“A myth,” said existentialist psychologist Rollo May, “is a way of making sense in a senseless world.” Humans need myths and legends to survive. And they need us to survive too; it’s how we’ve learned to escape ourselves so that we can live with ourselves.
Côn Đảo Archipelago is no stranger to legend. The ghost of Võ Thị Sáu reportedly continues to roam around Côn Sơn, the largest island within the group and home of the hellish “tiger cages” formerly constructed by French colonists in the early 20th century. However, in Ray Nayler’s novel, The Mountain in the Sea, readers are lured into a labyrinth built out of a new myth. It’s not the ghosts of political prisoners seeking revenge, it’s the Con Dao Sea Monster lashing out because of overfishing, destruction of reefs, and other environmental pressures throwing the ocean’s natural order out of balance. It’s the tale of octopuses that walk, make tools and even write. And, above all, it’s a story about a species that does what humans all long for and fear: sees us.
Although he was born in Québec and raised in California, Nayler has spent nearly half his life working abroad in various countries for the Foreign Service and Peace Corps. In particular, he spent time in Vietnam working at the US Consulate in Hồ Chí Minh City as the Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer. Collaborating with scientists as well as solo adventuring around the islands left an indelible mark on the author. Nayler’s debut novel builds on his personal experiences working in Vietnam and around the world while combining research in biosemiotics, cybersemiotics, neuroscience, and more. Suffice to say, Nayler did his homework.
A fast-paced exploration of three storylines
The Mountain in the Sea is split into four parts. Inside the four parts are 48 chapters and in between chapters are excerpts from two other books written by two characters: Dr. Ha Nguyen and Dr. Arnkatla Mínervudóttir-Chan. The single-page passages serve as a portal into the minds of the two starkly different, yet eerily similar, scientists. The line between good and evil appears clear at the beginning of the book, but as the story unravels across its 450-odd pages, that dividing line oscillates and constantly challenges readers' preconceived notions about the morality involved in exploring the limits of the mind and whether or not we should be building new minds at all.
The novel consists of three main storylines with a handful of characters to follow in each. The first and main storyline takes place on Côn Đảo where Ha; Altantsetseg, a one-woman army cyborg capable of taking out a fleet of ships; and Evrim, a genderless, “conscious” human android with a smile so perfect that it was the last of its kind ever made. All three must combine forces to decipher the octopus’s symbolic code. The second main storyline occurs in futurized Russia-Turkey where Rustem, one of the best hackers in the world, must find a way to break into one of the most complex minds there is. The third happens on an AI-run, human slave-powered fishing ship where Eiko and Son must overcome past mistakes and regain their freedom before they’re trapped at sea indefinitely.
All three plots contain a deeper, more complex layer that underscores the existential turmoil occurring throughout the book. Scrambling to crystalize your own identity, weighing the pros and cons of what is the right thing to do in the short and long term, contemplating your own indifference in an indifferent world — these are the struggles not only Nayler’s characters grapple with but are also the battles that readers can see themselves in.
The embodiment of a longing to escape
My only partial critique of the book is that the jumping from storyline to storyline interspersed with the scientists’ book excerpts can be difficult to follow at times. Nayler places a lot of trust in his readers to keep up. At times this makes the reading experience quite entertaining because of the speed at which the story progresses, but at other times I found myself reading back through my marginalia to regain a foothold on which country or mind I’m occupying.
That said, I wouldn’t be writing this review unless I believed this book was worth reading. Because there’s comfort found in inhabiting the minds of characters and learning about the internal wars each faces. That goes for humans, part-humans, and non-humans. It’s a reminder that struggles on the surface are just that and that each of us is trying to make sense of complex data like dreams, memories, and reflections. All of which are beneath the surface, changing shape and meaning all the time, just like an octopus.
The book showcases the multi-faceted nature of hope, violence, forgetfulness, indifference, self-deception, and curiosity. It’s beautiful and terrifying and makes you want to keep turning the pages for more.
There’s also a bit of discomfort to be experienced in The Mountain in the Sea through its contained philosophical discourses. Nayler makes you think. He asks simple questions that don’t have simple answers. He showcases the multi-faceted nature of hope, violence, forgetfulness, indifference, self-deception, and curiosity. It’s beautiful and terrifying and makes you want to keep turning the page for more.
Apart from experiencing comfort and discomfort, the reason I believe this book is worth investing the dozen hours or so of reading is that it embodies our longing to escape — physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually — and how such actions take shape narratively.
From a physical standpoint, there are characters trapped on islands, in ships, in minds, and elsewhere, all scheming for a way out. From a mental and emotional standpoint, some characters have been scarred in numerous ways and have worked tirelessly to fabricate an identity that protects them from that pain. And from a spiritual standpoint, a few from each storyline experience breaking points they cannot escape, forcing them to question their existence and the meaning of existence itself.
Scrambling to crystalize your own identity, weighing the pros and cons of what is the right thing to do in the short and long term, contemplating your own indifference in an indifferent world — these are the struggles not only Nayler’s characters grapple with but are also the battles that readers can see themselves in.
Perhaps then, the Con Dao Sea Monster is not a monster in the French sense but in the Latin sense as one of the characters suggests to Ha. Not monstrum, but monere. Not to scare us, but to warn us; a monstrous metaphor to make us think like Frankenstein’s monster, Godzilla or King Kong.
Perhaps, we really do need myths, legends, and stories to escape ourselves so that we can live with ourselves, but beyond that, Nayler shows us that although we may be able to escape ourselves, that doesn’t mean we can escape the consequences of doing so. Like it or not, there’s no escaping reality. There will be monsters waiting and watching us at every twist and turn.
And perhaps, deep down into the depths of our souls, that’s exactly what we want.
