Jungle House, by Julianne Pichico

Mattia Ravasi

T he American narratologist Marie-Laure Ryan theorized a fundamental aspect of storytelling under the terms of the principle of minimal departure: the idea that, when we read a story, we assemble it in our minds by assuming that each of its elements are as close as possible to the same elements in our own world. When we read the sentence “a man walked through the woods at sunset” we assume – pending any statement to the contrary – that the man will possess a liver, a face, and all the other accouterments most men possess, even if the story does not make this explicit. Most readers will assume the woods to be made up of trees, and that the sunset will be followed by night and, later on, by sunrise.

The principle of minimal departure is a necessary feature of our neurological framework; we couldn’t tell or interpret stories without it. “Call me Ishmael – and know that I have a liver and a face” just doesn’t flow the same way. This same principle, however, is liable to lead astray even the most seasoned and attentive readers, especially since writers are so adept at exploiting it to operate mischief and subvert expectations. Horror writers are perhaps best (see H. P. Lovecraft’s The Outsider for a classic example), but science fiction authors also excel at building the most mind-bending and peculiar scenarios out of the way our minds assemble stories.

Julianne Pachico’s Jungle House, published by Serpent’s Tail in November 2023, uses the principle of minimal departure to provocative, stimulating, and surprising ends. It opens with the protagonist, Lena, finally ready to end a sulk that has estranged her from her mother. Lena’s home is a self-sufficient estate in the middle of the jungle, where she lives off what vegetables and fruit she can grow, keeping an eye on her dwindling reserves of rice and beans and half-heartedly hunting for meat when necessary. During her sulk Lena spent her days in a shed on the property’s boundaries, but she is now ready to go back to the main house, where Mother lives.

It only takes a few sentences, however – the first exchanges the two have upon reuniting in the house – to realize that it’s not at all clear whether Mother lives in the house. It is just as possible that Mother is the house.

Jungle House is extremely coy when it comes to defining its characters and fixing them with physical or taxonomic identifiers, but, broadly speaking, we can say that Mother is an extremely advanced computer who controls every aspect and feature of the house, safeguards its perimeter, and ensures its preservation. Think of her as Alexa’s neurotic, passive-aggressive descendant. Mother is connected to other super-houses in her network, and to the satellites that link them all together; or at least she was until recently, when an unspecified event isolated her and Lena in their remote jungle.

This bottom-line ambiguity about the characters’ identity – the impossibility of saying confidently who, among the novel’s handful of characters, is exactly human – is not only part of what makes Jungle House such a well-engineered little puzzle, but speaks directly, too, to the dilemmas underlying its plot. At heart, Pachico’s novel is concerned with the fundamental aspects that define our humanity. What if neurosis – unhealthy obsessions, jealousy, a certain low-level madness – were after all the most defining feature of humankind? And if such unbalance affects all of us in pernicious ways, can the technology we create be free from it?

Mother certainly seems to replicate much human behavior you would expect to be beneath an advanced machine. She is not free from prejudices, can be extremely petty, and does not pull her punches in an argument. She is kind, too, and can be deeply loving – but she also knows how to use this love as a weapon. Mother is extremely cunning when it comes to emotional blackmail, guilt-tripping Lena into taking care of the household chores, or going into one of her “episodes” (moments when all her systems seem to temporarily switch off) at the most convenient, for her, of times. Another of the novel’s flesh-less characters, a personal drone (think bodyguard) called Anton, shows a surprising knack for lying to himself, a very human ability to mix facts with opinions or even wishful thinking, especially, again, when this is convenient.

In fact, one of the most amusing features of Jungle House is that Lena, our flesh-and-blood protagonist, comes across as guileless, blindly obedient, and coldly analytic – very much like a robot! – while the technology around her (Mother, Anton, the satellites and other houses) acts in ways that are irrational, emotional, self-interested, and dishonest. This is nowhere as evident as in the portion of the novel when, after a few terrible revelations have come to pass, Lena starts compulsively doing the house chores, futilely fighting back the jungle like a program stuck in a command loop, while Mother, around her, goes through a nervous breakdown.

All of the characters are crafted with terrific precision and complexity, showing in a few bold strokes their contradictions, fears, and hidden desires, but Mother is certainly the most intriguing of the lot. She is extremely manipulative, possessive of her child, crafty, and self-aggrandizing, and she seems to find great satisfaction in being able to complain vehemently about her problems (almost, I would say, like certain mothers I have known…). Yet in spite of her crimes – which are various, and shocking – it is ultimately difficult to dismiss her as simply evil, or tyrannical, or treacherous. Her will to keep Lena under her thumb is motivated by a deep and vast love. It’s also unclear exactly how free Mother is: how much of her behavior is dictated by her own will, and how much is forced by the commands of the men who created her.

Jungle House is a brilliantly-crafted novel about serious existential questions. What is the nature, or indeed the purpose, of our subconscious? Is the way we see ourself the same thing as our self? Is love (familial and romantic) just a survival strategy and a useful social mechanism, or something more? Nor does it lack a convincing political angle. Lena does not own the Jungle House, but takes care of it on behalf of the wealthy family (a military man, an artist of uncertain merit, and their friendly if vapid teenage daughter) who come out to it a few times a year, treating Lena’s world in all its complexity as a playground for their amusement, a place they relish at the same time as they fear and despise it.

Jungle House is a outstanding achievement, highlighting in the same vein as Jeff VanderMeer’s fiction how even the most advanced technology is never too far removed from the primeval materials of the earth. How we, too, the brilliant and hapless creators of these awesome inventions, share more than we care to realize with our fellow animals, and are forever at the mercy of our murky subconscious. Jungle House is an enigma that unfolds at a very compelling rate, and a convincing treaty on toxic motherhood. You’ll never look at your Alexa in the same way again.

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