The Cipher by Kathe Koja.
Observations of the Fun Hole
Cipher (definition)
1a: ZERO — The arithmetical symbol 0 or 0̸ denoting the absence of all magnitude or quantity
B: one that has no weight, worth, or influence : NONENTITY
“It was an odd fact that the financier, a cipher in his own home, could impress all sorts of people at the office.” — P. G. Wodehouse
“Why did the family, I wondered, act as if Rita hardly existed? Was she that much of a cipher?” — Andrew M. Greeley
2a: a method of transforming a text in order to conceal its meaning
secret communications written in cipher
compare CODE sense 3b
b: a message in code
The cipher cannot be decoded without the key.
I Love that there functioning double-meaning to the title of this book. One that is played with explicitly in the text is the second one: Nicholas is often referred to as The Key, and that is the obvious definition. But the first definition… of zero, or nothingness… seems to also quite explicitly refer to the fun hole itself, and perhaps to Nicholas.
This spoiler-infested essay will look at the various ways in which Keys, undocking and nothingness play out in the narrative of Kathe Koja’s The Cipher. Actually, no. It’s not going to be that focused. But it sounded good, right? This is just me going off about a book that I love.
A little bit of back story on my relationship to this novel. I read it when it first came out in 1994, and it had a huge impact on me. I don’t think I had previously encountered prose in horror fiction that was so invasive and overwhelming. The prose permeated my brain not just because of the ideas, but because of the language, and the deft techniques that the author used to make us uncomfortably intimate with our point of view character, Nicholas. Also, In 1994, I was still living in the shadow of a really toxic relationship that had ended not by my choice, and I probably identified a bit too much with Nicholas’s love/obsession with Nakota.
In 2023, I reread this book as part of a book club, and it was in fact one of the novel’s I had suggested. I was anxious to see how well this book had aged… and how the older me responded to this novel. I was more relieved than surprised to discover that the novel was still effective and enjoyable. The prose was still the language-equivalent of an opioid… I felt strung out and high as I sunk into the prose. Though I am no longer the lovesick 20 something that identified with this novel in ’94, it felt immediately transported into the characters lives, and they felt just as real, and ugly and grimey and pitiful and hopeful and helpless in 2023 as they did in 1994.
There seems to be a new author forward, and an afterword as part of the newer editions, which I did not read or have access to. So if I’m regurgitating obvious stuff covered There-in, I’m doing so unknowingly. And If I end up way off base and proffer interpretations that different vastly from the author’s statements, well I guess thats sort of the messy awesomeness that good literature inspires.
Nicholas is a cipher… because he is nothing. He is an absence in the world. His strongest connection to the world, Nakota barely notices him. Until the Fun Hole. It’s interesting that the Fun hole “doesn’t work” without him. Nakota is drawn to the fun hole and has a constantly evolving idea of what it is, and desperately wants it. In a way, she wants to be transformed into what Nicholas already is… nothing.
The various characters who are drawn to the fun hole by Nicholas and Nakota are drawn like moths to a flame. The destructive qualities of the fun hole.. the transgressive qualities of that thing that shouldn’t exist but does creates an ecstatic, almost religious-like fervor in the various followers and hangers-on of the fun hole. The tensions and relationships between Nicholas/Nakota and the others is cult-like in its intensity.
Multiple times, Nicholas stops Nakota from entering the fun hole. Each time, this requires violence. And in fact his final act of stoping her is the climax of the novel, which.results in her death in a suitably gruesome manner. Was Nicholas protecting Nakota from the fun hole? Or did Nakota going into the fun hole represent the ultimate end to their relationship, and his love for her? This seems like a reasonable reading of this otherwise unexplained obsession Nicholas has in keeping Nakota out of the fun hole.
Ultimately, was Nicholas trying to protect the world from the fun hole? Or was he jealously keeping it to himself. At the climax of the book and Nicholas’ own internal dialog seemed to suggest 3 different outcomes from Nicholas going into the fun hole:
1) death and annihilation of Nicholas, and destruction of the fun hole
2) A continuation of Nicholas’s consciousness, unending and alone in the fun hole
3) the opening of the fun hole, letting (something) loose upon the world, but destroying himself.
Of the three outcomes, it is the second he fears the most. He is no martyr or savior, protecting the world from something evil, and he would prefer the third outcome to the second. He is simply trying to consume/consummate /annihilate that thing that is consuming him.
What is that thing, exactly? Perhaps it is love. It is a manifestation of his unrequited love for Nakota. Unrequited love is in fact an emptiness. something that is missing. A cipher. What I really love about this novel is that while the monstrous other intruding upon the world is symbolic of something/many things, it is also real. It is a real part of the world building. We the readers can see it and smell it and believe in it, just as the characters do. And when this very real displacement of the normal communicates with Nicholas, it says “love you.”
Is the fun hole sentient? Does it have consciousness? Or is it a reflection of the character who’s obsessions created it/brought it to life/summoned it? Nicholas himself calls it a process, and not a destination or thing. And the only thing it ever communicates to Nicholas is that thing which he so desperately craves… love. Is it is a fun house mirror reflecting back Nicholas’s needs and desires? I think so.
