The Situation by Jeff VanderMeer

In the chapbook novelette The Situation, Jeff VanderMeer takes us on a wild ride into the innards of a weird office. Or, should we say, an excruciatingly, painfully slow visit? Instead of high-octane adventure, VanderMeer presents us with the very bureaucratic, dull life in a run-of-the-mill office. And, at the same time, presents a daily life much more frightening than your average accountant could ever imagine. For how do you cope with a Human Resources department that deals with inhuman (to our puny standards) subjects? Or a company that creates symbiotic animals in a world where, among other things, children are more emotionally mature than adults and thus can endure nightmares and daydreams?

The unnamed protagonist is a designer in charge of a major project—the creation of a large fish. Aside from the fact that it’s not easy to create an animal from scratch, he also has to deal with his hysterical Manager (a woman made of plastic who wraps herself in paper and who always gets fired up, literally, when angry) and shapeshifting co-workers who aren´t to be trusted. Kafka and Borges have given us hints of this kind of ambience—but not like this. Borges was fond of H.P. Lovecraft´s tales (he even dedicates one of his short stories, “There Are More Things,” to him) but never tried to emulate him—although in The Book of Sand, we can surely feel the anguish that quickly turns to horror in the mind of the protagonist when leafing through a book with an infinite number of pages.

But the graphic quality of the scenes, such as “endless meetings in the cavernous meeting rooms on the forty-fifth floor,” is exquisitely done and frightfully familiar. (Hell, I know exactly what the protagonist felt like; I just had an endless meeting in a cavernous meeting room with the Board of Directors of my university last week!)

The part with the creation of the fish is a study in planning for any team, except for the tools of the trade. (The brainstorming cockroaches that must be inhaled in order to release calming pheromones so you can think more clearly are a truly Cronenberg-esque touch—Naked Lunch and eXistenZ pop to mind.)

The Situation’s circumstances would prove to be insufferable even to Franz Kafka. One can easily envision his Mr. K. letting go a Lovecraftian cry of horror in the middle of this workplace. This excellent story is also a cautionary tale on how to be trusting and trustworthy in your work environment—or, rather, how to not trust anyone. But, alas, that is so much our own weird world…

Publisher: PS Publishing (2008)
Price: £7.50 [$15.00] (hardcover), £15.00 [$30.00] (jacketed hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1906301132 (hardcover), 978-1906301149 (jacketed hardcover)