Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Blackberry Doom -- a 'cli-fi' short story by Victoria Elliott

Blackberry Doom

a 'cli-fi' short story by Victoria Elliott

published in Boston on May 27, 2016

[Victoria Elliottis a student at Harvard College in the Class of 2016]



TEXT:


It's supposed to be blackberry season.  It's August. I honestly didn't know that until I read about it in one of my dad's encyclopedias that he kept in the attic. Well, they was my great grandfather's and he gave them to my dad, and my dad to me. But my dad never found any use for them because of the internet.

I used to just look at the pictures and identify the plants and rocks I would find in the meadow behind the barn. Then one day it occurred to me to actually read what the book had to say.

Black•ber•y/ 'blak,berë/ 1. a soft, edible fruit, made up of a cluster of small dark purple druplets.

They ripen in late summer, early autumn to a dark red to black color. That's how I spent my summers. Exploring in the meadows, splashing in the streams, finding chunks of what I thought were rough diamonds and gold. And eating ripe blackberries in May.

"It didn't always used to be like that," My mom enjoyed arguing.

" Course it was". My dad entertained her.

"No, it was not, Curtis!"

And it was always pretty funny to watch. "Olivia, what makes you think you're a blackberry expert?"

"Now I didn't say I was an expert."

"Then how can you say that--"

"Let me finish, Curtis! Now, you know that big ole black bear that my daddy killed and stuffed."

"The one that he said he killed and stuffed?"

"Oh, he most definitely did, and it was on his birthday. I specifically remember him saying that he spotted it eating blackberries off the bushes near the Johnson's solar panels."

"And what does that have to do with--"

"My daddy's birthday is September, Curtis. I'm no blackberry expert, but I do know the seasons are all in different places now. Adam, honey, how was the last day of school?"

It was always kind of alarming when they suddenly pulled me into the conversation "It was fine. No complaints. Could you pass the potatoes?"

"I will not be passing anything until you tell me bout something that happened during the seven hours you spent at school today."

It's frustrating being 17. Being told that we have so much responsibility and opportunity but still unable to actually do anything and still treated like a child.

"It was the last day of school, so nothing really happened. Signed year books, exchanged numbers, gave cards to teachers, and all that"
"And did you ask if anyone was interested in working on the farm this summer?" "Yeah."
I really didn't. Don't they know how embarrassing that is for someone my age? I'm still not sure why, but it just is. "Nobody wanted to though."
"It's alright, son," dad cut in before mom could expose my lie. "I honestly don't think we'll need too much help harvesting this year. The crops are getting sparser and sparser every year. I fully expect us to be able to do it ourselves."
For the first time in a long time, my parents fell into silence.

