Jeff VanderMeer’s science fiction noir bends the limits of multispecies imagination
In late July, it was time to pick chanterelles — wild, edible mushrooms that I had only heard about in passing. I wandered into the forest and found the first chanterelle, its orange cap wrinkled at the edges like a ruffled skirt, then saw more arranged in what looked like a ring.
As I stepped back, farther and farther, I saw that the “ring” was more like multiple formations, with fruiting bodies peppered between them. I realized that I didn’t know how many beings I was standing on top of — many, or just one?
Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch explores the dystopian city Ambergris, slowly decaying under the occupying force of grey caps — mushroom-like people who have harnessed their ability to control spores and weaponize fungi against humans. Like in many of VanderMeer’s other novels, the apocalypse has already happened, and people must continue to do what they have always done — live their lives.
We follow John Finch, a detective solving a mystery who realizes too late that he’s also embroiled himself in the city’s politics. Finch’s narration is often clipped, devoid of subjectivity, and disassociated from his world in a way that makes you feel like he has one foot out the door at all times. Finch was branded as a noir novel, which I’d never previously read any of, so I imagined a noir movie playing out in my head: gritty atmosphere, cigars and whiskey, and spores a splash of technicolour green and gold against the otherwise grim landscape.
In Ambergris, spores hang in the air ready to infect unsuspecting citizens, take over human bodies with purples and greens, and make their flesh spongy. “Partials” — humans who have allowed themselves to be turned into grey cap hybrids — have one eye transformed into a constantly blinking camera. Between the vast underground network and microscopic spores waiting to communicate with their masters, the grey caps’ network seems inexhaustible.
In high school, I learned about the “mycorrhizal network” of a fungus — an underground mat of mycelium, branching threads or hyphae that attach to trees, delivering nutrients to the fungus. Although many of us know fungi only by their fruiting bodies — the fleshy, sometimes colourful, above-ground parts that release spores — the mycorrhizal network is what reveals the true capabilities of fungi. For instance, according to a 2007 article in the Scientific American, a specimen of Armillaria ostoyae found in Oregon in 1998 was possibly the largest living thing on Earth, thousands of years old and thousands of acres large.
Since reading this article, mushrooms have taken on a mythic fascination for me. What was the upper limit of their size? I understood that a lack of available resources would stop an ever-growing fungus in its tracks. But I couldn’t help imagining a continent overtaken by a fungus, finding its spongy mycorrhizal mat under all soil if we just dug far enough. I thought about “saprobes,” the decomposer fungi vital for all healthy soils.
This awe for mushrooms struck me again when I went mushroom hunting last July, breathless at the possibility of one vast organism from which we could borrow nutrients, giving them back when we died.
JESSICA LAM/THEVARSITY
In the non-fiction book The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing asks what it means to cohabitate with other species in the face of mass environmental destruction. She writes about the multispecies worlds that emerge when many organisms make “living arrangements” for themselves simultaneously — these are the worlds, like mycelia branching out, that I think we must be concerned about protecting.
She also discusses the roles of mushrooms, not only in the supply chain but also in culture and her imagination. She focuses one chapter entirely on spores, writing: “Spores take off toward unknown destinations, mate across types, and, at least occasionally, give rise to new organisms — a beginning for new kinds.”
In my imagination, spores stumble into each other, relying on the right gust of wind, numbers, and sheer luck to finally take root — or rather, mycorrhizal network. This bumbling somewhat resembles the rhythm of “Mycelium” by King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard.
With Tsing’s words about multispecies worlds still on the mind, Finch’s answer to her question about cohabitation is complicated. In Ambergris, not only do humans recognize that they’re in a multispecies world, but they’re also haunted by it. The humans’ oppression by the gray caps is contingent on the reach of spores, the overwhelming size of the gray caps’ mycorrhizal network, and a healthy dose of manufactured fear. On the other side, in our world, humans must reckon with the ecological destruction that they, themselves, have wrought.
At one point, the narration tells us that Finch “didn’t know if he was inside a mushroom or outside the universe.” Our encounters with multispecies worlds, whether thinking about a giant mushroom in Oregon or noticing which trees a certain fungus happens to grow on, remind us that they exist, and how wide-reaching their existance is. Even the tiniest spore is a memento of eons of drifting, settling, and drifting again.
Finally, I return to my question from last summer — were the chanterelles one organism or many? Regardless of the answer, in some sense, I find that their world was far more vast than mine.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
