The quest to explain the past, and hence the present: Dead Astronauts, by Jeff VanderMeer

 A few weeks ago, I posted about Jeff VanderMeer's outstanding novel, Borne.  It was an unusual novel, as all VanderMeer's books are, but it painted a vivid picture of a strange world with complex meditations on morality.  That is precisely what I find most compelling in a work of fiction, so between that and the similar heights VanderMeer achieved with the Southern Reach trilogy, reading the sequel was necessary.  Dead Astronauts is something altogether different, more surreal, less defined, and a book that cannot even be judged by the same standards.

Borne took place in a vaguely post-apocalyptic world that appeared to slouch towards Bedlam (sincere apologies) rather than extinguish itself in fire.  In a city's ruins, scavengers try to scrape out a living among the biotech remains of "the Company" that tried to set up shop there towards the end, but mostly, what is left of the Company is their last creation, Mord.  Mord is a giant kaiju bear, of sorts, who eventually comes to his end in a battle against the titular Borne.  Borne is a biotech weapon, found and raised by Rachel at the beginning of the book.  He struggles with the moral lessons that Rachel tries to impart to him, and then ultimately gives up, mostly, finding a kind of redemption when he sacrifices himself to destroy Mord.  That is the very short version of a much more complex book.

The title of the sequel comes from a very VanderMeer plot point.  The first time Borne leaves Rachel's hideout, he encounters the three "dead astronauts."  Borne finds three corpses in hazmat suits-- not space suits-- in advanced decay, and partially buried.  Eventually, because Borne is weird and creepy, he recovers the corpses of the "dead astronauts" and keeps them in his apartment in "the Balcony Cliffs" where Rachel, Borne and Wick are living/hiding.  Borne is weird and creepy.

Who are they?  From where did they come?  How did they die, and who partially buried them?  Why?  These questions are left as small mysteries amid bigger questions in Borne.

Which leads us to Dead Astronauts, which is not precisely what the title implies, even if the first half or so hints that answers to the trio's origins are coming.

So much of the backstory from the first book was left unanswered, even beyond the comparatively small mystery of the "dead astronauts."  What happened to this world, and why?  What happened to the Company?  There was what appeared to be a gateway to another world, a better world, where the Company may truly be based.  What are those gateways, and why has the Company abandoned the world you see?  So much of the backstory seemed to revolve around conflicts around and between Company employees.  How did those conflicts occur?

And as long as we're at it, what's the deal with the duck with the broken wing?  Is that really a universe-defining mystery?  No, but if one is yelling at Mr. VanderMeer for answers, one may as well add that question too.

Dead Astronauts leaves many mysteries.  I suppose, in some sense, we learn about that fucking duck, to the degree that we care, but the bigger mysteries?  VanderMeer approaches them obliquely, aiming instead for deepened mystery.

Because the answers you seek may not be there, which is perhaps its own valid point.

The "dead astronauts" actually include, amongst their ranks, a real astronaut.  Grayson had been an astronaut, on a long mission, only to return to an Earth blighted and ruined.  She finds another "dead astronaut" who is more of a biotech creation than original formula human.  Moss.  What is Moss?  Does it matter?  And then there is Chen, who had been an employee, who turned on the Company.

Or at least some Chens did, and hence the complication of backstory.  The "dead astronauts" are traveling between universes, and their stories are thus as indefinite in the past as the tale is to read.  How did the "original" dead astronauts meet that particular end?  It does not matter, because what VanderMeer shows instead is the texture of the conflicts and complications of the world, and indeed, the universes, through the lens of characters who sometimes survive, sometimes die, sometimes turn on the Company, sometimes remain loyal, all amid the world that just crumbles until, perhaps, Borne's sacrifice.  Those individual choices can matter.  On any one timeline, they can matter, as they affect the path, along with the characters themselves, but if you, the outsider, are looking for a clear A to B to C, do you see that in the real world, stripped of uncertainty?

If not, then why does one always expect it in literature, and why not treat that path with something of a dreamlike quality in a world already existing otherwise anyway?

VanderMeer continues, with explorations of a secretive bioengineer whose smallest contribution was the duck, but who played a much larger role in the development of biotechnology at the Company.  Charlie X.  One can imply backstories involving Charlie X and Wick from Borne, but that is neither necessary nor the point, as one reads instead about his troubled childhood with a sociopathic father, his projects large and small, the various paths his life takes on different timelines, and how his perverse genius serves the Company.  One sees how his life intersects with other universes and timelines, the origins and disappearance of his journal of biotech horrors, and through the different versions of the story of Charlie X, the reader sees different, but semi-compatible stories of how one sees the Borne timeline.  Which is the Borne timeline?

Does it matter?  The stories are not clearly bounded, and without clear bounds, one can neither rule out nor accept compatibility with the Borne timeline, except as one sees a particular end with a particular set of "dead astronauts," yet the greater insights are into the patterns that created the world, in which one asks instead the larger question of why?  Not how, from A to B to C, but why?  In an attempt to answer why, perhaps the A-to-B-to-C details become less relevant.

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with an historian about the nature of hypothesis testing and uncertainty, and he said that he wished he could get his students to think about history in the way I try to get students to think about social scientific hypotheses.  I noted that I frequently assign readings that directly contradict each other, and tell the students that they must decide for themselves who makes the most compelling argument.  In some cases, the data are clear.  Yes, "data are."  Party identification is the best predictor of voting behavior, incumbents overwhelmingly win congressional elections-- such patterns simply are.  Yet for the most interesting questions, different scholars make conflicting claims because the data are not as clear.  You must evaluate the data for yourself, and make up your own mind.  History is often no different.  My historian friend used the War of the Roses as an example, but any number of historical events could have been referenced because history would not exist as a field of study under universal agreement.

Why?  This is not merely a question for two-year-olds.  Following from that, to what extent does one detail matter, however puzzling?  Moreover, if an idea has power, devoid of details, do you accept it?

Yet Dead Astronauts is not a scholarly explanation for the origins of the world.  Rather, VanderMeer provides the reader with a dreamlike sense, where no answers are to be found.  Do you accept that?  Many won't, and to be sure, it is a frustrating book.  It is also one of those books that is difficult to stop reading, so it has that.  Do you expect answers?

In life, in scholarship, you will be sorely disappointed.

Snooks Eaglin, "Answer Now," from Soul's Edge.