“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter (2016)
Introduction
Dark Matter is a story about migration in a… less than conventional way. First published by American author Blake Crouch in 2016, it compiles science fiction with psychological thriller in such a mind-bending way that it completely transports you into an alternate universe, much like the main character. Set in Chicago, Illinois, the story follows a college professor named Jason Dessen, who lives a normal, white-picket-fence life with his wife Daniela and their son, Charlie. On one normal, unfortunate evening, Jason steps out to get a few drinks, and promises to come back home with ice cream for his family, but never makes it home. He is instead abducted by a masked man (who will later be revealed as an alternate version of him), drugged, and transported through a large box (?) to a parallel universe where everything is almost exactly the same, except he never married his wife, wasn’t a professor but a world-renowned physicist, and his son was never born. The story depicts his journey and trying to get back to his original life, and it is, of course, not without obstacles.
My Experience
I was first introduced to Crouch’s works in 2021. It being the height of the pandemic, this year was big for me in terms of art, music, and existential crisis; there really wasn’t much else to do. I discovered a lot of new things during this time, one of them being a band called who I very quickly became obsessed with. It was in one of their interviews that one of the members mentioned his favorite book at the moment was called Recursion, written by this author. Of course, I bought it, read it, loved it, and wanted more. Recursion, written after Dark Matter, followed a very similar these about alternate universes and the passage of time, with such great detail that my mind was opened and wandering, exploring my growing love for science, space, and the possibility of a multiverse. I bought Dark Matter next, and this experience was much more grueling. It stuck with me more because Recursion was about the world followed many characters, where Dark Matter focused on one man’s life being completely flipped upside down. The entire prospect of it, of being placed in a realm where you’re you, but nothing you know to be true exists anymore; having to pretend like this is your universe, like you belong there when you don’t; being lost and not knowing that the way home is across the cosmos; rattled a deep part of me. It scared me. It made me think, “what if there is another me out there?” “What if this universe isn’t mine?” This book was terrifying. It was world-altering. It was philosophical in a lot of ways that deeply impacted me.
“Imagine you’re a fish, swimming in a pond. You can move forward and back, side to side, but never up out of the water. If someone were standing beside the pond, watching you, you’d have no idea they were there. To you, that little pond is an entire universe. Now imagine that someone reaches down and lifts you out of the pond. You see that what you thought was the entire world is only a small pool. You see other ponds. Trees. The sky above. You realize you’re a part of a much larger and more mysterious reality than you had ever dreamed of.”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter (2016)
Classifying my Experience
It is hard for me to choose just one word from the experiences glossary to classify my experience, so i’ve chosen two that I believe summarize it pretty well.
First, curiosity. Growing up, I always had a deep love and admiration for science, and concept of space and the existence of time really intrigued me. This book, because of it’s nature, included a lot of descriptions of quantum physics theories that undoubtedly created a lot of questions, but the way it was written didn’t leave me feeling so confused that I couldn’t understand what was happening on the page. Instead, it made me want to ask those questions to teachers and do some research. In a lot of ways it made me hopeful…The idea of there being other realms where things might be better… But people say ‘the grass isn’t always greener on the other side’ for a reason.
Second, paranoia. this story is terrifying. Twisted. Makes you think of things you’d never EVER want to consider. An alternate version of Jason from a different universe, makes a scientific outbreak and creates a device–a massive box– that can be used for inter-dimensional travel. But, this doesn’t remedy his woes, and he uses the box to travel to a reality where he had married the woman of his dreams, abducting the Jason existing in that one, and replacing him. So much about this frightens me, but putting the obvious, psycho-from-another-universe aside, can you imagine being Daniela, the wife? There is a man in your house, in your bed, who looks and acts just like your husband, but there’s…something off. And to find out that, for months, he was a fraud? Attacked your real husband and took over his life.
How can I, as a reader, not begin to wonder what is real and what is fake?
Early in Jason’s journey to find his family, the box takes him somewhere that looks exactly like home, but the streets are empty, houses are abandoned, the air is stagnant. A messages rings through the radio of his stolen car:
“The mandatory twenty-four-hour curfew remains in effect for Cook County…All residents are ordered to stay in their homes until further notice…
“The threat of contagion remains high…If you believe that you or anyone in your home is infected, display a red piece of cloth in a street-facing window. If anyone in your home is deceased, display a black piece of cloth…”
When he gets to his house and steps inside, all he can smell is death. His wife is infected, and his son is gone. This version of Daniela is surprised to see him, as the infection had already taken him as well, and she had just been waiting to die. He could do nothing but watch the infection take her, too. This portion of the book repulsed me. Between the nauseating descriptions of the symptoms she had been displaying, the smell of death, and the idea of it all; a plague killing your entire family and making quick work of your town, paranoia might not even cover it. My skin crawls as I write this. I cannot even imagine– I do not want to imagine something so terrible. And it shakes me to think that in some other world, in some alternate universe, this may be my reality, too.
Determining the Narrative Technologies Prompting my Experience
The narrative technology most responsible for my experience is Reality Shifter, though I am using this definition a little loosely. Yes, the entire plot of the book reflects a shift in reality, but not entirely in “absurd” or “unrealistic” ways. In many ways, the rawest and realest aspects of life were reflected in Jason’s journey back home. The first thing that came to my mind when I chose Dark Matter for this assignment was the ending of the book. Jason finally makes it back home, but dozens of alternate versions of him have learned of his very normal life, and coveted it. They made it to his home, too, and much like the first alternate, wanted to take it from him. The book ends with Jason, Daniela, and Charlie leaving their life behind and taking the box somewhere unknown, somewhere (hopefully) none of the alternates will find them.
“There’s something horribly lonely about a place that’s almost home .”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter (2016)
Unfortunately, being attacked in your home, chased out of your realm, needing to adapt to a new life, is somebody’s reality out there. While it may not be mine, the idea this book proposes; the idea that I could exist in another galaxy as a completely different person and it could be my reality, really put things into perspective for me. There is no box, there are no multitude of versions of myself, but there are real people in my universe now, going through some of the very same things Jason did. Losing their family, their homes, being targeted in physical attacks, losing their way and not knowing how to get back to where they belong. Not knowing where they belong at all.
“So, if the world really splits whenever something is observed, that means there’s an unimaginably massive, infinite number of universes—a multiverse—where everything that can happen will happen.” ― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter (2016)
This was how I wanted to relate this book to this assignment and the overall theme of immigration, as it reflects a very real, unfortunate circumstance of individuals needing to leave their homes and seek refuge somewhere foreign, just in a little bit of an absurd way. While I do not think it was the author’s intention to make such a connection, it has always felt that way to me.
This is what made this book so significant to me. A story that seems so out of reach, until you realize there is nothing far-fetched about feeling lost, about leaving home, about questioning your decisions and how they shape your destiny.