Illustration by Victoria Elliot
Illustration by Victoria Elliot
We made our living off of this land, and selling summer produce at the local farmers' market was how we made our summer earnings. "I was thinking about applying to work at Freddy's this summer, maybe I could-- "
"That greasy excuse for a diner? Nonsense. You'll work the farmer's market like you always do. There will be plenty of work for you to do."
My mom was right. I spent that summer picking tomatoes, cucumber, rhubarb, strawberries, nectarine, and a ton of other produce, and selling them at the farmers' market in the town square. And since all of my friends worked at Freddy's, I found myself there when I wasn't working. Like every other aspect of my family's life, it evoked a sense of old fashioned American nostalgia. Waitresses skating across checkerboard tile floors, jukeboxes playing Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, fry cooks wearing those silly paper hats made the place look like the spot to go right after you leave the sock-hop. Coincidentally my  friends had names to match. As soon as I sat down, Pete slid into the red vinyl seat across from me and Sally skated in behind him with three milkshakes.
"You're earlier than usual," Sally said as she slid my vanilla milkshake across the table.
"Well, I sold out, so I had to close up shop. Business is slow this summer." My parents were pretty worried about it and I was starting to become worried too.
"Two words. Climate Change." Pete always had his theories.
"Come on, they've been saying that for decades, and it hasn't gotten that much warmer." "Don't deny the science, Sally. We read about it way back when we were kids, in Adam's old encyclopedias. The last polar bear hasn't died off yet, but summer is definitely longer than it used to be."
I didn't like to think about change.
"You know, it's probably nothing different at all. I'm sure it's some 200 year cycle none of the living generations have experienced before. Everything's probably going to go back to normal in a couple years. We shouldn't be worried about it. Nothing's changing."
"But it's enough change to make people move to the city." Sally didn't like change either.
"Nobody's going to the city, who told you that?"
"Well for one, the Parsons. They're headed out at the end of September."
"That's because Sam is headed off to college in the fall, and they'll be empty nesters. Can't blame them for wanting to downsize."
"Well what about the Patels?"
"Who?! No." I said. "They're friends of the family. They'd never leave here."
"Cameron said he saw a couple secret agent looking guys drive up to their house and offer them a briefcase."
"A briefcase? I bet you think it was full of cash."
"What else would it be filled with, Sal?"
"Also, are you really gonna listen to the same guy who claimed that me and my parents are lizard people?"
"No offense, Sally, but I believed him. But whether or not they actually had a briefcase, the Patels have sold their land, and are moving by the end of the year."
"Well who says it's the climate that's making them move? Maybe they just want a change of scenery," I began to sound defensive.
"Think about it," Pete began, "your family, the Patels, the Parsons, and maybe three other families around here are the only ones who actually make a living off of their land. If they don't see a chance of their production getting better, don't you think they  would gladly accept an offer for their unproductive land?"
"Well, if the sum is large enough," Sally said.
"No. This land is priceless. Our families have lived here for generations, you don't understand what this lifestyle means to us." That was the only time I dramatically stormed out of any place, ever. I couldn't imagine living away from our farm, the chickens, and the woods behind the meadow. How could anyone live cooped up in a small box in a crowded city, with no wildlife, no fresh eggs… people had been doing it for centuries but I couldn’t see myself as a part of that.

When I pulled up to the house there was a black sedan sitting in the driveway. I allowed myself to wallow in denial during the few seconds it took to get from my truck to the front door, and I tried to hold my self together when I saw two men in suits sitting at the kitchen table with my parents. But I fell into a hysterical fit of laughter when I saw the briefcase on the table. By the time I got to my bedroom, my laughter had turned into crying. Weeping, is probably the more appropriate word for it.  Staring at the ceiling, trying to put together other pieces of evidence that may have hinted to my parents' actions, I waited for my parents to knock on my door to tell me about the decision they'd made without me. Hours passed, and they never came. It wasn't until I saw that the sun had risen that I realized that they likely went to bed crying as well. This couldn't have been an easy decision, and they were surely more upset than I was. I arose when the scent of bacon wafted up to my room and summoned me to the kitchen.
"Good morning, Adam", my dad said, putting down his paper. Behind his glasses, I could see dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. I felt as if I saw an older reflection of myself as I pulled out the chair across from him.
"Morning dad."
My mom, however, beamed as she placed my eggs and bacon on the table. "Morning darlin." "Hi mom." We were silent until she sat down, attempting to suppress her smile, but the evidence of her apparent elation escaped through her eyes. After a few moments of awkward silence and slight confusion, my dad broke the silence "Son, you're a smart kid, and I'm sure you already know what's happened. Times have been hard, and we've been offered a pretty large sum to sell the land."
Hearing him elaborate would just upset me even more. "So what's gonna happen now? Are we just gonna cut all of our ties to this place and move away?" My dad began to say something but paused to take his glasses off and rub his eyes, but before he could say anything, my mom took my hand and said "We're moving to the city."
Of course we were.
I knew my dad was partly doing this for my mom. She'd always thought of herself as a city girl stuck in the country, even though she didn't know any more than I did what that meant. "But why?" I said but I sounded like a whining child, so I cleared my throat and repeated myself in a deeper timbre. "It's gonna be great, Adam! We'll be able to live in a high rise, go to shows, and take the subway!" Now she was sounding like a child.
I stared into her eyes in disbelief, "We can do all that now… what about us mom? What about the horses, and the memories, and the land--"
"Enough about the land! It's not doing anything for us, so we have to leave it behind. And you'll still have your memories."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"It wouldn't have made a difference. You would have been adamant about staying here, but we didn't have a choice."
"You had a choice. You chose money and a glamorous lifestyle over hard work and history." I watched the fire in her eyes burn out into something that looked a little more like guilt.
"We're leaving at the beginning of September. In time for you to start school."
"And what are you two going to do?"
"How do you mean, son?"
"Like work?"
"Well, we won't have to, but I was thinking about getting back into city planning."
"You know, before you were born, your mom was the best planner around."
"And you, dad?"
"I'll do some freelance writing, and maybe some web design."
"Well, it looks like you've got it all figured out. Excuse me, while I go tell my friends that I'm moving away in less than a month."
"I'm sorry, son, we should have told you sooner."
"What difference would it have made?"