So when the funeral mask, cast from Nicholas’s face and hung above the doorway to the fun hole begins talking… Who or what is speaking? The fun hole? This question is, to me, one of the cruxes of the novel. I don’t believe that the fun hole is conscious. I believe it is a reflecting pool of Nichola’s conflicting emotions and desires. Nicholas, locked inside the storage room with the fun hole screams one thing at the congregation gathered outside the door, and the funeral mask of Nicholas, hanging above the outside of the doorway often screams the exact opposite.
When Nicholas asks for Vanese to come and see him, the skull-sculpture tries to kill her… or rather, tries to stop her from rescuing him. He wants to be rescued and he doesn’t want to be rescued. And this is exactly what it is to be in love with someone who doesn’t love you back. You want to be rescued and you don’t want to be rescued, because if you are rescued, you won’t have that love anymore. This duality of love is the dark side of the hoary old aphorism “its better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all” and perhaps Kathe Koja’s novel is telling us that this is bullshit.
To live with that emptiness… that cipher… that unrequited love… that lack of love, is to be consumed by a thing that leads you down a transformative path… to squalor, and degradation and madness and death.
Nicholas killing Nakota rather than lettering her enter the fun hole is a pretty stark emphasis on outcomes. The fun hole may be a transformative process, but it is ultimately a destructive one that causes Nicholas to kill Nikota, in a desperate attempt to keep her from “leaving” (via the fun hole).
Does Nakota feed off of the feelings of affection? The fun hole only “works” when Nicholas is around. Nakota can’t get what she wants without Nicholas. And Nakota seems to be almost ecstatic when she forces him to action… to physical action and violence. The smile from her battered lips after Nicholas has beat her senseless is a smile of ecstatic beauty.
The fun hole isn’t just a manifestation of love, or unrequited love. It is a manifestation of unhealthy obsession, codependancy. A destructive type of love. It is a two way street between Nicholas and Nakota, just as the acolytes of Nicholas an Nakota are also getting something from their obsessions with this hole.
The act committed with the most malice was Nicholas putting Malcome’s face into the fun-hole and transforming him. This act was a manifestation of the cruelty he carried within him… the cruelty verbalized by this funerary mask.
I feel both the fantastic and psychological aspects of this novel are multifaceted, and every time I ask myself a question and try and answer it, I come up with several more questions. The remainder of this Meandering shall be in the form of a book club discussion guide. Please feel free to post your answers in the comments.
A Readers Guide to The Cipher: Question’s For Your Fun Hole Bookclub
· Does the title of the book refer to the fun hole itself? Or a specific character? Or multiple characters? What definition of the title informed your answer?
· Did anything about the style of prose, or language choices that the author made stand out, or feel particularly effective/oppressive?
· Did you recognize anyone from your own life, or identify with any of the characters in The Cipher?
· What was the most interesting act of physical transformation that the fun hole did, and why?
· Was Nicholas different, or the same when he was outside of his apartment building/The Influence of the fun hole… (The art show with Randy? His old friend’s house where he contemplates suicide? Vanese’s house?).
· Who was your favorite character and why was it Randy?
· How might a change in POV have changed this novel? What if it was told from Nakota’s POV? From Randy’s? From Malcome’s? From Vanese’s?
· Why was the Randy’s skull sculpture so hostile towards S? Was it because Vanese might lead Nicholas away? Or was it a manifestation of conflict between Randy and Vanese’s?
· At first Nicholas’s inability to see any changes in the video tape seemed like he had more knowledge and understanding that was hidden from Nakota. But later, it seemed like Nakota might actually know more? Was Nakota being deceived (by herself, or by the fun hole)? Or did she in fact have greater insight and it was Nicholas who was being deceived?
· One of the core conflicts in the book revolved around Nicholas having a connection/access to the fun hole while Nakota didn’t, and this lack on Nakotas part resulted in anger, frustration and envy. Did you feel this envy was symbolic of envy that exists between partners in a relationship? Envy of another’s Talent? Wealth/privilege? Knowledge? Happiness? Love?
· Was the characterization of Nakota group of sycophants indicative of something in particular about Nakota herself? Was she simply a nihilistic edge-lord hanging out on the fringes of an art scene looking for a high?
· What significance did the fun hole’s communication’s directly to Nicholas have… particularly the expressions of “Love you.” And how does this relate to Nichola’s perception that the fun hole was a process, and not a thing or place?
· What significance did the masks ability to speak have? Was it a conduit that allowed some kind of consciousness to communicate from the fun hole to the outside world? Or was it a reflection of the thoughts and emotions of those who viewed it? Or a reflection of the thoughts and emotions of its creator, Malcolm? Or a reflection of the thoughts and emotions of the person it depicted, Nicholas?
· Does the existence of addiction, and suicide in the novel’s narrative… depicted outside of the influence of the fun hole (Nicholas left the fun hole to contemplate suicide. His alcoholism was his ESCAPE from the fun hole) change or influence your perception of what the fun hole might represent or symbolize?
· How did Nakota’s various names (Nikota, Shrike, Kate)strike you? Who called her what, and was there any significance to this?
· Nicholas described the fun hole as a process, and not a thing, or a destination. Nakota had a very different and evolving view what the Funhole was. How do these differing views of The Funhole relate to the character’s concept of Love?
