Story 113: "Fathoms Five" by Penumbra
Apr. 30th, 2010 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wendelah1 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xf_book_clubFathoms Five was first nominated in September of last year by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scarletbaldy, and then again about a month ago by antfarmponies. It's been suggested to me informally a couple of times, too. I had hesitated to post it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the subject matter is profoundly disturbing.
Yes, THAT IS A WARNING. Email or PM me if you need more specific information before reading this story.
But it's a major work, by a major writer. It's also her best work, in my humble opinion, and I hope we can do it justice. I don't want to say anything more specific for fear of giving away too much. As always, there will be spoilers in the comment threads.
Penumbra's planning to let her website go down soon (sob, I know, another one), so I'm also linking to her journal. Of course, the story is archived at Gossamer, too.
Again, this story contains disturbing material that might be triggering.
At her website, "Fathoms Five." EDIT: This version has a warning that is a spoiler.
And, at her journal: Part One, Part Two. EDIT: This version has no warning posted.
As always, leave feedback for the author, and then come back for discussion. Suggestions for next time may be left at the nomination post.
scarletbaldy, and then again about a month ago by antfarmponies. It's been suggested to me informally a couple of times, too. I had hesitated to post it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the subject matter is profoundly disturbing.Yes, THAT IS A WARNING. Email or PM me if you need more specific information before reading this story.
But it's a major work, by a major writer. It's also her best work, in my humble opinion, and I hope we can do it justice. I don't want to say anything more specific for fear of giving away too much. As always, there will be spoilers in the comment threads.
Penumbra's planning to let her website go down soon (sob, I know, another one), so I'm also linking to her journal. Of course, the story is archived at Gossamer, too.
Again, this story contains disturbing material that might be triggering.
At her website, "Fathoms Five." EDIT: This version has a warning that is a spoiler.
And, at her journal: Part One, Part Two. EDIT: This version has no warning posted.
As always, leave feedback for the author, and then come back for discussion. Suggestions for next time may be left at the nomination post.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2010-04-30 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-01 12:06 am (UTC)Edit: The journal version doesn't have a warning. I think I'll edit the post to let people know there is a version that isn't spoiled in anyway.
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Date: 2010-05-12 01:37 am (UTC)Heh, I got to use my "long-suffering mod" icon.
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Date: 2010-04-30 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 08:51 pm (UTC)It is? Musta missed that...
Great choice, though. :)
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Date: 2010-04-30 09:59 pm (UTC)You have a very dry sense of humor.
Thanks. It's a brilliant piece of writing. I hope discussion goes well.
just a little Overwhelming Helplessness
Date: 2010-04-30 11:34 pm (UTC)i think that is brilliant. because despite the fact that as i read my gut reaction is that i've 'lost' mulder and scully in some way, i'm inadvertently feeling more realistically what mulder and scully must really be feeling. i'm feeling the very thing expressed in the title: "fathoms five" -- the sense of something irretrievably lost (to time); for them in their time, and for the reader in our time. the two sensations of loss/struggle/helplessness the fic evokes - the empathetic, and the personal - run parallel.
i don't think the subject matter of this fic actually is so deeply disturbing to all readers. i don't think the subject matter is anywhere close to as "disturbing" as many fics, in the typical sense that we gauge fictional content by. it really all depends on how the reader feels about mulder and scully already, and how they feel through mulder and scully, and what specific things are long held particular fears in their minds.
because, for me, there is something irreconcilable about this fic - about both what's happening to the characters, and about how i experience the story personally - it is deeply troubling. gorgeous, poignant, compassionate, intelligent, complex, and deeply troubling.
additionally, I've often wondered if the way one would feel towards the story and the characters, having written this fic, would be drastically different from the way it feels to read it. i've wondered if, in writing this, there would come a feeling of being together with the characters, of being stitched to them almost, of still being with them after all this time and right up into this newest turn of their lives. which would be somewhat the opposite of how it feels, for me, to read it: the sudden wrenching realization that they're out of reach. i've never asked, because i felt like it might seem accusatory in some way, which is not how i mean it, and which would be awful. this fic was an exceptional gift simply in getting to read it. but i've often wondered.
and now that i've managed to talk about the fic for several paragraphs without actually having to engage with it *ducks head* -- time for a favorite line! well, okay, maybe not favorite because yeah right, like i can choose, but the one that just...guh - the one that stuck with me and is sticking with me for a very. long. time.
The answer was you, the answer was her. The answer was yes.