I met up with Sally and Pete by the creek the day before we left. "We don't usually come out this far," Pete said, attempting to keep his balance on the unfamiliar rocks in the stream. "The surveyors are scoping out the land pretty close to our usual spot."
"Already? Jeez, you'd think they'd let you guys leave first."
"Looks like they're pretty eager to get to something."
"Probably gold."
"Or more condos."
"Why aren't you guys taking this seriously?" Sally said, after saying nothing during the entire hike. "Why aren't you more upset?"
"I don't want to be a Debbie Downer about it. Yeah, it sucks that I have to leave here, but I can't do anything about it. Gottaaccept it."
"But you've never lived anywhere else."
"I need to start some time, don't I? Let's not think of this as too big of a deal. I'm not gonna be living too far away from here, and we can visit each other. It will be a good change of pace. I'm sure I'll adjust to city life just fine."

And I did.
The apartment we moved into was small, but cozy. I thought I would get antsy about not having any chores or yard work to do, but there were plenty of other things to keep me occupied. Restaurants to try, used bookstores to browse, concerts to check out… and I never had to drive anywhere or charge up my truck.
It wasn’t too long before I forgot what it was like to live out in the country. I began to realize how much freedom I had, living in a city where everything was so accessible. The only thing I could complain about was the lack of fresh air. My lungs weren't used to smog, exhaust, and the proximity of the germs of millions of people.
Slowly but surely my newly realized freedom began to be taken away by the air pollution. By the time Pete and Sally came to visit, I'd already had to keep an inhaler at all times, and I couldn't go on a run without collapsing into an asthma attack. "I didn't know you were asthmatic," Pete said.
"I wasn't. I was fine when I first got here, but I guess I'm just not used the air yet."
"You know what you need? A nice, long hike."
"That might just make it worse, Sal, I'm sure I just need to get adjusted to it. That's what my mom thinks."
"Okay, but what do you think?"
"I really like it here. A lot better than I thought I would. I don't want to leave because I can't handle it… I feel like that would be like giving up."
"You're not used to this environment, Adam, and you're probably just gonnamake it worse by staying here. We're not asking you to leave forever, but we just want you to take a break and see what happens."
We started to get worried when I got headaches everyday and a perpetual sore throat. The doctors echoed what my friends said, and it wasn't just the outdoor air, but the indoor air that was wreaking havoc on my body too. It wasn't until I missed a week of school that I heard my parents decide to do something about my condition. I woke up, feeling as if I were about to die of thirst, but I found the pitcher that my mom kept on my bedside table to be empty.
"Mom," I croaked almost inaudibly. I knew she couldn't have heard me, so I had to go about quenching my thirst on my own. My entire body hurt, and it was quite a task just to roll out of bed and get to my bedroom door. Trudging down the hallway, I heard my parents speaking in hushed tones in the kitchen.
"It's not getting any better, Olivia. He's been sick in bed for a week!"
"We don't know what's making him sick! It's probably just a bug that he picked up from school—who's ever heard of someone getting fevers and nausea from the air?"
"I'm confused as much as you are Liv, but we need to get him out of here. It might be the apartment, it might be his school, but we can't keep doing what we're doing, because he's only getting worse."
"Curtis, he just needs to adjust. It's probably not even that bad, it's probably just an act so that we can move back out to the country."
"Do you hear yourself right now?"
"I know exactly what I'm saying. I've wanted to move to the city for my whole life, that's all I've ever wanted. And every time there was an opportunity, it was always something. The kid. The house. The land. The memories. And now that we're finally here, now that I'm finally happy, we find that our son just can't live here?"
"So you were never happy before? All those years?"
Before I could hear anything else, I felt a strong itching feeling creep up from my chest into my throat, and I knew that I would probably blow my cover if I let the cough escape. I stumbled as quickly and quietly as I could to my room and as soon as I let my door shut, I fell into a heap on the floor and hacked until my entire body hurt for what felt like a lifetime. My parents came in after a couple minutes, replenished my water supply and promptly left after my attack was over. How they could take care of me without having concern for me was disturbing and unreal. I felt like I was at the center of attention, yet I was still being ignored. My condition would only get worse if I stayed in that apartment, even if they did change the insulation, or remove whatever was causing my body to react in that way. The only way I thought I could get their attention was if I took care of my problem myself.

