in Area X. It also hints at the ever-changing nature of the area which all the previous expeditions observed. Plus the dream shows us a human weakness in Control and hints at a link between him and this mysterious area. Then he falls, and in falling causes the reader to immediately question whether this link between Control and Area X will help or hinder the goals of Southern Reach to contain the “contamination” and keep its real nature a secret.

The second segment opens with Control’s first day as director at Southern Reach and we learn that this is his “last chance.” That first line hints at career problems which have plagued Control during his time with Southern Reach and we begin to see him as a rogue agent and a possible hindrance to the mission. Through Control’s observations of the assistant director’s reactions to him, her not sparing him an extra word or an extra look, “except when he’d told her and the rest of the staff to call him ‘Control,’ not ‘John’ or ‘Rodriguez,’ we see the antagonism that is set up between the characters. When she replies, call her “Patience,” not “Grace,” we know Control’s reign will be tenuous. Grace also insists on calling him the “acting” director, indicating the temporal nature of his tenure during the transition period in which she is still actually in charge. Control acknowledges that, “Until then, the issue of authority might be murky.” This segment sets up, not only the conflict of man versus the unknown threat of Area X’s possible expansion, but man versus man to gain power and authority which carries throughout the entire novel.

Even though it’s only Control’s first day, he admits he “already felt contaminated by the dingy, bizarre building with its worn green carpet and the antiquated opinions of the other personnel he had met.” Here is foreshadowing of the contamination from Area X expanding behind the confinements and barricades and Army guards which surround it. The very building housing Southern Reach has “a sense of diminishment” as if it has been blanketed in deterioration of hopelessness about solving the mystery of Area X. It is feeling from which Control struggles to remain aloft as he begins his job of interrogating the three returnees from the twelfth expedition: the surveyor, the anthropologist and the biologist. Control sees something different, something special in the biologist and he focuses all his attention on her as he wades through reports about Area X, meets the team of scientists studying the area and gives secret reports on his progress to The Voice via phone. We also learn the missing psychologist from the twelfth expedition was, in fact, the previous Director of Southern Reach.

Amid the antagonism of the assistant director, the peculiarities of the scientific team and the oppressive feeling of stagnation, Control and the biologist develop an unusual relationship. Southern Reach: Authority is a well-written book, not only worthwhile reading, but one to add to the personal collection of your library. I look forward to reading the third book in the trilogy, Acceptance.

C.L. Cohen