51 pages • 1 hour read
Jeff VanderMeerAuthority: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 005-009Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Rites”
Part 2, Chapter 005 Summary: “The First Breach”
Control spends the morning at a diner. A woman is freaking out about an ant on her, asking where it is. Unlike the other diner-goers, Control helps her. He takes the ant off her back, putting it into the grass to save it, while the woman thanks him. Control wonders if, in terms of Area X, he is the ant or the woman.
At work, he searches the prior director’s desk again. He finally finds a key. He uses the key to open the locked drawer, revealing a dead mouse and a strange, thriving plant. The plant seems to be feeding on old files. He takes the plant and the decomposing mouse out. He then moves boxes and bookcases to open the side door, though Grace said it led nowhere. He stares at whatever is behind the door for several minutes. Then he shuts the door.
Part 2, Chapter 006 Summary: “Typographical Anomalies”
Control interviews Ghost Bird again. This time, he brings the plant and the dead mouse with him as a distraction. He thinks about the long, strange line of words he read on the previous director’s wall behind the door: “Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dim-lit halls of other places” (95). The words continued, seemingly endlessly, along with a hand-drawn map of Area X.
Control asks Ghost Bird about the topographical anomaly that every expedition had reported. She does not remember, though she calls it a tower, not a tunnel or pit, like other reports. Control asks why she calls it a “tower,” but she deflects. He does not make any more headway with her, as she is silent or gives very terse answers. She at least remembers the lighthouse, going to it, and seeing the “inside,” but offers no further details. Lately, she has been requesting a computer and more books, specifically on the subjects of memory loss, mimicry, and camouflage, which Control plans to ask her about later.
Finally, he asks if the plant and mouse mean anything to her. Ghost Bird laughs that they mean he should give her the books and computer she requested, thinking he has lost his mind.
Part 2, Chapter 007 Summary: “Superstition”
Control meets with Grace, Whitby, and the lead linguist, Jessica. He discusses the words in the director’s office and why they were hidden and not documented in the files. They explain they were not seen as important, though they know the words were written by Saul Evans, the lighthouse keeper. Jessica explains that he used to be a preacher and that the diction follows his sermons.
At one point, Grace admits that she does not think the prior director is dead. She was the psychologist on the last expedition, but though most people think she died, Grace thinks she may just be missing.
Control senses Grace’s pain and moves on, asking more about the words. In Area X, the same words are written in the tower/tunnel, though they do not know by whom or why. Jessica explains that the words themselves do not matter as much as the living material they are made of. Control asks if Saul Evans could still be alive and writing in Area X since he lived at the lighthouse in the landscape. Whitby says they do not know.
Part 2, Chapter 008 Summary: “The Terror”
Jumping around in time and space (as many chapters do), this chapter begins with Control, Cheney, and Whitby going to explore the border of Area X. Control is looking forward to seeing the curious place. He reflects on how the military staff protects Area X; there has been a great deal of turnover. He also wonders how Ghost Bird felt preparing for the trip. Cheney keeps telling jokes about Area X, but he has some profound thoughts about how it has to be willing to cooperate with them too. They cannot study it if it refuses to react to them.
Earlier in the day, Control met with Whitby, Grace, and Jessica. Whitby stared at the mouse-plant, calling it the “terror.” Control was unsettled by this, but Jessica ignored Whitby and kept talking about how they could not define Area X because they do not have the language to describe something so unique since they could not use typical metaphors or comparisons.
Part 2, Chapter 009 Summary: “Evidence”
Before the tour of the border, Control asked more about the plant. Jessica explained it was from Area X. Grace added it would not die. They had Whitby torture the plant—burning it, neglecting it, not giving it soil or water, adding parasites to it—but the plant always survived. Soon after, Whitby and Grace showed him the room of Area X samples. They have animal carcasses, plants, bark, animal scat, fungi, and more. Every specimen from Area X is pure and free of any toxins such as heavy metals, plastic, or industrial run-off, which seems impossible to Control.
Alone in his office later, Control asks Whitby about his “terror” comment toward the plant. Whitby corrects him that he said, “terroir,” which he excitedly explains means the “specific characteristics of a place—the geography, geology, and climate that, in concert with the vine’s own genetic propensities, can create a startling, deep, original vintage” (130). Under Control’s prompting, Whitby shares that terroir makes sense with their work because its “direct translation is ‘a sense of place,’ and what it means is the sum of the effects of a localized environment, inasmuch as they impact the qualities of a particular product” (130). Control likes the idea of seeing Area X holistically, rather than as discrete components.