Illustration by Victoria Elliot
Illustration by Victoria Elliot
I decided to take a one way ticket back home on a day when I felt a little less like I was going to die. I still felt terrible and the trip seemed to take forever but the first breath that I took when I stepped off the train was the most fulfilling feeling I'd ever experienced, like taking a cool refreshing gulp of water after being stranded in the desert. Sal was there to greet me and we picked up Pete on the way to her house.
"How do you feel?"
"Amazing. I haven't breathed so easily in months."
"Well, I told my parents you'd be visiting for the weekend, and they'll start asking questions if you stay any longer," Sal said.
"You could stay with me for a while, but you'd have to stay under the radar before people start asking questions."
"What did you tell your parents?"
"I didn't tell them anything. They're too busy trying to live their glamorous lives that they don't even know I'm there. We'll just see how long it takes me to realize I'm gone, and then I'll figure out what happens next." I spent the weekend recovering at Sal's house, and for old time's sake, we decided to hike up to the old creek. It took longer than usual, but with ragged breathing and exhausted limbs, I made it to our childhood meetupspot. Everything looked the same, but something felt strangely different. The woods were silent, and there was no wildlife to be found. "What happened to this place?"
"What do you mean, it's the same as how you left it," Pete said.
"Did they start to build anything over here?" I asked.
"Not that I know of. I expected them to develop all of this but it's still all open land." Pete said.
"You also thought they'd be digging for gold." We hiked downstream and the woods became even more peculiar. The birds had stopped chirping all together, and the faint smell of rotting flesh occasionally drifted through the air. We came across a dead frog, and then a rabbit, and next a raccoon. The further we hiked, the larger the dead animals became. We'd had enough by the time we'd reached a dead moose.
"I think we should get out of here," Sal said, "I don't think I want to be around to find out what is killing all these animals."
"Chill out, we're not in a horror movie."
"I realize that Pete, but there is a reason why all of these animals are dead, maybe we should--"
"Shhhh," just a bit past the creek, much further than we'd explored together, I heard a faint mechanical sound.
"Don't shush me! I'm being logical! We really need to-- "
"SHHH!!" I began to lead them toward the commotion that I heard, but before we could reach it,  what I thought was a dead deer came to life.
"Hey, buddy? Are you alright?"
"Are you kidding me?" the deer responded, "No, I'm not alright. I just got laid off from my job, and the oil company wants me to relocate to another town."
I felt bad for him, "What oil company?"
"What difference does it make? They're buying up all the land and the local businesses, and everybody's losing their jobs. My friend Raccoonathought she could make it in the city. And now she's eating out of trash cans. Scavenging, can you believe it?"
"Pete, Sal, we should really help this guy!" When I turned around, Pete was vomiting rainbows and sunshine and Sal was sharing a honeycomb with a bear.
"Adam, you should really try this, it's organic!"
"In a minute Sal," I turned back to the deer, but he was gone, and I was face to face with a tall man, black with coal dust. He took off his goggles to reveal the sad bloodshot eyes of my father. He formed his lips to say something, but before he could pronounce a word, he clawed for his throat and fell to the ground, gasping for breath. I took a step to help him, but I immediately fell to the ground in an asthma attack. All I could see was a blinding white light, but I could faintly hear the voice of the deer saying my name. When I came to, I found that the light came from a small flashlight held by a man in a lab coat. "Adam? If you can here me, please say 'yes'."

