Challenger Abyss: Grasping a glimmer of light in the darkest abyss

​​Chal­lenger Deep (Chi­nese ver­sion)

 

The deep­est known trench on Earth is the Mar­i­ana Trench, with the Chal­lenger Deep at its deep­est point, near­ly 7 miles (approx­i­mate­ly 11,000 meters). Fif­teen-year-old Caden Bosch is aboard a bizarre pirate ship head­ing towards the Chal­lenger Deep. The cap­tain and his par­rot are both blind in one eye, and the crew mem­bers are either men­tal­ly unsta­ble or act­ing strange­ly. They will bat­tle venge­ful ban­shees and abyssal ser­pents on the rag­ing sea, but noth­ing can stop the ship from reach­ing its des­ti­na­tion. The mis­sion to plunge into the dark­est abyss must be under­tak­en by Caden alone… This sounds like the plot of a fan­ta­sy novel—wild, fan­tas­ti­cal, and bizarre—but it is actu­al­ly a rather seri­ous com­ing-of-age nov­el, only telling the unique expe­ri­ence of a high school stu­dent suf­fer­ing from schiz­o­phre­nia.

Author: Neil Shus­ter­man

 

Neil Shus­ter­man’s *Chal­lenger Deep* won the Nation­al Book Award for Young Adult Lit­er­a­ture in 2015. While less well-known than the New­bery Medal to Chi­nese read­ers, this award is unique in its judg­ing process—five renowned authors spe­cial­iz­ing in the genre serve as judges—and is often referred to as “an award for authors by authors,” mak­ing it arguably even more dif­fi­cult to win. *Chal­lenger Deep* won the award not only for its deeply mov­ing sto­ry in a rarely explored genre, but also for its mas­ter­ful writ­ing tech­nique, which brought a new break­through to young adult fic­tion in terms of nar­ra­tive style.

 

Read­ing this book is chal­leng­ing in itself. In fact, most read­ers will feel some­what con­fused upon first read­ing it, first­ly because of the anx­i­ety and repres­sion inher­ent in the top­ic of men­tal ill­ness, and sec­ond­ly because of the author’s some­what ambigu­ous and chaot­ic nar­ra­tive style. The nov­el begins by shut­tling between two sto­ry­lines: the real life of high school stu­dent Car­den and the voy­age on the pirate ship. How­ev­er, both sto­ry­lines are told in the first per­son, which may make read­ers feel that “some­thing is wrong,” but they will be com­plete­ly unaware of what is actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing. The most dif­fi­cult thing to under­stand is the con­nec­tion between these two nar­ra­tive lines. As if that’s not enough of the con­fu­sion, the author inserts two oth­er nar­ra­tives: one is Car­den’s var­i­ous mem­o­ries and obser­va­tions of life, and the oth­er is Car­den’s descrip­tion of his dreams—okay, that means that the voy­age on the pirate ship is not a dream adven­ture, so what is it? Even expe­ri­enced and patient read­ers will only be able to rough­ly guess the con­nec­tion between the two main nar­ra­tives when they are almost halfway through the first read­ing.

 

The orig­i­nal cov­er fea­tures a back­ground of doo­dles made by the author’s son dur­ing a peri­od of men­tal tur­moil.

 

Neil Schus­ter­man is a tal­ent­ed young adult nov­el­ist with approx­i­mate­ly 30 pop­u­lar works to his name (includ­ing some of his rep­re­sen­ta­tive works that have been trans­lat­ed into Chi­nese).“Tomor­row’s Decom­po­si­tion“But *Chal­lenger Deep* is most spe­cial to him because it’s essen­tial­ly based on his son Bren­dan’s real expe­ri­ences, with the illus­tra­tions being Bren­dan’s scrib­bles from that peri­od of strug­gle. In oth­er words, the char­ac­ters are fic­tion­al, but the core of the sto­ry is remark­ably real­is­tic. The choice of the Chal­lenger Deep as the voy­age’s des­ti­na­tion stemmed from Bren­dan’s fas­ci­na­tion with the sea and also from a sci­ence pre­sen­ta­tion he gave in school. Bren­dan’s teenage episodes, pro­gress­ing from anx­i­ety to delu­sions, para­noia, and hal­lu­ci­na­tions, were remark­ably sim­i­lar to Car­den’s. Bren­dan even­tu­al­ly had to be hos­pi­tal­ized, at which point he told Neil, “Dad, I feel like I’m scream­ing my heart out under­wa­ter, but nobody can hear me.” It was from that moment that the writer father decid­ed to write a nov­el for his son.

