Gathering Evidence

As I loved Martin MacInnes' first novel [b:Infinite Ground|30256420|Infinite Ground|Martin MacInnes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1463999496l/30256420._SX50_.jpg|50728268], I was delighted to learn a second was imminent. 'Gathering Evidence' is set in the near future. The remaining bonobos are confined to an alleged wildlife sanctuary run by a mining company and surveillance capitalism is becoming more esoteric. The protagonist couple, Shel and John, study the bonobos and are disorientated by a mysterious injury respectively. The tone and settings are similar to [b:Infinite Ground|30256420|Infinite Ground|Martin show more MacInnes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1463999496l/30256420._SX50_.jpg|50728268], as Shel spends much of the book in a jungle and mould is a recurring presence. However the structure is different and the themes made a bit more explicit. One thing that both novels definitely had in common is that I absolutely adored them. I was enjoying 'Gathering Evidence' so much that it was an effort to put it aside for long enough that I could go to the library. And I really love libraries.

MacInnes has an absolutely brilliant way with introspection and the spatial uncanny. His characters reflect on how their every decision, their every breath, has implications for the world around them. Yet these reflections are written so skilfully that rather than impeding the narrative (as can occur), they deepen it and draw in the reader. The characters all have a sense of curiosity about the world that is tempered by awe, which I find very pleasing. The settings, meanwhile, are extremely atmospheric, vivid, and strange. The jungle of 'Gathering Evidence' is somewhat different to that of [b:Infinite Ground|30256420|Infinite Ground|Martin MacInnes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1463999496l/30256420._SX50_.jpg|50728268], yet equally beautiful, uncanny, and threatening. The incursion of mould and fungi is once again significant. I struggle to find examples of these two strengths to quote, as they are pervasive throughout. This wasn't a novel that I noted specific highlights within, so much as one I adored consistently from beginning to end.

Regarding the ending, it was clear from the moment that Shel started being sick in the mornings that she was pregnant. I initially thought this a rather uninteresting twist, but that proved to be entirely unfounded. The final chapters deal with Shel and John's parenthood of Dorothy, their baby who was born prematurely. John is the stay-at-home parent, which is refreshing, and to my delight the narrative treats the newborn baby as profoundly uncanny. As indeed should be the case! Babies really are existentially unsettling. I was also happy that Jane's death was not explained, and neither were the deaths of the bonobos. As in [b:Infinite Ground|30256420|Infinite Ground|Martin MacInnes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1463999496l/30256420._SX50_.jpg|50728268], it seemed fitting not to know. Instead, the reader observes the corporate stonewalling experienced by Shel and is left with the ongoing mystery of collapsing ecosystems. The bonobos are a fascinating presence in Shel's story. The sequence in which the mother bonobo carries around the corpse of her child is haunting, especially with the knowledge that Shel is unwittingly pregnant as she watches.

It rather fascinates me that elements of 'Gathering Evidence' are very similar to other novels that I've appreciated less. The injured man without a memory, isolated in a cottage shrouded in mist, is the exact same concept of Paul Kingsnorth's [b:Beast|27867517|Beast|Paul Kingsnorth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1462906533l/27867517._SY75_.jpg|47858054]. While I found Kingsnorth's interpretation too abstract and aimless, MacInnes grounds his in material details (mould, wounds) and evokes mental disequilibrium more effectively. Similarly, Shel, Jane, and Alice's journey into the jungle is not unlike the expedition central to Jeff Vandermeer's [b:Annihilation|17934530|Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1)|Jeff VanderMeer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403941587l/17934530._SX50_.jpg|24946895]. Much as I enjoyed that (and the film is fantastic also), here the strangeness does not have the excuse of being alien and incomprehensible. It is based within the unknown and unanticipated effects of human intrusion into ecosystems, a subtler and much more frightening angle. Likewise, the extrapolation of surveillance capitalism that MacInnes describes as Nest has similarities with Joanna Kavenna's [b:Zed|37508642|Zed|Joanna Kavenna|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562382054l/37508642._SX50_.jpg|59118929] (which I also liked). Yet MacInnes extends the implications of his technological extrapolation further than Kavenna, into philosophical and theological realms, to extraordinary effect. Then the narrative pulls back from technology, to immerse itself instead in the materiality of the living environment.

Not only does 'Gathering Evidence' combine these elements into a distinctive and coherent whole, but it does so in a style that I find thoroughly beguiling. I haven't come across a writer who so perfectly fits my tastes in a very long time. Perhaps once MacInnes published another few books and I've read them, I'll be better able to articulate precisely why. I think it's something about how he evokes the vertiginous instability of reality, while also grounding it in physical embodiment and the natural environment. Whatever it is, he's a fantastic writer and this is easily my favourite novel of the year so far. show less