Jeff Vandermeer’s Acceptance completes the Southern
Reach Trilogy with detailed descriptions and complex sentences, sucking us
into a world that’s changing. Here is where we expect answers, demand
resolutions to the why those changes occur and what will happen to the major
characters: the Biologist, Control, the Lighthouse Keeper, the Psychologist,
and her assistant, Grace. Yet here is where we find true changes; changes in
perspective on the landscapes of Area X, and changes in point of view.
The first book, Annihilation, is written from the
first-person point of view of the Biologist on the twelfth expedition into Area
X. Authority, the second book, is written from the limited third-person
point of view of Control as he struggles in his new position as Director of
Southern Reach. As changes have occurred within Area X, the border expanding,
the wildlife being absorbed and mutated, so do changes in perspective occur
within the book. Acceptance includes multiple points of view: the
Biologist’s first-person perspective AND the third-person limited from
Control’s eyes. Acceptance adds the third-person point of view
through the Lighthouse Keeper and we see the Psychologist’s childhood in ground
zero of Area X and learn about the strange Science and Séance Brigade through
his eyes. But the changes don’t stop there. A second-person point of view is
added which observes the Psychologist prior to the twelfth expedition. The
unknown voice speaks directly to the Psychologist and we have to wonder who
this new speaker is? We can only assume it is the voice of Area X’s
creator, but this is never confirmed. This whole jumping back and forth between
different types of viewpoints creates a feeling of unease in the reader and
pulls you into the chaos and confusion of those expedition members who came
back from Area X different, changed, damage psychologically and physically so
that they died in less than a year. All accept for Lowry, who continues his
deranged pursuit of conquering Area X from the safe distance of Central…or is
it a controlled lab so his own changes can be easily observed?
The affect is unnerving as we scramble over these changes in point of view,
changes in Area X and changes in us, because of the answers we are compelled to
seek. Like Control, who clutches Whitby’s terroir report, we seek answers to
our questions: Who or what is behind the changes in Area X? What does it mean
for humanity? But like the Lighthouse Keeper’s father told him, “Once the
questions snuck in, whatever had been certain became uncertain. Questions
opened the way for doubt.” So we follow the Lighthouse Keeper into the cryptic
world of Area X as it impregnates Earth with – we know not what - and are only
partially satisfied with the answers.
Answers, like candy, often leave us with more questions, and though this is true
in the world of Jeff Vandermeer’s Acceptance, it is perhaps the most
original dystopian I have read in a long time. The writing style, the
characters and the plot are compelling and definitely worth the read!