Cosmogramma by Courttia Newland

(Canongate, 2021)

Reviewed by Ksenia Shcherbino

Cosmogramma is a kaleidoscope of a book, or rather, a kaleidoscope of worlds fuelled by sadness, and alienation, and hope that, against all odds, we will somehow make it all work. The settings of his stories are all very different, but the main themes are repeated over and over: dislocation, displacement, non-belonging, marginalisation, self-destruction, (self)-rejection and a vehement, almost frantic, wish to be understood—and to understand how you and your world came around. There are no answers in this book, yet it asks the right type of questions, questions that, even in a democratic society, we rarely ask out aloud. Who are we? Where do we belong? What if we do not fit in? Where do we go? And who comes after us? In the post-Brexit, post-pandemic world, with the raging war between Russia and Ukraine that bares—again—very inconvenient truths about human beings, Newland stories, though post-apocalyptic and clearly speculative, hit a nerve.

There are multiple lenses through which you could read Cosmogramma, especially as each of the stories presents a multidimensional world. “Seed” and “Nommo” are an example of eco-futurism: the former show how seeds of unknown genesis appear in London and grow into the likeness of people, ousting people from the city, the latter showing how our careless handling of ecosystems affects the livelihood of ancient mer people. There are beautiful and moving stories which engage with African cultures and history, especially “The Sankofa Principle” (Sankofa is an important Ghanian symbol widely spread in the African diaspora. It refers to the need to reflect on the past for the sake of a successful future) and “Nommo” (relying on the Dogon myths of ancestral water beings).

For me the most important lens was that of (non)-belonging, margin, liminality that marks every single of Newland’s worlds. Belonging, for me, is not just a co-habitation in a limited space or temporality, building a homogenous community. Nicole and her boyfriend in “Scarecrow”, Newland’s take on zombie apocalypse, seem to be quite settled in their disrupted environment (humans are a very adaptive species), yet they do not belong in the new world with its zombie-like Sykes and Symps. Layla’s parents in “Cosmogramma” seem to have a settled life on their Kepler planet, but they can’t accept the changes that the new environment invokes in others, including their own daughter. This limited ‘belonging’ of homogeneity comes at a price—you belong in the past, but do not belong in the future.

Real belonging, this way, is about possession and being possessed, so through these two processes the boundaries are constantly redefined, and our notions of selfhood are constantly expanded. It is when we refuse to interact, to accept, to allow ourselves to change that we deny others the right to be. No wonder rebels in “Percepi” call themselves “Esse Percepi: to be is to be perceived.”

Through fanciful Newland’s writing we glimpse some inconvenient truths about our willingness to accept anything or anyone who is just outside our definitions. One of those truths is, there’s always an opposition of ‘us’ (human) and ‘them’ (zombies, robots, ancient mer people, mutated children, alien trees, migrants, or others), but for some reason, it is mostly humans that I found so hard to sympathise with. The ‘Others’, as different as they might be, are projections of alienation and fears within humanity itself, be it the suppressed colonial fears of migrants that will de-homogenize the assumed ‘purity’ of society (as in “Control” and “Nommo”), or the fear that genetic changes in our children are a threat that needs to be eliminated or monetized (as in the title story “Cosmogramma” or “Cirrostratus”), or the fear that something intrinsically alien will take our places and hurt us (as in “Seed”). All those fears just emphasize fragile, uncertain and often restrictive efforts of human beings to be part of something larger, to define themselves.

Definitions are always divisive: “in the old days they were labelled freaks, outcasts” (“Cirrostratus”), “they were outside the boundaries of what it meant to be us” (“Percepi”). The enemy is everywhere—your neighbours or friends in “Control” or “Scarecrow”, exotic seeds in your garden (“Seed”), your children (“Cosmogramma”) or even you-in-the-past or in-the-future (“You Meets You”). The main feeling is suspicion, or fear, the main action is, running away. Running away might not help though—“they” will come after you, and you will “vanish out of existence” (“Seed”). ‘They’ need us to survive. ‘They’ oust and replace us—as human doubles in “Seed” or use us for breeding purposes (as the insectoid Tem’ondri in “Buck”, reminiscent of Octavia E Butler’s “Bloodchild” or the mermaids “Nommo”).

Curiously enough, it is in these two stories where the Otherness is embodied most (“Buck” and “Nommo,” where human protagonists have to interact with creatures very different from them), that the human characters find the broadness of mind to accept. And with the closest to us—children with alternative abilities in “Cosmogramma”, or neighbours in “Control”, or even androids made in our likeness in “Percepi” they are the most petty, limited, and narrow-minded. It made me wonder whether Newland is slightly disappointed in the human race, and that’s why his stories offer no resolution, no path to follow.

Most of the stories are neither plot, nor character driven, and the main emphasis is on the decisions taken and feelings lived through. It makes it hard to sympathize with the characters, but it makes it easy to get a taste of the world. Newland’s prose is beautiful, poetic and sharp, with descriptions and inner melodies that read like poetry in prose and sometimes overwhelm the reader with visual and sensual imagery. Sometimes it has a very desperate undertone, but even in the moments of anguish it is slightly detached. Contrary to all expectations, it gave me hope—hope that we will be better at perceiving others, and through them ourselves.

Review from BSFA Review 18 - Download your copy here.