Borne (Borne, #1) Borne question


824 views
Questions about The ending
Liz Rogers Liz Apr 30, 2017 07:49PM
Was the place beyond the mirror our world or was the city the remains of our world?



Liz wrote: "Was the place beyond the mirror our world or was the city the remains of our world?"

Jessica 0 minutes ago 0 votes
I had this question as well. I understand that a big part of this is kind of "leave it up to your imagination", but really want to know what others thought.

Also, were Rachel, Wick AND Borne all creations from The Company, or was Rachel "donated" or sacrificed by her family? Or maybe they were captured? I'm just a little fuzzy on the actual details.

Looooved the writing, the weirdness and the completely original plot. Especially loved Borne. :)


Rachel wasn't sacrificed by her family, they stowed away in crates delivered to the company as a last ditch attempt to flee some other place, but as Wick's letter says nothing in the crates was classified as human, company policy said anything in the crates was material for new Biotech, so Rachel's family was murdered in front of her by the company, but for some reason someone decided to discard her instead of using her for parts, or, personal theory they tried some experiments on her but wrote them off as unsuccessful and discarded her anyway.


So hold on, was Wick actually the fish project? Was that supposed to mean that he had been transformed from a fish into a human. It is apparent that he is a piece of biotech but this was never fully explained.


I can accept that you leave the "gateway" as a mystery, but there were still too many unanswered question like where did Borne get the power to blow up Mord? Was that something he “sampled” that I missed. Why would the Magician care at all about Rachel’s memories? She wanted to own the memories of Rachel’s parents being murdered? And that was Wick’s big secret, that he erased Rachel’s memories? She asked him to! And who sent the thousands of Bornes that the intelligent foxes were defending against? To sample what and for what purpose? To wipe out the remaining living things? If they were already in the paradise on the other side of the gateway, why would they care?

Good world-building and VanderMeer's prose is always so lyrical, but it set up for some unsatisfying answers in that last quarter. I don't need everything explained, but he should have foreshadowed Borne's bomb capabilities at least, that and Wick's underwhelming letter just felt like a cheat.


So what was Wick’s last secret?


Can't help but speculate if that is somehow related to the Border in the Area X triology. It's a reach... a Southern Reach.


Vandermeer likes to leave ambiguity as much as possible, so we don't know any more than the MC's.


I have the same questions:
1) did Rachel come from an alternate universe? Wick says something like that at the end
2) the silver screen, where boxes and crates went through, was that a portal to another dimension/reality/universe and was the company experimenting there?? (Like if they were in an unregulated island)?


"Was there a world beyond? Is that what the shining wall of silver rain drops meant? A gateway? Or is that a delusion?
It doesn't matter. Because now we can make one here.
A world."

Directly from the book. just finished it and really enjoyed it. Hope that settles the matter for you.


back to top