During their trip to the border, the three men see rabbits that had been released during earlier tests on Area X’s border. Cheney says they tried to eradicate them, but the rabbits multiplied too quickly. The door to Area X reveals itself in only one spot along the shimmering border, a sparkling portal that expeditioners said was either like passing through something long and tight, or like an expansive field. Again, no one could agree in the reports. Control questions why survivors were not seen coming out of this door, and Cheney says there must be another hidden exit they cannot find. Control is in awe of the door and the fact that though they have sent 38 expeditions—not 12, as he had been told—into Area X, they still know so little.
Part 2, Chapters 005-009 Analysis
Whitby’s character is a strange, unreliable piece of the puzzle, but his “terroir” theory is an unexpected spark of genius that consumes Control and becomes the main theory for the rest of the novel. As Whitby explains, terroir requires seeing the whole, not separate parts:
Terroir’s direct translation is ‘a sense of place,’ and what it means is the sum of the effects of a localized environment, inasmuch as they impact the qualities of a particular product. […] On the cusp of catching Whitby’s excitement, Control said, ‘So you mean you would study everything about the history—natural and human—of that stretch of coast, in addition to all other elements? And that you might—you just might—find an answer in that confluence?’ ‘Exactly. The point of terroir is that no two areas are the same. […] Area X could have formed nowhere else’ (130-31).
While others focus on the lighthouse or the tunnel, Whitby believes that to understand Area X, they must view it as a whole. The idea inspires Control. Due to Whitby’s influence, Control starts to view Area X as the sum of the data, not the puzzle pieces alone. This theory eventually leads him to accept Area X as an anomaly that cannot be easily described or understood. All three major themes converge in the paradigm shift Control experiences here. By taking his first step toward accepting that Area X is driven by unknowable forces that cannot be reduced to discrete variables, Control begins both to relinquish his attachment to bureaucracy and control and to be transformed by his exposure to the anomaly.
The rabbits Control sees by the border to Area X represent fragility and sacrifice, uncertainty and ambiguity, and transformation. The recurring white rabbits are also a symbol of Area X itself due to their similarities. As Cheney points out, the rabbits are persistent, breeding at an extreme rate. Their quick reproduction foreshadows the revelation that Area X creates copies and mutations. It also foreshadows the spreading of Area X and the area’s persistence. Like Area X, the rabbits will not die off but continue to spread their DNA in defiance of human attempts to control or contain them. These innocent creatures, once used as an experiment to “overload” Area X, are now reminiscent of the fact that whatever human beings introduce to Area X, Area X will use it toward its own ends. Human beings, as Cheney points out, control only one part of the experiments they run: “There is some agreement among us now [...] that to analyze certain things, an object must allow itself to be analyzed, must agree to it. Even if this is just simply by way of some response, some reaction” (117). Cheney also points out that they have given up on containing the growing rabbit population. Now, they just let them breed, and this decision to let them live and keep spreading their genes also foreshadows how characters must learn to give up on understanding and containing Area X.
The plant from the prior director’s desk is another symbol. The weird plant represents secrets, the unknown, futility, and Area X’s impenetrability. Because Cynthia (the past director) hid the plant in a locked drawer in her office, she obviously did not want others to find out about it. Like the numerous other secrets in the book—ranging from the identity of The Voice to the lie that there were only 12 expeditions when in fact there were 38—the plant is representative of the undisclosed. Further, once the others admit they knew of the plant, it is another marker of his isolation and lack of knowledge. He is an outsider who must find information for himself. The plant also portrays Area X’s immunity: “The assistant director made Whitby embark upon a summary of hair-raising attempts at destruction that included stabbings, careful burnings, deprivation of soil and water, introduction of parasites, general neglect, the emanation of hateful vibes, verbal and physical abuse, and much more” (119). The plant is symbolic of the futility of human intervention. Just as they cannot make progress to change Area X, they cannot change this plant from Area X. The flora is pure, without contamination, and will remain untainted and untouchable by human interaction, a clue that Area X will remain resistant to all their ongoing efforts too.
