Borne by Jeff VanderMeer: what makes a person?
How to Read and Analyse a Novel: Analysing the Nonhuman
This post is part of a course I’m currently running for paid subscribers called How to Read and Analyse a Novel—we have now moved on to reading and discussing individual books! With each book, we are taking a particular topic or theme and exploring its role in the novel; this allows for a reading which is both focussed and comprehensive, helping you hone your analytical skills. Today we are looking at the nonhuman in Jeff VanderMeer’s Borne. For full introductory details and the reading list, start here. If you’d like to join but feel like you’re too late, please do—you can take this completely at your own speed, and I will continue to keep up with comments and thoughts on all the books we discuss. You can adjust your notification settings here if you would like to opt out of these emails.
An enormous flying bear, an apocalyptic city destroyed by a mysterious ‘Company’, holding ponds filled with the sludge of cast-off biotech, terrifying modified children, a cephalopod-type creature that just keeps absorbing his surroundings. What does Jeff VanderMeer’s Borne not contain?
We follow Rachel, a young woman just trying to survive in this destroyed city, this destroyed world. She spends her days scavenging for food, as well as useful biotech for her partner Wick, a strange and reclusive man who once worked for the aforementioned Company. One day, in the fur of Mord (the enormous flying bear), she finds a pulsing pod-like creature. She takes it home, drawn to it for some inarticulable reason. When it turns out this creature can learn, can move, can speak, she nurtures it until it is fully grown. That’s when its true purpose comes to light, a purpose that is far more sinister than she could’ve anticipated. But by that time, it’s too late, she already loves him—this ‘Borne’ as she has named him—and she watches on in horror as he tries to assimilate into this uncanny ecosystem.
This week, we’ll be looking at nonhumans and personhood, and nonhumans and morality. What is it about Borne that might make him a person, despite his alien appearance? Is he subject to the same kinds of moralities as us? How, and why? Let’s get into it!