Re: just a little Overwhelming Helplessness
Date: 2010-05-01 04:46 am (UTC)Re: just a little Overwhelming Helplessness
Date: 2010-05-11 11:29 pm (UTC)i've wondered if, in writing this, there would come a feeling of being together with the characters, of being stitched to them almost, of still being with them after all this time and right up into this newest turn of their lives. which would be somewhat the opposite of how it feels, for me, to read it: the sudden wrenching realization that they're out of reach.
I am pretty certain Penumbra was right there with every character, feeling every emotion. This story was just as hard for me to read because she had me right there, too, every step of the way. This story is about death, both of the body and of the spirit, and as such, it is everyone's story.
Re: just a little Overwhelming Helplessness
Date: 2010-05-15 10:48 am (UTC)But I still think the biggest problem for me is the language. Sometimes Penumbra hits the right spot with an image, but a lot of the times, I feel like it's overwrought. The opening line, for example, could have been shortened, and it would have been just as powerful, and the same goes for the rest of the fic.
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Date: 2010-05-01 04:54 am (UTC)Man, this lady can write.
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Date: 2010-05-11 11:46 pm (UTC)They seem very in character to me, responding to an impossible situation just as I expected they would.
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Date: 2010-05-01 01:27 pm (UTC)I've always liked Penumbra's writing but, unlike a lot of other people, found her use of language to be a bit much. I'm not feeling very articulate this morning because I just started in on my coffee, so I might not be able to express this as clearly as I'd like to. Anyhow, in her previous stories, especially Parabiosis, I found the ornate language to be distracting from the actual story. Kind of like listening to a beautiful symphony that features a violin soloist who goes way over the top. It frequently pulled me out of the story and, in the end, it was kind of exhausting.
Anyhow, what I loved about Fathoms Five was that the language was beautiful but reigned-in. It allowed me to lose myself in the story. Kudos for that.
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Date: 2010-05-12 01:54 am (UTC)Anyhow, what I loved about Fathoms Five was that the language was beautiful but reigned-in. It allowed me to lose myself in the story. Kudos for that.
Her use of language in this story is much more under control, and doesn't interfere in anyway or call attention to itself. "Fathoms Five" also dauntingly ambitious, but she really knocked this one out of the park.
If you were only going to read one TXF story in 2009, this would be the one I'd say was not to be missed. I hate saying things like that, because then my brain says but what about. . .
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Date: 2010-05-04 11:20 pm (UTC)I'm very much in sympathy with everything amyhit wrote, in that Penumbra absolutely takes Mulder and Scully to a place none of us will ever have to visit, in which they use vaguely familiar coping mechanisms to grapple with an unthinkable situation, an ironic life crisis of sorts. I once called this a science fiction tragedy, an upside-down tragedy. Classic tragedy always ends in death. FF ends with a tunnel vision of unending life. Fortunately it's also a very American tragedy, so there's a sense that someone might achieve a resolution. Physics-student William may be able to find a way for his mother to die.
That's a unique description of a happy ending and a pretty tough career path. Mulder is right to say the kid should chill out and play guitar.
The suicide opening is intense, no question, and although I originally felt it wasn't congruent with the mellow family scenes that follow I now think it forces the reader into a more subtle understanding of them. Here is a woman who sees her husband age and her son mature and she can't figure out a way of being wife and mother as she sees herself as the most brutal of X-files. She thinks she has hit the wall of natural explanation and she has to prove it. Nobody has an answer for her; we can only pray that one is found. The response is love. Scully is withdrawing, even from the old dog who adores her, but Mulder presents her with a video from the old days, when they were young, gorgeous and contentious. As she, appallingly, still is. So she quips and eats popcorn. Surrounded by love.
Penumbra has been criticized for her elaborate, descriptive style. Here is a subject that calls for an excruciatingly careful treatment, one that requires all the talent she has. And if we have to pause to appreciate a consciously crafted line every once in a while, it gives us a breather before the next emotionally difficult moment.
Oh, about praying. Did we notice that Scully is still wearing her cross, and that the Mulder-Scully's give thanks before eating lasagna? Possibly being the recipient of an unwanted miracle opens one's eyes to the possibility of an ancient one.
I haven't scratched the surface on this one. Maybe someone else (cough) can come up with a unified theory.
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Date: 2010-05-12 02:26 am (UTC)I'm a little hesitant about approaching Fathoms Five because I think it's a fic masterpiece. Another one. We're going to run out at this rate. Well, there's still Sokol.
I guess we'd better save "Sokol," then. *g* What is remarkable to me is that we still have writers of this caliber producing work this damn good. The show ended (and so badly) back in 2002, and the we get nothing until 2008 when we were presented with that travesty of a film. And despite that, we are gifted with this. It deserves a much wider audience than the couple hundred people who follow this com.
