Berit Ellingsen's Not Dark Yet Is The Story of How Global Crisis Becomes Personal

Somewhere in a northern land, a man decides to leave his life and love in the city and sequester himself in a mountain cabin. The time is probably the not-so-distant future; but, as with so many aspects of Berit Ellingsen’s sci-fi novel Not Dark Yet, we’re asked to make up our own minds about that. The story is both a personal as well as a global one. In fact, Not Dark Yet is the story of how global crisis becomes personal.

The central character in this meticulously detailed narrative is Brandon Minamoto, a man in crisis—of identity, belonging, and loyalty. Although we know so much about him—his sexual orientation (gay), his job (photographer), and his ethnic heritage (Japanese if his name is an accurate indication of this); we also know he’s an athlete, an altruist and a dreamer—Ellingsen goes to great lengths to make this story about none of these things specifically.

There is one aspect of the character’s life that is central and telling: he has epilepsy. And while he has only a couple of seizures in the novel, they do give the reader an indication of what’s really going on in this character’s head. Not Dark Yet is about humanity’s quest for enlightenment. Of course it’s also about one man’s quest for enlightenment, but Ellingsen’s narrative technique of defamiliarizing the concepts of gender, language and place has the effect of universalizing this quest. But before I get to that, let’s talk about epilepsy and self-mummification.

There’s a brilliantly direct relationship between the Buddhist tradition of self-mummification and the central character’s decision to leave society for the mountain cabin. His epileptic seizures are described as euphoric glimpses of enlightenment—a brightness—more so than a malady. The Buddhist monk appears in a flashback, a scene with the central character’s brother. It’s one brief chapter, but it’s also a sort of key to the book. The description of the monk’s last stages of self-mummification are remarkably similar to the description of the main character’s seizures:

The monk:

“Yet, in the spring he dis­covered a brightness, a glow inside himself, that was beautiful and terrible at the same time. He had no words for it and did not try to explain it, but remained inside it when he could, and simply watched it when he couldn’t.”

Brandon Minamoto:

“During the previous spring the brightness became impossible to ignore, but he had gradually grown used to it. After the initial blast it usually faded to a glow behind his thoughts, but now, in the solitude of the cabin with nothing to distract him, the brightness over­took him.”

One can hardly ignore this consonance. And of course these are not the only similarities: the monk and the main character also share a strict diet, strenuous physical exercise, and the compulsion to leave this earth. This is, we shouldn’t forget, science fiction.

Being a hermit in the mountains isn’t enough for the central character. He’s also applied to the space program for a chance to fulfill his boyhood dream of going to Mars. And this is sadly all I can say about this part of the novel without giving away the end.

One important choice in Ellingsen’s narrative is how she defamiliarizes gender, language, and place. Other than somewhere in a northern country, we are not offered any place names. The city—as is often the case in Ellingsen’s shorter fiction—is described simply as, well, the city. The author has also reduced the continents to the points on a compass. She does something similar with the languages in the story. Instead of, say, Japanese, she uses the term “the language of their birthplace”. Though the story is transcribed in English, the reader occasionally has the feeling that the characters could be speaking any language. When the central character goes to a coastal town to get his medical exam for the space program, he has the following exchange in a shop:

‘He nodded at the man behind the counter, who addressed him in an eastern language he didn’t understand.

“Sorry,” he said in the language of the coastal country they were in. “Are you still serving lunch?”

“Lunch, dinner, whatever you need,” the man said, in their common language.’

In removing the names of the languages—and the names of the continents and cities—Ellingsen universalizes the themes in the story. This book is about enlightenment: global enlightenment during a time when humanity is just starting to feel the devastating effects of global warming, when global warming is starting to ruin personal dreams and impede individual quests for enlightenment. The title of the book may be a warning, or it may be a message of hope. It’s not dark yet.

A Zen Koan in Luscious Autumn Shades: Berit Ellingsen's Beneath the Liquid Skin

The 23 stories in Beneath the Liquid Skin offer a balanced mix of longer fiction and flash, with many of the stories weighing in at two or three pages. Berit Ellingsen combines elements of the universe, the self, folk tales, history, nonduality, and classical literature, which work together in alchemical synergy to produce gold. The author’s background as a science writer informs many of the pieces, but none are weighted with jargon. I never know where her stories will take me next, but I’m always pleased with the destination.

Ellingsen shines at packing punch with brevity in her flash pieces. “Hostage Situation,” the shortest story in the book, condenses timeless social commentary with a dash of humour into just a few lines. Prose poem “Sliding” reads like a zen koan in luscious autumn shades.

