Though Finch is undoubtedly one of the weirder pieces of fantasy fiction I've read, and though its pleasures are far more intellectual than visceral, Mr. Vandermeer's inventive mind and splintered prose make this half-mad piece an engaging, fascinating slog.
In Ambergris, a sprawling, decaying metropolis operating on an early 20th century level of technology, John Finch has bowed to the necessities of the moment and taken up a position with the Ambergris police. A detective, he and his fellows are little liked by the oppressed citizens of Ambergris who are subsisting under the authoritarian rule of the Gray Caps, a race of mushroom-like beings who, after being suppressed by humanity and locked into the earth, have Risen to exact their revenge. As a consequence, the police are viewed as collaborators with the enemy when the reality is, as always, far more complicated. Finch, for one thing, has a past which suggests he has no more love for the Gray Caps than the people do. But love or hate, he must answer the call when a human and a gray cap are found dead in a hotel room, the latter with his lower body missing. Armed with few clues and more enemies than he can count, Finch's sanity is tested as he investigates the crime, only to discover that the universe is infinitely more complex than even he, a man of some education and intellect, can imagine.
At some 350 pages, Finch spends more time plodding than it should, indulging in numerous depressing, introspective episodes in which Finch tries to puzzle out the meaning of existence, how he fits into that scheme and how to reconcile his family's past with the man he's become. But though these broodings are tiresome, the world of Ambergris is enchantingly diverse, populated with enigmatic humans and profoundly alien villains. Mr. Vandermeer establishes a world fatigued to the breaking point by war and then introduces into these foggy, nihilistic streets the personal politics of Vichy France, or any other oppressed metropolis in which the natives under foreign rule must navigate the thorny ethics of cooperation and rebellion. Intellectually, Mr. Vandermeer's willingness to play with existential questions of reality and identity, both species and personal, engaged my mind to the extent that, even through the book's more ponderous sections, my attention was not allowed to wander. Finch does build slowly, but its cacophonous, apocalyptic conclusion brings the story to a well-earned and satisfying conclusion.
It will be too weird for some, but for those who are willing to entertain genre-bending fiction -- Finch does share some thematic genes with the Eddie Lacrosse series by Alex Bledsoe --, and for pursuers of dark, inventive fiction, money spent here is unlikely to be a mistake. Just... Maybe follow it up with a happier tale. (3/5 Stars)
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