Well, as you know, I had a hard time with this story the first time through. It threatened to upset me this time around, too, but I managed to get past that point and read the story. I'm still working on the unified theory part.
This is an excellent, succinct review, focusing on the unique, science fiction tragedy that Scully finds herself living. I'm going to try then to focus on the parts of the story that make it so universal.
Oh, about praying. Did we notice that Scully is still wearing her cross, and that the Mulder-Scully's give thanks before eating lasagna? Possibly being the recipient of an unwanted miracle opens one's eyes to the possibility of an ancient one.
She put the gun into her left hand, so that she could cross herself before she put the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
She got a wanted miracle, too, in the birth of her son.
Parting is all we know of heaven
Date: 2010-05-15 04:40 am (UTC)It was the ship she kept thinking of, trying to keep herself detached. It was the desolation of the miles and miles of ocean, and it was the emptiness of the ship, the dying ship, unpiloted, plunging on dead through the waters.
What a brilliant metaphor for the life Scully sees ahead for herself. Though gifted with everlasting life, Scully is dying spiritually and emotionally. She's in a kind of physical and psychic stasis that's made worse by the way she has withdrawn from the very things that make an ordinary life worth living. Her life now stretches endlessly before her and she feels adrift, shaken to her core by the certainty of what she had previously known but hadn't scientifically confirmed.
She's not alone in this, of course. I'm sure you all know someone who has lost a beloved family pet and refused to ever own another, to keep from grieving again. They want to try to shield themselves from life's inevitable losses, just as Scully does. It can't work. It doesn't work. All that happens is you rob yourself of the goodness life does offer.
"You tell me." William raised his Mulderish eyebrows, chewing. "You left your car in the road. I put it away for you."
"Everything's fine. We'll talk about it later," Scully said. She felt too exhausted to go on. She dispensed ice into a glass and poured lemonade over the crackling cubes. "Could you take this out to Dad, please?"
He took it from her hand, letting his warm fingers rest against hers, as if he could tell more about her that way.
"You know, I know you don't think we understand what it's like for you," he said. He put two cookies in his mouth at once.
"Will, please, not now," she said.
"But we're here, too, Mom," he said, chewing. "We're right here, right along side you. Think about it."
Scully gave him a bitter smile. That was the hardest thing to think about.
She's so focused on death that she is missing out on life.
and all we need of hell
Date: 2010-05-15 05:13 am (UTC)One of the things I love about this story is how intellectual Penumbra's Mulder and Scully both seem, full of arcane knowledge and random factoids. They bicker and they make love. They eat breakfast and they go to sleep. They sound exactly like themselves, only middle-aged, and living in Southern California. They feel like much more believable renditions of later day Mulder and Scully than what was given to us in that travesty IWTB.
Not everyone would find the prospect of immortality daunting. Some might even see it, at least for the first few hundreds years, as an opportunity, bringing countless lifetimes in which to learn, to create, to experience new things. But if you are like Scully, like me, like most human beings I suspect, the prospect of a life apart, alone, separated forever from those who matter most, is unimaginable. If given the choice between an eternity in heaven without my husband and my son, and a death that leads to nothingness, I'd choose death.
But we don't get to choose our fate, to a great extent, we just have to accept what is, play the hand we are dealt. Maybe I'll outlive my husband, maybe I'll be killed in a automobile accident on the way to work in the morning. Reading this story, measuring my current sorrow and eventual losses against the enormity of Scully facing eternity without her loved ones, somehow brought my life back into focus, gave it some perspective.
Fathom's Five is most assuredly fanfiction: its storyline and characters are derived from another person's creation. It emphatically isn't just a woman who happens to be named Scully and a man who happens to be named Mulder, starring in a story about life and death. But I would argue Fathoms's Five transcends its genre, because of the complexity and universality of its themes and the quality of its writing, to become Art. I for one, see no reason we can't, at least occasionally, have them both together, Art and Fanart, in one glorious creation, should we be so fortunate. I welcome it. I celebrate it. Thank you, Penumbra.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them — Ding-dong, bell
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
no subject
Date: 2010-05-15 06:47 am (UTC)In the end, this is exactly what kept me reading.
Because as much as I love reading about cases and mystery it was so refreshing to see a side of these characters that is more wrapped up in the idea of family then the mysteries of the world.
