51 pages • 1 hour read
Jeff VanderMeerAuthority: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Incantations”
Part 1, Chapter 000 Summary
The main character, Control, has a recurring dream about falling into a cove’s abyss. In the darkness, he sees strange shapes, such as “ocean behemoths,” and listens to the whispers of the world (3). Then he falls slowly into the abyss, hitting the black water without a sound. Sometimes, he gets this falling sensation when he is awake.
Part 1, Chapter 001 Summary: “Falling”
On his first day at the Southern Reach facility as the new director, Control and the assistant director, Grace, observe the three survivors from the 12th expedition into Area X: the biologist, the surveyor, and the anthropologist. The surveyor was found at her house, the anthropologist at her husband’s medical office, and the biologist by an overgrown lot, staring at a brick wall. Control decides he only needs to question the biologist. Grace is surprised, but she removes the other two women from the interrogation room.
Control thinks of how the Southern Reach has become a “backward, backwater agency” of the government (7) since they have not been able to discover any concrete answers about Area X in over 30 years of studying, nor gather worthwhile information from the very few people who have survived their expeditions. Grace, like the others, is not helpful. She is cynical and wants Control to figure out the answers himself. Control’s mother, a high-ranking government official, did not give him guidance either. He has a strained relationship with her, too, and knows this assignment at the Southern Reach is his last chance.
Control readies to talk to the biologist. He picked her because, in the preliminary interviews, she used only 753 words for her answers. He tries to draw the biologist into conversation, but she is still terse. She wants to be called Ghost Bird, so he obliges. When he asks her about the linguist who died on her expedition, Ghost Bird cannot remember. She also says she cannot remember anything about Area X other than it being a “pristine wilderness” (21). He asks her why she was so detailed about thistles in her transcript, reading her own words. She does not know why she talked about thistles. On prompting, Ghost Bird also admits she does not remember her husband, nor does she have many other memories from before Area X. She shares she is resistant to hypnosis and somehow just knows this. For some questions, she simply does not respond.
Ghost Bird defiantly asks why she is a prisoner, but Control assures her she is not. Her brain scans were normal, and though she is healthy, Control wonders if she is still disoriented. Ghost Bird finally says that her last memory of Area X is of drowning.
Part 1, Chapter 002 Summary: “Adjustments”
Control talks with Grace outside as they look over the swamp that leads to Area X and its shimmery, strange border. Though he wanted to warm up to Grace, to earn her respect, he is upset that she turned the surveyor and anthropologist over to Central (the main commanding government body). He tempers his anger. Grace states he did not want to interview them, so she assumed he did not need the women.
Inside, Grace shows him maps of Area X and tells him they need his fresh eyes. She wants him to stop trying to understand and just look with a new perspective. They have been studying this place for over 30 years, and Grace says that time weighs on you.
When she leaves, Control goes over the files of Area X. He also searches for bugs in his office, the old director’s office, and finds over 20 of them. He keeps the bugs in a drawer, wondering if they worked or not. The old director, who is thought to have died going into Area X on the last expedition, was a strange, strong woman who kept many secrets. Her old office does not have any pictures of family or friends or any hints about her personality.
Control gets a tour of the science division and lab from Whitby Allen, a scientist who is a jack-of-all-trades type, working in multiple sectors. When Control questions him, Whitby explains that the biologist was serious and “beyond” their work, a smart woman who seemed to want more from Area X. She reminded Whitby of the director. Whitby also gets many answers wrong, such as how many employees they have in the science division. They have a high turnover, but Whitby swears he likes his job, though he looks way too old for his age and is sweating the whole time he converses with Control.
Part 1, Chapter 003 Summary: “Processing”
Control reports to The Voice, an unknown figure in the government who is his direct supervisor. The Voice wants a report about his first day. Control gives him a general summary, including that he talked to the scientists. The scientists, including Whitby and the head scientist Cheney, had shown him a video of an early experiment in which hundreds of white rabbits into the area to try to overload its border. The rabbits were never seen again by any expeditioners. Cheney believes that Area X was made by a different event than the border, and a female scientist agrees that the border and inside have different compositions. Cheney also explains that Area X made a door to get inside, as if the anomaly wanted them to come in or to let something out. Control considers these ideas interesting, but he does not tell The Voice about them.
The Voice interrupts him demanding to know his thoughts on the prior director. Control reluctantly says he thinks she had lost perspective and was disorganized, but The Voice tells him to stop disparaging the dead. The Voice angrily explains he wants information he does not already know next time. Control believes this means The Voice has eyes everywhere to monitor him.
At the end of the day, Whitby tells him he has something “interesting” to show him in a room near the science quarter. Control agrees to look tomorrow, though Whitby believes he should see it now. Control leaves, feeling stressed.
