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Borne - AuthoReadeR Discussion
message 51:
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Jeff
(new)
Jul 24, 2017 09:48AM
Thanks, btw, for such great questions. I really appreciate it. After doing a lot of interviews and events for Borne, some questions are hard to answer a fifth or sixth or seventh time. None of these are like that!
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Ah. I never read jacket copy first because too often it shapes or spoils the way I read the book, or the outcome. I take the dust jacket off. :)
Leah wrote: "Ah. I never read jacket copy first because too often it shapes or spoils the way I read the book, or the outcome. I take the dust jacket off. :)"LOL! I'm a firm believer in letting the copy description on the book do some of the work.
Benjamin wrote: "Hi Jeff. I really enjoyed Borne. I've had The Southern Reach Trilogy sitting on my shelves for a while, but I hadn't read them yet. This experience definitely bumped them up on my to-read list. W..."
Whoa! Lot of spoilers in there along with good questions. I'll try to answer some of them. But readers be advised that that requires additional spoilers. SO DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK.
--Rachel admits she has no good reason for defaulting to referring to Borne as "he". There's a passage about it and then a passage in Borne's diary dealing with it.
--I think if Rachel hadn't volunteered a lot of data to Borne early on the outcome might've been much different much earlier. To allude to something without coming out and saying it. I also think Borne began substituting other things when he could've sampled his immediate surroundings more aggressively, to stave off that decision.
--I think your fourth paragraph answers itself by suggesting an internal argument.
--Why would anyone want to get involved in a conflict that distracts from a day-to-day attempt to survive? That only happens in really escapist fiction.
Speaking of the dust jacket made me curious about the cover design: Did you have any control or input over the cover? Did you find that your vision matched up for what Borne looked like, vs. an artist's rendition? Did designers consult you on your vision for a creature of which everyone who reads the book has a different mental image? And if you had no input, what do you think of the outcome, how it matches up with your own visual?
Leah wrote: "Speaking of the dust jacket made me curious about the cover design: Did you have any control or input over the cover? Did you find that your vision matched up for what Borne looked like, vs. an art..."I love it. It's difficult to do a cover for a novel like this that isn't too literal and if you go figurative you can be too far apart from the reality of the novel. So they struck just the right balance.
My thoughts in regards to the sampling or eating, We all have to kill to eat and survive. Even vegans kill a plant when they consume it. It becomes part of them and they thrive due to the nourishment. As humans we, normally, do not eat each other and regard that as killing. Born was a different species so saying killing was wrong had to be confusing. In his mentality how was sampling, tasting and consuming an animal or plant different than a human except that he received more information and nourishment from humans? I believe the repression lead to the escalation in drive to sample things, just as a human that is deprived of food is likely to binge eat when that have unlimited access to food. The physical, mental and emotional stress that this deprivation put on Born very likely changed his outcome. I agree with Benjamin that this is an unreasonable limitation for any living thing.
Benjamin wrote: "Jeff wrote: "Benjamin wrote: "Hi Jeff. I really enjoyed Borne. I've had The Southern Reach Trilogy sitting on my shelves for a while, but I hadn't read them yet. This experience definitely bumped t..."I'm going to push back against this reasoning a bit. I respect that that is your experience with the novel. But in fact lots of genre and mainstream lit readers are really enjoying the novel and neither group, in general, seems to feel there is much of a barrier to enjoying it. I'm sorry there was a barrier for you, but every reader is different.
Benjamin wrote: "Jeff wrote: "Benjamin wrote: "Jeff wrote: "Benjamin wrote: "Hi Jeff. I really enjoyed Borne. I've had The Southern Reach Trilogy sitting on my shelves for a while, but I hadn't read them yet. This ..."(Hey--could you possibly redact part of that message 62 as I'm getting a little uncomfortable with all the spoilers you're bringing in. Apologies, but...)
I'm not sure how to process that question. You write the story you feel passionate about and that's organic to you. You can't satisfy every reader so trying to anticipate that aspect of things is a fool's game.
As far as spoilers go I was assuming that people participating in this discussion were to have read the book already. Is it necessary to warn of spoilers in this thread?
Diane wrote: "As far as spoilers go I was assuming that people participating in this discussion were to have read the book already. Is it necessary to warn of spoilers in this thread?">Fair enough. I can only report my own comfort level as I read the questions. I've only felt this in the one or two instances. You can ignore my comfort level and let me be uncomfortable. That's your call!
I don't want anyone to be uncomfortable. I just wanted to clarify.