Amazingly (and perhaps I'm the only one who felt this way) the idea of Scully's immortality seemed very secondary to me. As much as it begins the story, to me it in no way ends it. By the end, I was so caught up in the feelings this pair must be feeling as they watch their son grow up that I had lost track of the beginning. The horror I had felt was replaced by a different kind of ache, a lose that extends beyond the physical. I wondered what it was that Scully would miss more; the comfort of knowing that one day she can die peacefully on her own terms or her miracle boy and the tie he obviously is between Mulder and Scully.
All and all a hauntingly beautiful piece. I am envious of this author's talent but better for having read it! :D
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Date: 2010-05-17 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 07:54 pm (UTC)First, I enjoyed this story. It's AU, and AU gives you a lot of latitude, latitude Penumbra's made thorough and excellent use of. As always, the language is vivid, flowing, engrossing. Her original characters (William, Arable (which, yeah, there's a name for you) and Matthew) are interesting enough that they don't simply seem to be adjuncts to the M&S story. The dog has a strange name and a solid presence. And leave it to the Mulders, such as they are, to keep ducks that can't fly but instead run everywhere.
This is my favourite part:
He was angry at Scully for being perfect and frozen and impossible to wholly love as an evolving woman over a lifespan, in the close comfort of middle age and on into everything life brings, through everything,
the true, vital living Scully, whom he had somehow lost, and who had been replaced by a Scully who was afraid and trapped, who took the coward's way and couldn't admit what she was doing to the rest of them.
That's pretty much the whole story, beautifully encapsulated.
But I have to ask, what is Scully's deal? What's her problem? Do you think her self-centeredness and self-pity are justified? (not was Pen justified in writing it that way, but is the character justified in feeling that way?)
I'd like to hear other opinions on this.
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Date: 2010-05-17 09:37 pm (UTC)Things might change, of course. She might become a brave and unique saint. Saint Scully the Deathless. There's time for any eventuality.
better her than me.
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Date: 2010-05-17 10:13 pm (UTC)"What's her problem?" She's not going to die. "Do you think her self-centeredness and self-pity are justified?" Yep.
Perhaps I wasn't clear. Sorry.
Yes, she's not going to die. Maybe. boo hoo. She herself asked how you could have too much life. She's got a great husband-like thing and a great kid, both of whom are bending over backward to try to make her happy. And yet, she's suicidal. Is it just because she's apparently immortal? Why and/or how does that justify her behavior?
See what I mean? I could sort of understand if she's lived 300 years, lost everything and everyone she'd known and cared for, but she's in her fifties.
What's she so depressed about?
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Date: 2010-05-17 11:08 pm (UTC)You say "boo hoo." I'd say, like Scully, "kill me now." Depressed doesn't capture it.
It's as though Scully were in a glass box, (emotionally) asleep, watching the seasons turn and unable to be part of it.
All human beings know that they will die. You can't be human without owning that knowledge. At least I imagine that it must be really, really hard, and "imagine" is all any of us can do.
I know I'm sounding extra-philosophical, but that's the subject we've been dealt.
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Date: 2010-05-18 06:51 am (UTC)I don't see her actions as arising out of being self-centered and self-pitying; She tries to kill herself because she's in despair.
Driving in the dark that morning she had told herself it had little to do with him and that she had to know - she had to know. But now at home her actions seemed completely selfish. She had not kissed him goodbye when she arose in the middle of the night. She dressed in the downstairs bathroom, the old dog behind her drinking deeply from the toilet bowl, something she would normally not allow. The thing driving her had an intensity like panic. Kissing Mulder and William goodbye would have been admitting to herself what she was about to do. It would be admitting she didn't want to come back to them, because coming back would mean the awful thing inside her was real.
I don't think there is any doubt by the end of the first section that something is different about Scully, something is abnormal. Normal people don't get up off the cement floor after shooting themselves in the brain. She's a pathologist and a former FBI agent so I think we can assume she knew how to do it properly. She healed completely in a matter of hours from a mortal wound. She isn't aging. She feels like she's in stasis, like the rest of the world is changing and she isn't. Maybe that's just something she's making up in her head, or maybe she's right. Whatever the cause, she feels different, she feels isolated from the rest of humanity because of it, and she feels out of control. She tried to kill herself to see if she could and she tried to kill herself because she no longer wanted to live. Is that kind of despair selfish? I don't think telling suicidal people that they are self-centered is useful or kind, but in the aftermath, Scully herself was ready to say it was a selfish act. I don't think that changed anything, though. I think she still wanted to die.
Life is a series of losses, right? We lose our youth, our friends, our pets, our jobs, our lovers, our wives and our husbands. We lose our good health, perhaps all in one fell swoop, perhaps in tiny increments, year by year. If we are very unlucky, we outlive our children. Eventually we die, which for many people comes as quite a relief, I'd imagine. Imagine what it would be like to keep on losing everything you've ever loved, forever.
