Mitt

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Mitt is Currently Reading

Mitt is currently reading

Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)

by Jeff Vandermeer (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: besties, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in September 2023

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Mitt said: " I knew six years when I first read Annihilation that it was my favorite book. It changed my outlook on writing, on fiction, on so many other things, and even affirmed other things that were already present in my life. I had deeply personal experience I knew six years when I first read Annihilation that it was my favorite book. It changed my outlook on writing, on fiction, on so many other things, and even affirmed other things that were already present in my life. I had deeply personal experiences with this book both times I read it, and now I feel at least moderately more capable of describing my feelings about it.

The biologist, the main character, is so much of what makes this book so incredible. The narrative, and everything contained within it, is inseparable from her testimony, reliable as it may or may not be. Her voice is one of my favorites of any character ever, and the mixture of insights into her inner life with her observations about the uncanny ecosystem she inhabits are such an incredible lens for the story. It feels like she’s truly meant to be in Area X, a place where, ostensibly, nothing on Earth should ever naturally belong. And of course, the book sells this idea perfectly. It’s so gracefully convincing for something so unnatural, and to me that’s a profound achievement.

Beyond just that, there is, of course, the feelings that the book more objectively tries to evoke: feelings of wonderment, confusion, horror, malevolent curiosity, sadness, and so much more. It comes across like one of the most genuinely felt stories I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. Again, it feels so real, and like it all came from such a raw and uninhibited place within the author. It’s truly breathtaking, the amount of layering and complexity and emotionality and pure uncanniness that this book manages to achieve with a page count barely qualifying it as a novel.

I often feel compelled to break things apart when I discuss them, oftentimes aided by the sense that, no matter how technically proficient they appear in execution, many pieces of art feel at least a bit disjointed to me—inescapably so, it seems. But Annihilation is one I can’t help but consider in its entirety. There’s a such a perfect, self-contained wholeness about it that feels preternaturally cohesive, like it was produced in its entirety all at once with no start and no clear end to the process.

It’s just fantastic. It’s my favorite book. I don’t know if that will ever change, and in a way I hope it doesn’t. It feels like this book speaks to a fundamental part of me, and it’s a part that I cherish. ...more "

progress:

(page 75 of 195)
"“I felt in that moment as if it were all a dream…my former life, the world I left behind. None of it mattered anymore. Only this place mattered, only this moment.”" — Jun 15, 2024 11:32PM

Jun 03, 2024 08:39PM · see review