Somnopolis

A short while ago I posted a review of Jeff Noon’s Falling Out of Cars and remarked upon its similarities to the work of Philip K. Dick. Specifically a view of the future where psychological dysfunction has become a social norm. I have since discovered another book working from a similar perspective. Here the PKD influence is very strong, pointing to a possible sub-genre in dystopian science fiction. Call it Psychopocalypse if you wish.  

Jonathan Lethem’s Amnesia Moon is an early work much in the style of Dick’s paranoia infused work. Some unexplained event has transformed America into feudal states ruled over by unconscious impulses. The protagonist Chaos, who spends his time drinking unprocessed alcohol in an abandoned movie theatre, is subjected to nightly invasions of his dreams by local tyrant Kellogg. In these dreams he finds himself cast as a scapegoat, a focus for the frustrations of the starving people who also receive these visions every evening. Kellogg in turn controls all the food routes into the area and lectures on his ideas as to what caused the event. Finally Chaos snaps and escapes the town of Little America, with the proudly hirsute teen Melinda in tow, to try and escape the dreams and maybe find a reason for the madness they are drowning in. Soon, however, they discover that Little America is not the only place ruled by dreamers and that Chaos himself may be more than he appears.

Amnesia Moon is an early Lethem book that predates the success he achieved with Motherless Brooklyn. He wears his influences on his sleeve, referencing PKD as he did in Gun, With Occasional Music and perhaps to a lesser degree the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic (Melinda and Monkey might well be the same character).  I would also compare it to Peter Milligan’s Shade The Changing Man, a comic book series that also explored the idea of America itself being plagued by localised bursts of madness courtesy of a being known as the American Scream.

While it is less accomplished than his more recent books, such as Fortress of Solitude, or As She Climbed Across The Table, Lethem does create a sweetly romantic narrative that ends on a curious note. I’m sure PKD would approve.

Peter Milligan’s work-for-hire for Mavel has been notable for the attempts to expand the dimensions of its costumed superfolk. Take for example X-Statix, a satire on celebrity culture and the excesses of reality television that happened to feature mutants. Toxin, a book centred on a minor Spider-Man character packed with more literary and artistic references than the average Chuck Jones Warner Brothers cartoon. Milligan routinely explores questions of identity and mental illness using the tropes of superhero comics as a vehicle for his concerns.

Namor The Sub-Mariner is one of the oldest ongoing creations in Marvel’s stable of characters. A sometime ally of humanity, he is more an anti-hero than the traditional caped superman, acting as a defender of his realm under the seas, which is frequently threatened by the actions of ‘surface-dwellers’. Past depictions of the character have varied greatly, with some focusing on his essential nobility, while on other occasions this has been shown as regal contempt.

Milligan has chosen to use the themes of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness to reinvent Namor. For this five issue miniseries the clock has been turned back to the age of American fears of Soviet territorial expansion. Here, Atlantis is another bone of contention between America’s enemies and ‘The Navy’, which Milligan presents in the same role as the business consortium funding the narrator’s voyage of discovery in Conrad’s novel. An explorer known only as Marlowe has vanished, leaving behind an audio recording that confirms his discovery of the underwater kingdom. The US Navy is concerned that he has turned traitor and will give the secrets of Atlantis to the Soviets.

Milligan’s Namor has yet to reveal himself to the world and is a creature of rumour conjured by superstitious sailors. He holds sway over “uncharted territory. Black water.” Atlantis takes the place of ‘Darkest Africa’, as the unknown centre of the Mavel Universe, with our protagonist Doctor Stein pursuing another Marlowe into strange geography.

Esad Ribic’s photorealistic style, as seen previously in the Loki miniseries, elevates the book above the typical superhero fare. Each panel is an artwork in its own right, with both foreground and background details captured precisely. There is also an avoidance of empty transitional scenes and a sense of craft in the fleshy weight of each individual character’s facial features. 

Stein calls himself “a rationalist, part of a proud Western Tradition”, setting up Milligan’s central idea. Readers know Namor exists, despite the last words of denial in this issue. Stein has had the great misfortune to be a fictional sceptic in a world filled with gods and monsters. Given the post-modern antics of earlier Milligan titles like Enigma and Skreemer, I’m sure this is no accident. Marvel Earth, known among the fan community as Earth 616, also possesses a hidden African kingdom with fantastic technology; a Blue Area on the Moon; and a Nexus of all Realities located somewhere in the Florida Everglades. Conrad’s novel explored the ideas of European chauvinism towards Africa, with the certainty of civilization confounded by the unknown. Milligan’s smartest idea is to set the Marvel universe on a similar confrontation, with the unveiling of ‘unknown unknowns’, such as Namor and Atlantis. The comfort of superhumans battling bank robbers is stripped away leaving the reader with the terrifying realization of how a world so strange and beyond our understanding would be.