 

Doo­dles by the author’s son, Bren­dan, dur­ing a peri­od of men­tal tur­moil.

 

Unlike the some­what bewil­dered accoun­tant father in the nov­el, Neil has a greater under­stand­ing and empa­thy for his son. He attempts to use the sto­ry to recre­ate his son’s true men­tal state dur­ing episodes of his ill­ness. The ele­ments dis­tort­ed by delu­sions and hal­lu­ci­na­tions are drawn from his son’s real-life expe­ri­ences, his ency­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge, and his beloved lit­er­ary clas­sics, such as *Pinoc­chio*, *Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land*, *Twen­ty Thou­sand Leagues Under the Sea*, and *Moby-Dick*. Neil clear­ly rec­og­nizes the scarci­ty of works depict­ing ado­les­cent men­tal ill­ness, and he decides to show­case the inter­twin­ing of real­i­ty and delu­sion. There­fore, he allows the pro­tag­o­nist to utter four dif­fer­ent voic­es, freely unfold­ing and echo­ing each oth­er.At first, even he had to use dif­fer­ent col­ors to mark the four nar­ra­tive texts, and then piece them togeth­er like a jig­saw puz­zle.He was­n’t sure if the edi­tor would accept such a man­u­script.

 

I must admit that, as a read­er, it took me three read­ings to tru­ly grasp the whole sto­ry and under­stand Neil’s nar­ra­tive inten­tions. Dis­cern­ing read­ers, on their sec­ond read­ing, might try read­ing each voice’s indi­vid­ual nar­ra­tive sep­a­rate­ly, such as skip­ping between the “Pirate Voy­age” or “Car­den in the Real World” sec­tions. You’ll dis­cov­er sub­tle or overt con­nec­tions between the two sto­ry­lines: the par­rot and Dr. Poirot, Car­i­obe and Car­ly, the nav­i­ga­tor and Howl, the blue-haired girl appoint­ed “Trea­sur­er” and Skye, the cock­tails on the pirate ship and the hap­py paper cups of the hos­pi­tal’s cock­tail ther­a­py… Once you under­stand that the delu­sion­al and real­is­tic parts are actu­al­ly telling the same sto­ry, just told by pro­tag­o­nists in dif­fer­ent men­tal states, unrav­el­ing the mys­tery becomes much eas­i­er.

 

How­ev­er, Neil added anoth­er obsta­cle to the time­line by not allow­ing the two nar­ra­tive threads to run con­cur­rent­ly. If Car­den board­ing the pirate ship sig­ni­fies a relapse of his ill­ness, and encoun­ter­ing the par­rot and the oth­er crew mem­bers sig­ni­fies hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, then the par­rot’s appear­ance begins in Chap­ter 4, while Car­den’s hos­pi­tal­iza­tion in the real world does­n’t begin until Chap­ter 75. In Chap­ter 9, Car­den dis­cov­ers a sign on the main hatch of the pirate ship that reads, “You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last.” Then, in Chap­ter 99, the real-world Car­den sees a poster in Dr. Poirot’s office that reads, “You may not be first, you may not be last, but you will cross the fin­ish line”—these two events clear­ly echo each oth­er, yet they are sep­a­rat­ed by 90 chap­ters! On the Goodreads Eng­lish book shar­ing web­site, some read­ers com­plained about the author’s chaot­ic struc­ture, sug­gest­ing that a more log­i­cal read­just­ment would make the sto­ry clear­er and less con­fus­ing. I deeply sym­pa­thize with this trou­bled read­er, but we must under­stand the author’s good inten­tions. Imag­ine: if the pro­tag­o­nist’s nar­ra­tive log­ic were so clear, would it still sound like the nar­ra­tion of a schiz­o­phrenic? The author inten­tion­al­ly invites read­ers to expe­ri­ence that psy­cho­log­i­cal process with a touch of pain.