Here's a little exclusive--an entry from the Borne bestiary that will be posted online in about a week. There are 120 critters in Borne and I wrote entries on 35 of them.***
MICE, SOLEMN-LOOKING (139) – As distinguished from ordinary mice found in the City, a “solemn-looking mouse” is slang in certain neighborhoods for mouse-based diagnostics and medical repair. Some species are small enough to live within the human throat, exuding a liquid through their paw pads that numbs the scratch. Such mice provide triage services. Developed as “in-house” medics for soldiers in foreign wars, a strain of “solemn-looking mouse” clings to a precarious existence in the City. Most scavengers revile these mice, consider them unclean or cursed, and recycle their parts for other biotech projects. A few revere the mice and actively participate in their use and trade these mice amongst their various throats to create the best medical combinations. But because these mice have regressive genetic markers, they often lose out to “real” mice for food and other resources when they fend for themselves sans human cohabitation. Thus, their range is limited to the boundaries of an unpredictable territory: the unnamed countries formed by the bodies of their hosts.
As far as spoilers go, we should always do our best to avoid them, folks. This is a public forum that can come up in searches for the book on Google or otherwise with just a few keystrokes, so there will be plenty of people here who haven't read the book, or all of it yet. Those spoilers are an author's livelihood, so try to talk around them, for everyone's sake, just in case. :)
Diane wrote: "I don't want anyone to be uncomfortable. I just wanted to clarify."Maybe just a ground rule that spoilers about the very end of Part 2 and once they're in the Company building would be of help to me. Everything else fair game? I can still answer questions about those bits without spoilers because I know the novel very well. :) I think it's because the novel was just published three months ago. Apologies.
Benjamin wrote: "Jeff wrote: "Diane wrote: "As far as spoilers go I was assuming that people participating in this discussion were to have read the book already. Is it necessary to warn of spoilers in this thread?"..."Nope-and thanks. And sorry for bringing it up.
Leah wrote: "As far as spoilers go, we should always do our best to avoid them, folks. This is a public forum that can come up in searches for the book on Google or otherwise with just a few keystrokes, so ther..."Yeah, I guess that expresses something I didn't want to presume to say. I've already had conversations like this one wind up quoted in or just airlifted entire into full-on articles at other media outlets. Even had a casual facebook comment about the Annihilation film become the basis of an article. So I have become wary. That's the answer to a WHOLE other question.
Benjamin wrote: "Jeff wrote: "Diane wrote: "As far as spoilers go I was assuming that people participating in this discussion were to have read the book already. Is it necessary to warn of spoilers in this thread?"..."I Don't think you need to remove spoilers if you spoiler tag them. That way people can choose to click on the spoiler or not. To spoiler tag follow the directions below: With Out spaces-
< spoiler > What ever you want to say < / spoiler >
This way you only have to click (view spoiler) if this works for everyone it good with me.
Diane wrote: "My thoughts in regards to the sampling or eating, We all have to kill to eat and survive. Even vegans kill a plant when they consume it. It becomes part of them and they thrive due to the nourishme...In his mentality how was sampling, tasting and consuming an animal or plant different than a human except that he received more information and nourishment from humans?"This aspect of Borne reminded me of Valentine Michael Smith's teachings of 'Grok' (understanding something so well it becomes a part of you) and the ritual cannibalism his followers practiced in 'Stranger in a Strange land".
And this " The physical, mental and emotional stress that this deprivation put on Born very likely changed his outcome.
Wasn't that stress & deprivation an integral part of the development of Borne's humanity? Didn't that human part of Borne help him do what he did?
Jeff, I've read the Trilogy & Borne. I've just started fooling around with your Wonderbook (which, fellow aspiring writers, is an absolutely mind-opening experience). I looked here on GR for a discussion of Borne, never expecting to find one with 'the writer' in attendance (lucky us!).
All my questions contain spoilers, but I'm enjoying the heck out of this discussion.
Wasn't that stress & deprivation an integral part of the development of Borne's humanity? Didn't that human part of Borne help him do what he did?Yes exactly! but do we have the right to expect something other than his nature? " would you make a wolf feel guilty for killing its prey? Would you make an eagle feel guilty for flying? " Can you get angry at a bird for flying? You may be able to clip it's wings so it walks on two feet and teach it to say human words but that does not make it less of a bird. I believe the bird will always want to fly.
Diane wrote: "Yes exactly! but do we have the right to expect something other than his nature? ..I believe the bird will always want to fly. "I've spent the late spring and summer watching a momma osprey teach her eaglets (two! unusual) to fly. At first, she taught them to hover and catch the small thermals that the evaporation from our pool makes above our courtyard. Rachel was Borne's human mother. Her job was to teach him humanity, which includes the concept of sacrifice. Everything else I can say is a spoiler.
Benjamin wrote: "Diane wrote: "Wasn't that stress & deprivation an integral part of the development of Borne's humanity? Didn't that human part of Borne help him do what he did?Yes exactly! but do we have the rig..."
I think it's worth remembering that biotech is made for a particular purpose. Perhaps the foxes jury-rigged Borne too, or messed with his "programming". But regardless, the Borne Rachel encounters is not the usual nature versus nurture situation. It is an artificial situation.
