I loved White’s Hell Followed With Us, the only issue being that it was not an adult book. I wouldn’t even have read it if not for the fact it had aspects that I really cared for: queer characters, monstrous transformations, relationships between humans/non-humans. These accepts are shared with You Weren't Meant To Be Human. And it’s his debut adult novel, with adult protagonists and adult concerns. Naturally, I was beyond excited for the release.
Adding to that excitement was the fact that the description of the novel, at that time, concerned a protagonist who did not want to be human. The drive to escape humanity has been a function of my psyche since as far back as far as I can remember. As I child, I would
- wear a cheap reaper cloak constantly, pretending I was death itself.
- ask my relatives “what are you today” and be disappointed when they said “I’m me.” Did they not want to at least try to strive for something beyond humanity.
- crawl on the ground, dart my tongue towards the ants crawling on the patio, in the hope that I would gain a deeper understanding of lizard psychology and eventually be able to live among them.
I don’t do those things anymore, but if given the chance I would not hesitate to transform into something monstrous. Something interesting and powerful and unconstrained by all the physical and societal constraints I’m subject to.
I’m getting
sad just thinking about impossible that is.
My hope for You Weren’t Meant to Be Human was initially that I would see this drive reflected in a protagonist. In the end, You Weren’t Mean To Be Human did not reflect this attitude either, but it is an excellent novel.
From
here on, I’ll be spoiling the book.
For the
novel’s protagonist, Crane, escaping humanity is a means to end his dysphoria. It
would be, physically, easier to say something, get support in obtaining HRT from
his friends or parents, but he’s so unable to make a decision that instead he
wishes to be accidentally mutilated (accidentally, of course, because otherwise
that would be making a choice). It’s an impulse that always leads to bad outcomes
in the novel (such joining the hive in the first place, boiling his own face, moving
in with Levi).
This is so
different to what I think of when I imagine escaping humanity that I had
difficulty understanding it. Synthesizing my emotional reaction to the novel’s
symbols and my textual understanding of them is an ongoing struggle. It’s
kind of like reading a language familiar enough to offer a sense of security while
that same familiarity obscures its true meaning.
Consider
the aliens themselves. These red, toothful, worms which writhe in ossified
hives, devouring carrion, longing to see the day. That imagery goes hard. They’re
creating something meaningful out of death, striving to move beyond their
biological limitations to be in the sunlight. I wanted so much for them to be good.
Seeing Crane want to be part of that,
my first response is “Of course, because they’re much better than humans.” But they
ultimately turn out to be rather inert cult leaders, only able to control those
who are unable to find their own will.
At one
point, I thought the novel might be saying, “You have to accept that you are essentially
human. There is no escape.” Crane might have been able to escape his assigned
birth gender, but was the novel saying that, while one’s physical
characteristics are mutable, one’s humanity is not? In fact, I realised that even
this question is a reaction to feeling like my desire to escape humanity is
being threatened.
I don’t
think the novel says anything about humanity as a biological reality at
all. Instead, it’s all about personhood.
Crane doesn’t
want to be human because he doesn’t want to be Sophie. He doesn’t like certain
biological features and those would go away if he weren’t human at all. But more
than that, Crane doesn’t want to be a person because a person has to
make choices and take responsibility for those choices. He is very upfront
about how he wants decisions to be made for him. It’s part of what drives him
to the hive in the first place. Ironically, the other part is his own personal
desires, to transition and to stop speaking, which are at odds with humanity’s
expectations.
Since it “lets”
him transition and stop speaking, he believes the hive is really where he
belongs. He knows “the [human] world was not made for ones like you.” Yet his personhood
finally drives him away from the hive too: when the hive allows him to get pregnant,
it breaks that final boundary he’s held onto even when he discarded all the
others. He realizes that the world is not made for him “but neither is the hive.”
The worms represent
more or less than same thing has humanity (as a social existence, not a
biological one)—a collective will that may at times conflict with one’s own
personal desires. Crane is desperately unhappy in either case; this problem
cannot be alleviated by simply replacing one collective will with another. What
I ultimately take to be the message of this novel is that you can never escape
your personhood. You will have boundaries and desires and needs whether
you want them or not.
I’ll still
be looking out for (and trying to write) a novel that resonates with my
particular feelings towards escaping humanity, but You Weren’t Meant To Be
Human came close in an interesting way. It’s a particularly torturous effect
to see one’s own symbols of self-affirmation twisted into self-destruction.