 

Inte­ri­or illus­tra­tions, Bren­dan’s doo­dles

 

This reminds me of William Faulkn­er’s *The Sound and the Fury*, which is also a sto­ry told in four dif­fer­ent voic­es. The first part is nar­rat­ed by Ben­jy, the idiot, and its log­ic seems quite chaot­ic to ordi­nary peo­ple.“Unre­li­able” nar­ra­tivesBut it is pre­cise­ly through this kind of nar­ra­tion that peo­ple seem to see the unmasked true nature of human­i­ty reflect­ed in a mir­ror. In *The Chal­lenger’s Abyss*, many details of Cardin’s nar­ra­tion also belong to the cat­e­go­ry of “unre­li­able” nar­ra­tives; the author inter­twines sev­er­al nar­ra­tives, requir­ing read­ers to painstak­ing­ly dis­tin­guish and ana­lyze them. After clear­ing away the fog, we see a vibrant, young heart, end­less­ly strug­gling, end­less­ly ques­tion­ing, end­less­ly sym­pa­thiz­ing… Per­haps the most touch­ing aspect of the sto­ry is Cardin’s com­pas­sion. As a teenag­er, he has a strong curios­i­ty about the oppo­site sex, an immense desire for friend­ship, and absolute loy­al­ty to his friends, but what tru­ly sets him apart is his con­cern for oth­ers. His rea­son for not choos­ing sui­cide was that he did­n’t want his sis­ter to be ashamed in front of oth­ers. Even when he was in a men­tal hos­pi­tal, he could­n’t help but lend a help­ing hand to his fel­low patients. When Car­ly need­ed him most, he gave her warmth, but he was also able to sup­press his own desires and always keep his dis­tance… In Car­den’s per­haps some­what inex­plic­a­ble nar­ra­tion, we see a par­tic­u­lar­ly real per­son. Even in his dark­est moments, the radi­ant light of human­i­ty could not be con­cealed.

 

In his after­word, Neil Schus­ter­man men­tioned that one of the rea­sons for his writ­ing was because he dis­cov­ered…““One in three Amer­i­can fam­i­lies is haunt­ed by the specter of men­tal ill­ness.””His fam­i­ly was one of those who, through their com­bined efforts, weath­ered the most dif­fi­cult times, and their son escaped the abyss and returned to a nor­mal life. Through his nov­el, Neil hopes to share this expe­ri­ence, ben­e­fit­ing those in need and help­ing most peo­ple, even those not trou­bled, under­stand that these men­tal­ly ill patients are sim­ply patients, not mon­sters; they are liv­ing, breath­ing human beings. A line in the book par­tic­u­lar­ly reflects the pub­lic’s atti­tude towards the men­tal­ly ill:“Dead chil­dren are placed on altars and wor­shipped, while chil­dren with men­tal ill­ness­es are hid­den under car­pets.”Accord­ing to an inves­tiga­tive arti­cle pub­lished on Peo­ple’s Dai­ly Online on Novem­ber 27, 2019Car­ing for peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness requires a con­cert­ed effort from soci­ety.The reportIn recent years, the total num­ber of peo­ple suf­fer­ing from men­tal dis­or­ders in Chi­na has exceed­ed 100 mil­lion, among which the preva­lence of schiz­o­phre­nia is close to 11% of the total pop­u­la­tion, and more than 50% of them have not received effec­tive and stan­dard­ized treat­ment.It can be said that Schus­ter­man’s efforts are also very mean­ing­ful to Chi­nese read­ers.