A personal favourite, “Sovetskoye Shampanskoye” is a spy story-by-numbers. Within the confines of three pages, the author tells the tale of half of a man’s life, framing it within the wider universe in which the man’s smaller story plays out. The tale proceeds at a measured pace like a documentary filmed through a neutral lens. Outdoor environments and indoor architectures all are important details within the man’s experience, but the external and the internal also meld to form a greater whole. Ellingsen’s lens zooms in on the main character and pulls out for long shots. This is perhaps the first spy-story ever told from a nondual perspective.

Some of the stories are non-plot-driven vignettes, mindful meditations and ponderings inhabiting a fuzzy borderland between prose and poetry, yet they do have subtle plots, with outcomes, futures and pasts implied. The haunting “Sexual Dimorphism – A Nightmare Transcribed from Sanskrit,” with its references to both Hindu mythology and Japanese film, has a rhythmic feel to its short verses. “Crane Legs” is a light-hearted piece that begins like a review of a TV show, but the painterly language turns it into a prose poem. The sudden ending leaves the reader with both the gut reaction of the (re)viewer and a clear aural and visual image of the show. The more serious “Polaris” takes a chilling look at exploitation, perceived lack, and doing things for all the wrong reasons.

The dream-like elements of some of the pieces conjure Borges or Kafka at times. “The Love Decay Has for the Living,” one of the longer stories, opens like a waking from a nightmare, the line between the dream and real life unclear. The tale shape-shifts between humour and horror, while borrowing lightly from Marguerite Duras’ The Lover. It delves into the balancing act of give-and-take in a relationship, and the need for nourishment on both a physical and philosophical level.

The beautiful folk tale-like “The Tale that Wrote Itself,” the longest story in the book, questions the possibility of altering the course of reality. “Still Life of Hypnos” is rich with references to Greek mythology and a surreal procession of decaying flora and fauna. “The Astronomer and the King,” a speculative fiction vignette, revolves around a real historical figure who served as both astronomer and astrologer to Louis XIV. The tale addresses the age-old search for the reasons for human suffering and for the existence of a god.

With its rich, evocative descriptions, “A June Defection” is one of my favourites. Set in natural surroundings that are at once beautiful and oppressive, this is a story about people doing what they must to escape. The writing in “Down the River” is rich with sensory details, the adrenaline rush of gaming and the need to be the best.  Stendhal Syndrome, a whimsical imagining of a character suffering the strange and disputed tourist disease of the same name, made me laugh out loud.

“In All the Best Places, Lightning Strikes Twice” is a bizarre tale that offers a wry look at some of the unfortunate consequences of monoculture. Not all of Ellingsen’s stories are surreal. The very realistic “Autumn Story” takes a critical look at food safety, questionable production practices and how our business and purchase choices affect the quality of life for ourselves, our livestock and pets. Many of Ellingsen’s stories deal with environmental, economic, ethical and social issues, but she deftly tempers the heavier topics with light or wry humour without softening the punch.

Boyfriend and Shark, a twisty tale tinged with both humour and melancholy, ponders the way we hold onto things, and the way attachment can cause us to hold back or imprison others, be they human or animal.

While the philosophy of nonduality informs many of the stories in the collection indirectly, it comes to the forefront in the final three. Characters and situations from Ellingsen’s first book, The Empty City, return in “From Inside His Sleep.” Reminiscent of a Kundalini awakening, main character Yukihiro struggles with lucid dreams.

Science meets silence in the far north in The White. The most overtly nondual story, it raises questions about the nature of awareness and being. “There is no way to argue with the present. You can only be here,” and “Everywhere is here.”

“Anthropocene” also combines science and nonduality. The last lines of the story and the book leave us with a new beginning and hope in the face of hopelessness. It is in this story that we discover the heart of the book’s title, and in the final lines that Ellingsen puts forth the immutable beauty of the universe, regardless of how ugly the situation may get.

While most of the stories in Beneath the Liquid Skin are very short, they condense whole worlds, some fantastic and some quite plausible, into polished gems. Ellingsen’s writing invites a new way of reading and thinking about fiction, but her style and voice keep the stories from becoming mired in obscurity. Though I had read most of these stories before, (all but three have appeared previously), it was a pleasure to read them again and to have them all in one place. Best of all, I like being able to pick out a story to read according to my mood, like a chocolate truffle from this gourmet box.