Part 1, Chapter 004 Summary: “Reentry”
Control drives about 40 minutes to his rental house near Hedley, the closest town to Area X. He is greeted by his one constant: El Chorizo “Chorry” his cat. His beloved father raised the cat with him. He recalls his father, a down-on-his-luck artist who made huge scrap metal art pieces. While his mother was distant, a fleeting presence in his life, his father was always dependable and sweet. Control thinks about his mother, the elusive workaholic, and how she reassigned him to the Southern Reach. His mom said this was his last chance, since he moved from site to site “fixing” facilities in the government, but never made a real impact. Control was shocked this was his last shot. His mother, as a high-ranking officer, once worked at the Southern Reach, but she said her work was “classified.”
Control goes for a run as he thinks of his past. He has moved around a lot, never having a steady girlfriend or job. He contemplates Area X again and the borders of life, how he is so close to the anomaly, but with this separation between them, relating this border to him and his mother’s relationship. By the end of his run through town, he feels like leaving the strange assignment, but he knows he will push through his doubts and frustration about the puzzling Area X.
Part 1 Analysis
Control’s nickname and backstory are important elements of his characterization. The author presents Control as a man who values authority so highly, that he takes the nickname Control. This choice of identity shows how he desires self-control and steadiness in his life. His mother’s nomadic, military schedule and his parents’ divorce were completely outside of his control as a child. He could not influence any of the decisions his parents made, including their relationship’s collapse, and how often he saw Jackie or his father moving them to Florida. As an adult, he moves frequently from military assignment to military assignment, repeating the childhood pattern in which the structure of his life is shaped by military bureaucracy. Control’s past and present are thus one expression of the theme of Bureaucracy and Control. Given Control’s background, his ingrained desire to manage his own situations makes sense. When he comes to the Southern Reach, he thinks that his position as director will grant him control at last—but Area X is not under anyone’s governance. He soon learns that the Southern Reach—especially people like Grace and Ghost Bird—are not within his control and that Area X itself is resistant to any kind of human influence. Like the nickname John has given himself, which belies the lack of control he has over his own life, all appearances of bureaucratic control at Area X are illusory.
Besides the theme of control, the symbol of borders—both physical and metaphorical—continues throughout the novel’s entirety. The border around Area X is representative of the bridge between the known and Unknowable Forces: Cosmic Chaos. Once people cross the border, like Ghost Bird, they seem to be transformed, returning with hardly any memories, if they survive at all. In his logical manner, Control tries to find answers, but Area X keeps everyone at a distance. Beyond the border, they cannot be sure what appears beside the “pristine wilderness” that the survivors describe. Their data does not indicate the exact environment of Area X, and crossing the border itself is a dangerous ordeal. Because Area X is surrounded by a border, this unnatural barrier is symbolic of the divide between what is or can be known through human investigation, and the unknown and unknowable.
Metaphorical borders also exist among characters. First, Grace puts a boundary between herself and Control by undermining him when she sends the anthropologist and surveyor away. Grace is unreceptive to Control’s well-meaning inquiries and pleas for help; her animosity toward him may stem from her frustration over him being picked over her for the lead director position, though her motives are unclear. She wants authority, like Control, and fights him for it every step of the way. Just like Grace, Ghost Bird is also reluctant to talk to Control. He believes she is hiding information, since she hardly opens up at all about Area X. Ghost Bird is another closed-off character, someone who doesn’t trust easily, as seen by their first encounter: “‘What made you resistant to hypnosis?’ he asked. ‘Are you resistant to hypnosis?’ Defiant. ‘Why were you at the empty lot? The other two were found looking for their loved ones.’ No reply” (25). Though he fights for connection at work, Control puts up borders between himself and others. He does not have any close relationships. Though he blames his job and its secrecy, Control does not allow anyone to know his true self. He does not want to be vulnerable, to deal with the uncontrollable variables of romantic partners’ actions and reactions. He seems to understand instinctively that to be understood requires handing over some degree of control to another person, and he resists that as much as Grace and Ghost Bird do. Interestingly, the one relationship Control craves is with his mother Jackie, but she is very guarded. Although Jackie has given him advice throughout his life, she has never been affectionate or taken a real interest in Control, so he sees her as an impenetrable “wall.” His longing to be brought into his mother’s secret world shows the theme of relationship borders.
Conflicts abound in the plot, including Control’s interpersonal fights with Grace and Ghost Bird. Of course, Area X offers the main conflict, since its mystery has not been solved in over 30 years now: “The Voice had also neglected to mention that Area X lay beyond a border that still, after more than thirty years, no one seemed to understand” (8). This reveal of Area X taking so long to be understood and contained acts as the pivotal struggle of the book and Control’s ultimate goal. The bizarre mysteries of Area X, such as the survivor’s unreliable memories, propel the plot forward.