"Mr. Deer?'"
"Actually, my name is Dr. Buck. Do you know where you are right now?"
"A hospital?"
"Good, now do you know why you're here?"
"No."
"Adam, you and your friends suffered from toxic gas inhalation. I'll go and inform your parents that you've regained consciousness."
I was right, my parents didn't seem worried at all. They were furious.
"You almost died, do you realize that Adam? We were searching all over the city with nothing but a picture of you. If those security guards hadn't found you by the creek, we'd still be out there!" My mom sounded more like that she was upset that I wasted so much of her time.
"Adam, what were you thinking?" my dad said, beginning to sound more like a concerned parent should.
"Well, I felt awful, and considering what the doctor said, I thought I would get out of the city to see if I would improve. And I did."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"I did! And so did the asthma attacks, and the doctors. You guys weren't responding to anything else, so I had to leave." They were silent for the first time in a while, but before I could let the silence last too long, I interjected "Also, when were you guys going to tell me that you sold our land to an oil company?"
My dad, genuinely shocked asked, "Who told you that?" I paused trying to figure out how I would tell them that I was informed by a recently laid off deer who'd been resurrected shortly after my arrival to that part of the forest. I couldn't figure out how to make myself seem like a logical adult, so I said "It doesn't matter who told me, how could you let this happen?"
My mom, speaking for the first time since her rant, "You don't know everything, Adam. You don't know how hard it was to support the family with nothing but that land. And do you think that we'd get offers for it if we weren't sitting on top of something valuable like natural gas?"
"But do you know that it's wreaking havoc on the ecosystem? We found tons of dead animal carcasses, and so many of them are losing their jobs."
"So many animals are losing their jobs?"
"Adam, the nurses said that you were mumbling about a coal miner and a talking bear, and some colorful characters that you met in the forest."
"I was just dreaming."
"You know, Sally and Peter were also shouting about equally vivid personalities in their sleep too." Then I started to realize that I didn't really know what had happened in the forest that caused me to be sent to the hospital.
"You don’t even know why you woke up in the hospital, do you?"
"No, I'm not entirely sure."
"You came across an area that was leaking a combination of gases," my dad said. "The doctor said you were probably hallucinating, and the gas leak explains why you all were passed out when the site security found you."
"Adam, I know how much you love that place, but you have to promise us that you'll stay away from there." My mom said, for the first time sounding concerned about my well being.
"So neither of you are worried about the other people that might come across that gas leak, or all the dead wildlife?"
"It's not our problem anymore, it's the gas company's problem." In my mom's short sentence, I understood why there were so many environmental problems that are never addressed. They were perpetuated by greed, and the responsibility was diverted to people who didn't care at all. The worst part was realizing that I could neither live in my new home or my old one.
"I'll be in my room."