SCULLY: You know, most people want to live forever.
FELLIG: Most people are idiots. Which is one of the reasons I don't.
SCULLY: I think you're wrong. How can you have too much life? There's too much to learn, to experience.
FELLIG: 75 years... is enough. Take my word for it. You live forever, sooner or later you start to think about the big thing you're missing and that everybody else gets to find out about but you.
SCULLY: What about love?
FELLIG: What, does that last forever? 40 years ago I drove down to the city hall, down to the hall of records... record archives, whatever they call it. I wanted to look up my wife. It ... bothered me I couldn't remember her name. Love lasts... 75 years, if you're lucky. You don't want to be around when it's gone.
I think she can't imagine living forever in this static existence, without love, forever grieving what she's lost, and what she's going to lose. I think it's driving her mad. I think it would drive me crazy, too. Perhaps this is selfish, too, but I pray that I die before my husband, because I simply can't imagine life without him. It would be unbearable. The prospect of living alone forever, my God, I'm shaking just thinking about it. I think my husband would be okay with it though, for a few hundred years anyway. He'd finally get everything read he'd wanted to read, and learn everything he'd wanted to learn. He's not wrong to feel the way he does, but I'm not wrong to feel as I do either, and in my view, neither is Scully.
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Date: 2010-05-23 12:25 am (UTC)[info]maybe_amanda
2010-05-17 10:13 pm UTC (link) Track This
"What's her problem?" She's not going to die. "Do you think her self-centeredness and self-pity are justified?" Yep.
>>>
What she said. ;)
<<<
Perhaps I wasn't clear. Sorry.
Yes, she's not going to die. Maybe. boo hoo. She herself asked how you could have too much life. She's got a great husband-like thing and a great kid, both of whom are bending over backward to try to make her happy. And yet, she's suicidal. Is it just because she's apparently immortal? Why and/or how does that justify her behavior?>>>
The great kid is a big part of what has her so unhappy. One of the worst things I can think of is to outlive my children. Scully faces the fact that she almost certainly will outlive him or he will do as Mulder believes and find a way to "save" her. Can you imagine how she must feel when she considers him working to find a way for her to die?
<<<
See what I mean? I could sort of understand if she's lived 300 years, lost everything and everyone she'd known and cared for, but she's in her fifties.
What's she so depressed about? >>
She's shocked and scared about the pain she's feeling from relatively inconsequential losses like her Dad's ship and Mulder's apartment. It seemed to me that she has shielded her heart somewhat against Matthew, Arabel and the dog because she wants to minimize the pain of those losses. I think contemplating the hard losses of Mulder and Will is just too much.
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Date: 2010-08-17 04:11 pm (UTC)Thanks for participating. I hope we see you again here.
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Date: 2011-11-12 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-05 05:30 pm (UTC)Penumbra's way with words fascinates me. There are stories that are written and stories that are artistically weaved. I can only wish I had her vocabulary and writing ability.
I'm not as big a fan of this one as I was of Parabiosis. Maybe it's just the topic of their kid(s). I'm a shipper, but I have such a knee-jerk repulsed reaction to babies and kids that I kinda waded through this one with my teeth clenched. Maybe I'd like it better if I didn't have problems with that topic. *shrug* It was nice otherwise. The relationship between William and Matthew seemed familiar somehow, like I've seen something with that relationship quality before. But hell, for all I know, that's just me projecting my own wonderful relationship with my cousins.
I like that this was set in California. I was born and raised here, so I'm a little partial to it. However, the geographical and biological intricacies kinda made me cringe here and there. Not too much, but little things you probably wouldn't know unless you lived here anyway. Unless I read it wrong, they were in the mountains of San Bernadino, which is both not in L.A. County and nowhere near the ocean enough to smell the salt water (if anything, they'd smell the smog, which the city of San Bernadino is famous for due to its lack of "ventilation" being almost entirely surrounded my mountains.) We don't have cicadas here, at least to the best of my knowledge. Maybe they're isolated to San Bernadino, but they're definitely not in San Diego or L.A. Also, Miramar is an air force base slightly inland. The ship would have been anchored in Naval Base San Diego or just San Diego proper. But that's me being nitpicky and I don't blame Penumbra for not knowing these little tidbits. It's just... now I understand how people feel when they say "____ doesn't have mountains" or something like that, lol.
In general: I liked it. Not the biggest fan of domestic fics, but when Mulder joked around, it sounded like actual Mulder, which I can appreciate.