Veniss Underground

This book is worth every dollar and cent I paid for, despite my initial reservations about purchasing it: it seemed just too expensive for a 207-page paperback. I had intended to borrow it from the national library but it turned out that for some strange reason it was not available in the library’s catalogue even though the book had been on sale for more than a year.

Most of reviews I’ve read for this novel describe it as a Dantean-Ophean phatamasgoric fable set in a futuristic society where biological living artworks have pervaded into human society for both aesthetic and functional purposes. Having read this novel, I come to the realisation that there is probably no better way to describe it: it is the sum of what the reviewers have described and much more. Vandermeer’s writing style is impossible to describe, it can only be felt through reading and imagination.

I feel a great affinity to this tale having done some research on Bio-Art for my New Media Art essay assignment in University (see the ‘Essays’ section of this site). It made me feel like I was reading a more humanistic yet nightmarish version of Olaf Stapledon’s Vital Art in Last and First Men. I cannot say more except to recommend the novel to any one who has not yet read it.

Jeff VanderMeer’s Veniss Underground
ISBN 1894815645

Subjects: Books 書物

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: bio-art, Jeff VanderMeer, new media, Olaf Stapledon