The Vanishers - Part 1 (January 2015)

[Casceil]

This is the thread to discuss part one of the book. Be careful about spoilers, particularly if you have read past part one. As I was reading this book, I sometimes felt like the ground was shifting under my feet, because things sometimes change so fast.

Part One begins with Julia getting dressed for a party. She is "awash in optimism and specialness," because she is so honored to be invited to a party given by Madame Ackermann, who heads up the Institute of Integrated Parapsychology, aka "the Workshop," an institute in a remote location for people to work on their psychic powers. The Workshop doesn't really sound like a very friendly place. In describing its "culture," Julia mention "the disloyalty, the distrust, the refusal to be known for fear of what people might actually come to know about you." On the spooky drive to the party, Julia is aware of all sorts of portents, including a bat that dies against her windshield. There is also some foreshadowing comment about how "nothing will be the same again" after this.

What are your first impressions of Julia, Madame Ackerman, and the workshop. Does the opening make you feel apprehensive?

[Peter]

I spent a lot of part one trying to figure out what this book was trying to be. It took psychic powers seriously, but didn't feel like contemporary fantasy or science fiction (not that psychic powers have been taken seriously in science fiction for a dog's age). I really didn't come to any conclusion until later in the book. But it seemed engaging enough to keep on reading, trusting to time and further reading to make more sense of it.

[Marc]

I believe my first impression was that the whole thing was a bunch of frauds, but then it started to seem like maybe Madame Ackerman had some powers and that Julia might even have more potential. That Spooky Acts at a Distance (SAD) game sort of reminded me of the psychic version of 20 Questions or somebody asking you "What am I thinking?"

A couple of things caught my eye in this section that I ended up looking up:
- Fenrir the Wolf (http://norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/giants/fenrir/ -- I was not familiar with this myth)
- They kept referring to Varga as “the Leni Riefenstahl of France” -- for those in the dark with me, Leni Riefenstahl was a director of Nazi propaganda films, specifically Triumph of the Will; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leni_Riefenstahl

[Terry]

I loved the name of the game being Spooky Action at a Distance... it seemed to fit the whole 'is it real?' wondering I as the reader was doing about psychic powers [Einstein derided the concept of quantum entanglement as 'spooky action at a distance', and conventional wisdom was with him, but time has reversed this, with 'spooky action at a distance' now considered part of accepted physics].

[LindaJ^]

Thanks Marc for those links. A bit of connection with American Gods with the god Fenrir, son of Loki and killer of Odin! I saw clips from Triumph of the Will when visiting some museums in Germany this summer; one was at the Nazi parade grounds in Nuremburg.

Now, as to Part One -- I will try not to be too negative, but, for me, it all seemed silly. I felt no apprehension. Perhaps I'm just biased against psychics! My reaction reminds me about how I felt about the book Night Film that we read about a year ago.

[Casceil]

Thank you, Marc, for the link to the Wikipedia entry on Leni Riefenstahl. It was very interesting. For those not likely to wade through the rather long entry, here are a couple of lines from near the end:

"Leni Riefenstahl is still the world's most controversial director; her name summons the conflicts of defiant artistry and compromised morality." (from an article in Time Magazine, Aug. 22, 2002, titled: "That Old Feeling: Leni's Triumph."

"There is no other woman in the 20th century who has been so admired and vilified simultaneously." (from a "Variety" write-up about a planned film, which never came to fruition, in which Jodie Foster was to play Riefenstahl)

Knowing more about Riefenstahl does add a new dimension to Varga, the character being compared to Riefenstahl.

[Casceil]

Linda, this may not be the book for you if you disliked Night Film. What I considered to be the better parts of "The Vanishers" reminded me of "Night Film," but I really liked "Night Film."

[LindaJ^]

Casceil wrote: "Linda, this may not be the book for you if you disliked Night Film. What I considered to be the better parts of "The Vanishers" reminded me of "Night Film," but I really liked "Nig..."

It probably won't be a favorite! But it reads pretty quick and I'll have the benefit of everyone's comments. And, as we know, no book is everyone's cup of tea!

[Whitney]

I was reminded of Night Film as well. I was mixed on that book, but it reminded me of the parts I really liked which dealt specifically with the films and the filmmaker, rather than with the Scoobie gang trying to solve the mystery.

I was initially wondering if all the psychic stuff was supposed to be delusional or a scam as well, but then it became clearer that this was a world where psychic events were taken seriously. I read an interview with Julavits where she said her jumping off point was considering what if those people who we tend to call psychic vampires were literarily sucking psychic energy from people instead of just metaphorically.

As a long-time admirer of Leni Riefenstahl films, I feel a need to add some commentary. There's few who would deny she was a brilliant film maker, Triumph of the Will and Olympia are both amazing films, as well as being blatant Nazi propaganda. I think that it's the controversy she's stirred that inspired the comparisons to Varga in The Vanishers.

Apologists for Riefenstahl have asserted that she wasn't actually a Nazi, but was somehow subverting their message in the way it's asserted that Varga is somehow subverting the right wing politics she's ostensibly promoting. Not many people take that opinion seriously, Riefenstahl was a friend and admirer of Hitler's and enamored by the Nazi party.

The point has also been made that the reason Riefenstahl has inspired such controversy and has been so vilified is that she was a great film maker. There were many second rate filmmakers churning out Nazi propaganda who were never taken to task and went on to normal lives after the war.

[Marc]

Terry--I love the Einstein/physics tie-in. I wasn't familiar with that phrase, but I think the author has a lot of fun with things like that. Using the acronym SAD makes it seem even more pathetic and yet the characters all buy into it.

Linda--I think it is silly. Well, to a degree. There's a kind of ridiculousness to this book underlying some pretty heavy issues (suicide, mother & daughters, astral projections... ). I'll be curious to see whether it wins you over or drives you nuts.

[Marc]

Thanks for the Riefenstahl info, Whitney! I know jack about her as a person or as a director. There's some fascinating stuff in this book about representation, ownership of body/identity, etc. (mostly after this section). But I think you do have to buy in to the psychic part because that is the world these characters live in and there's a whole academia / rehab industry built around it.