Bettina wrote: "Diane wrote: "My thoughts in regards to the sampling or eating, We all have to kill to eat and survive. Even vegans kill a plant when they consume it. It becomes part of them and they thrive due to..."I think all of these comments about intent re Borne and upbringing and whatnot are really interesting. The other interesting thing about them is that I like to write novels that do not tell you what to think. So there's what Rachel thinks about the situation, there are other opinions, including Wick's, there's Borne's self-evaluation. Then there are little foxes messing with everything and the Company's spectre out there. Where is the truth? Does resolution have to resolve thematic questions or just make sure that thematic questions are posed in an appropriately messy context?
Mod
I apologize for not being a better host and prefacing the conversation with a spoiler tag alert. I've made a mental note to do this with all discussions going forward. Thank you all for being sensitive to that once it was pointed out and a special thank you to Diane for sharing how to hide spoilers.
I am stuck with figuring out what makes a person. Is it their conscience, their human body, their ability to think and reason? Because Borne was different would he not still be a person because he could learn and reason on his own. My example when I ask my friends is if a Martian landed on earth and we talked to whatever a Martian would look like -'would he/she/it still be a person? Borne was veer conscious about that label. Rachel felt he was a person, but Wick did not. Hummmm. One of those problems that I guess really can't be answered.
I think these questions you create in your writing is why I like it so much. I hope the movie of Annihilation is as good as the book. I think Borne would be a great movie.
Chris wrote: "I am stuck with figuring out what makes a person. Is it their conscience, their human body, their ability to think and reason? Because Borne was different would he not still be a person because he ..."Personhood has to do with intentionality, in my opinion. Some animals have been given the rights of "persons" in some countries. And in a broadly political sense, whole rivers have been given the rights of people since we also extend these rights to corporations. But I personally do not think of a "person" as having to be a human being. An intelligent alien would be a person. Although, I know my German translators tell me the use of person in the text along with human causes confusion for them.
Some biological humans cant get over genetics!
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I was also shocked at how introspective I became as I read the book, with every turn of the page.
Benjamin wrote: "Jeff wrote: "Chris wrote: "I am stuck with figuring out what makes a person. Is it their conscience, their human body, their ability to think and reason? Because Borne was different would he not st..."Them's the breaks. World isn't fair.
Lori wrote: "I found Borne and his internal struggles so incredibly endearing but also heartbreakingly frustrating, because you always had the sense that what he was deep down inside, whatEVER he was, would alw..."Thank you so much for the kind comment! It sure wasn't easy to write. I must admit I cried a lot.
Hey, everyone! I have finally finished adulting today and can join in the conversation!Jeff, I absolutely loved this book (and the Southern Reach books). I apologize if this has been asked already, but how do you come up with your stories?
My first question was down the lines of one already asked, basically wondering about how you went about drawing inspiration for the Borne's physical appearance. Squids seems like a natural point of reference, of course. Borne all the same isn't quite squid or animal even. He's also plantlike, and actually I suppose biotech, and decidedly alien, a thing out of the ordinary even in the world of the novel (though I thought the "foxes" seemed equally strange, with what we see of them). Did you run into any challenges, or can you just share any insights about, getting on the page, making physical, objects that are explicitly bizarre, weird, not-real?
Hey--all. Great new questions, but I'm going to call it a night and circle back tomorrow. Keep 'em coming. Cheers.
Mod
And Jeff, you were an absolute trooper! We appreciate you spending so much of your day here with us.
Lori wrote: "Awesome first day, you guys! I think this is the most questions ever thrown at a visiting author during day one of the discussion : )And Jeff, you were an absolute trooper! We appreciate you spen..."
Hey, thanks. I'm here now again so happy to answer more.
Hi Jeff,I adored the Southern Reach Trilogy, and felt very much at home in the Borne world. I am continually awed by your ability to tackle the macro issue of what we're doing to the environment ( and how it might be fighting back) as well your ability to really make us care for your characters navigating such unique situations. Can you say more about how you develop the environment as a character vs. actual humans or "persons" as characters? And how you determine their interactions and influences on each other?
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What types of books do you enjoy to read for pleasure or entertainment?
Hi Jeff, I'm a huge fan of the Southern Reach Trilogy and Borne. The Southern Reach Trilogy really spoke to me, and I loved picking apart the aspects of your writing style that contributes so much to the message, the story, as well as the worldbuilding and the atmosphere of the novel. I'm particularly struck by the heavy atmosphere of the two works. You didn't seem to explicitly write it out and yet it was woven into the story. Do you mind sharing some aspects of your writing process that characterize your individual works? One obvious example is that you depersonalised the members of the Expedition in the Southern Reach trilogy by referring to them by their roles, and on the flip side humanised Borne by calling it a he and making him aware of his personhood.