 

How­ev­er, the author’s efforts did not stop at sim­ply rais­ing aware­ness or pro­vid­ing read­ers with a unique sim­u­la­tion expe­ri­ence; he also attempt­ed to explore the caus­es and solu­tions. Accord­ing to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion’s offi­cial web­site, “Research has not yet con­firmed any cause. It is sug­gest­ed that inter­ac­tions between genes and a range of envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors may lead to schiz­o­phre­nia. Psy­choso­cial fac­tors may also be a cause.” The cas­es of Car­ly and Hal in the nov­el per­haps best illus­trate this; the reac­tions of Car­ly’s par­ents and the state of Hal’s moth­er, to some extent, con­tributed to the chil­dren’s ill­ness. Car­den’s fam­i­ly envi­ron­ment was rel­a­tive­ly nor­mal, but it took his fam­i­ly a long time to under­stand and accept his con­di­tion. They pro­vid­ed nec­es­sary help, but the final stretch of the strug­gle to escape the abyss was ulti­mate­ly Car­den’s own to walk.

 

Describ­ing Car­den’s ardu­ous jour­ney, expe­ri­enced alone, is clear­ly extreme­ly dif­fi­cult. The author employs numer­ous sym­bol­ic devices and draws upon imagery from mythol­o­gy, fairy tales, and clas­sic lit­er­a­ture to depict Car­den’s adven­ture into the Chal­lenger’s Abyss. The jour­ney is per­ilous yet mag­nif­i­cent, com­pa­ra­ble to an epic Greek tale. The author’s skill lies in seam­less­ly inte­grat­ing this leg­end with Car­den’s spir­i­tu­al jour­ney, inter­spersed with moments of wis­dom and humor. Read­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in this thrilling jour­ney can find mean­ing in the sym­bol­ism: what do the cap­tain and the par­rot rep­re­sent? Why is the trust between Car­den, the cap­tain, and the par­rot so com­plex? What does the white plas­tic gal­ley rep­re­sent? What does the nav­i­ga­tor’s chart rep­re­sent? Why is Skye always try­ing to piece togeth­er the puz­zle but nev­er suc­ceed­ing? Why is it that small blue piece of the puz­zle that leads Car­den out of the abyss? Why does that small piece become the last glim­mer of light in the abyss? Such reflec­tion will cer­tain­ly make the jour­ney worth­while.

 

The most unique and ide­al char­ac­ter in the nov­el is Car­lyle, the “only sen­si­ble per­son” on the pirate ship. In both nar­ra­tive threads, Car­lyle is also the only char­ac­ter who appears and plays a cru­cial role in both worlds. This is because Car­lyle’s nar­ra­tion some­times oscil­lates between delu­sion and real­i­ty; read­ers can even use Car­lyle to bridge the gap between these two nar­ra­tives. Car­lyle’s lat­er shar­ing of his true expe­ri­ences with Caden is also quite pow­er­ful. You’ll find that a for­mer men­tal patient can become an expert in this field, offer­ing the deep­est sym­pa­thy and great­est help to oth­er patients. In the after­word, the author writes that his son…“He glo­ri­ous­ly escaped the abyss, and in time became more like Car­lyle…”Read­ing this is very com­fort­ing.

 

Hav­ing just escaped the abyss, Car­den had this reflec­tion:“We are extreme­ly con­trol­ling crea­tures. We want to put every­thing in our lives into labelable box­es. But just because we have the abil­i­ty to label doesn’t mean we actu­al­ly know what’s in those box­es…”After read­ing it, I pon­dered it repeat­ed­ly for a long time. I would say that this is a book that every read­er should read care­ful­ly.

 

Writ­ten by A‑Jia on Jan­u­ary 18, 2021 in Bei­jing

 

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