Jeff, the more I reflect on the book, the more I take in. Do you think that scientists will get that extreme with experiments, or maybe we are the leftover experiments of someone else's reality?
Lori wrote: "Hi Jeff,I adored the Southern Reach Trilogy, and felt very much at home in the Borne world. I am continually awed by your ability to tackle the macro issue of what we're doing to the environment ..."
It really all comes out of character point of view, or if not that initially, the landscape suggests something about the character whose point of view I want to write about. But once I'm passionate about a character, for whatever reason, and want to write about that person, then I feel a responsibility to "report" what they would notice or find important and not anything I feel they wouldn't. So the biologist in Annihilation isn't much interested in the human world but is interested in the wilderness. It made sense she'd summarize some conversations and instead emphasize description of landscape, that this would come alive--that this would surround and infiltrate the characters and that the characters would come to seem to be peering out of a vast wall of vegetation.
Borne was different in that Rachel's concerns and her struggle to me suggested that she was more in touch with people than her surroundings, in the sense that "place" was something that was dangerous and to be combated or survived. People were what would make her believe in the future again. She's always striving for connection, to make things work, really. And so the characters stand out from the setting, even the non-human ones, and the landscape recedes a little bit, even in terms of less description than in the Southern Reach novels.
Mostly, I have to be viscerally and completely in the moment of my characters' lives, whatever that entails.
Lori wrote: "Jeff, of all of your novels, do you find your readers have a strong preference towards once over another? Do you personally feel more proud of, or more pleased with, with any one particular novel y..."This is a good but tough question because although I have some thematic concerns and preoccupations--the environment, the role of animals in our culture, climate change--the structure, tone, and style of my novels changes sometimes drastically from novel to novel. Case in point, Annihilation versus Authority.
That said, I did feel I had something special in Borne, in the sense that if I pulled off the contrast of the epic to the personal right, and got the emotional core of the novel correct...I could still have the weirdness of my prior novels but also this lush dramatic inner landscape that I hoped would move the reader. I have had so many people say they read the end of Borne in tears, but tears that were of sadness and of hope...and in turn I've been quite moved by this reaction.
Deanna wrote: "Jeff, the more I reflect on the book, the more I take in. Do you think that scientists will get that extreme with experiments, or maybe we are the leftover experiments of someone else's reality?"Well, it's already happening because gene-splicing is getting easier and easier and biotech experiments are accelerating. So it's almost out of the hands of scientists. Artists may soon begin creating creatures. High school students. It's fairly scary, in that we still haven't come to terms with our crimes against animals and yet here we are accelerating the dissolve of the boundary between product and creature, creature and art.
ashley wrote: "Hi Jeff, I'm a huge fan of the Southern Reach Trilogy and Borne. The Southern Reach Trilogy really spoke to me, and I loved picking apart the aspects of your writing style that contributes so much ..."I'm not sure the expedition members are depersonalized--a name is in the end just a name and not always that important. Sometimes, of course, it's everything. But the biologist is definitely one of the best characters I've ever written, so she must not mind the lack of a name all that much. Perhaps if given the choice she would've preferred not to have a name known to all in the first place.
Rachel misunderstands Borne in several ways, and one of those ways is in assigning Borne a gender. Especially given how Borne talks about that in his diary.
So the biologist is depersonalized by the Southern Reach but the depersonalization suits her in a sense. It is ineffective against her because of who she is to begin with. Rachel is a good and true person who simply is dealing with a creature that has more senses and exists in more places than she does. Misunderstandings are bound to occur.
But the point is...none of these approaches is just one thing. They're all messy, they're complex, they start as one thing and become something else. That's what I like in the fiction I love. It's what I try to write.
Diane wrote: "What types of books do you enjoy to read for pleasure or entertainment?"Right now I'm addicted to the novels of Tana French. To be honest, while I do read some science fiction and fantasy, I mostly read mainstream realism, mysteries, etc., for pleasure. We do so much research on SF and F for our anthologies, I can't read too much of it in my leisure time.
I've very much LOVED Catherine Lacey's The Answers this year, the stories of Leonora Carrington, Jac Jemc's The Grip of It, Karin Tidbeck's Amatka. Just to name a few.
Mod
Have you tried Each Vagabond by Name by Margo Orlando Littele, or any of Cynan Jones' novels?
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Jeff wrote: "ashley wrote: "Hi Jeff, I'm a huge fan of the Southern Reach Trilogy and Borne. The Southern Reach Trilogy really spoke to me, and I loved picking apart the aspects of your writing style that contr..."Insightful answer, thank you! I'm completely obsessed with Tana French too, her characterisation is something else.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Strange Bird: A Borne Story (other topics)The Strange Bird: A Borne Story (other topics)
The Strange Bird: A Borne Story (other topics)
Each Vagabond By Name (other topics)
Borne (other topics)