I sat in my room for the next few hours with the air purifier on, thinking about how great I felt as soon as I stepped off the train in my home town, and how awful I would feel if I stayed in the city for too long. I had to get back to see Sal and Pete to figure out what to do about our old farm, but I knew that my parents would be keeping a closer watch on me. So I went back to school for a few weeks, to prove to them that I wasn't going anywhere.
To buy myself some time away from home, I printed out a summary and permission slip for an overnight field trip to an observatory up the coast. They gave me their signature and money for the trip, and I got on a train back home and met with Sal and Pete at Freddy's.
"You can't be here long, Adam, and you can't stay with us," Sal said. "My parents have promised to call yours if they so much as heard a rumor that you were coming to town."
"I figured that." I said. "I grabbed some camping equipment, and I planned to set up in the barn away from where we think the drill site was."
"So what's your plan?" Pete asked.
"I'm not trying to start any kind of revolution or get my family's land back. I just want to draw attention to the problems that the gas company is causing in our backyards."
"So what do you want to do, a protest?"
"Something like that. I was thinking about doing something with all the animal carcasses we found. We need to show people what's really going on, and they won't know or believe it unless they see it."
We decided that we would drag as many animal carcasses and skeletons as we could find to the area around where the natural gas company were drilling, but we needed to be careful about exposure to the gases, so Pete ordered some gas masks and told his parents they were for a group costume.
We took pictures of the carcasses, the contaminated creek water, the dying blackberry bushes, as well as the drill sites and fences, printed them, and put them in envelopes along with letters constructed in ransom note style with characters from magazines that said simply "We are suffocating".
One night, we put an envelope in every mailbox in the town. I went home that night with another envelope and placed it in my parents' mailbox before entering the apartment.

"How was the trip son?" my dad asked.

"Fun!" I replied before going back to my room.

The next morning, I sat in bed reading a book. I heard a knock on the door, but before I could respond, my dad stuck his head in the door.

"Hey, son, can we talk to you for a second?" I came out of my room and my mom was sitting at the kitchen table watching a story on the news. I saw video footage from a helicopter of the drill site on my family's land and the ground peppered with the animal carcasses we placed there.

The story cut to a terrified mother, frantic about a letter that she received in the mail. "I am scared! I am scared for my children, I am scared for my neighbors, and I'm scared for myself!"

The next interview was Pete with tears in his eyes "What does this mean? Do we have to leave? Are we safe?" With crazed eyes, he got closer to the camera, saying "Some one… save us! Save the animals! Save the planet!"

I was trying really hard to control my laughter, but I was able to regain my composure when my mom turned to me with her letter and asked, "Did you have something to do with this?"

"I did. People need to know. People need to be scared about it, and people need to be made uncomfortable. Because if we keep redirecting the responsibility and ignoring the issues, before long, we won't be able to live anywhere."

[END]









A very good review of Adam Trexler's ''ANTHROPOCENE FICTIONS'' appears now in the OLR in the UK -- (The Oxford Literary Review)

 
BOOK COVER AND INTRO UVA PRESS
 
 
An eagle-eyed observer of the climate-themed literary scene in Britain spotted this new review of Anthropocene Fictions by Adam Trexler -- a nonfiction book of essays published by UVA Press two years ago! -- from the University of Virginia Press -- and while that book has not been reviewed very much at all, since academic journals take their time reviewing such academic tomes due to the long lead time needed to assign and edit such reviews in academic journals -- however, yes, better late than never ......and while the book came out long ago and this new review is good! The review itself is no longer behind any paywall, as reported earlier, and I have prepared some brief excerpts from the review which I downloaded after it came out in the July 2016 issue of the OLR, which is now online at

http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/olr.2016.0184 
 
However, read on: this is perhaps the most important nonfiction study of 150 climate themed novels ever to be published yet on Planet Earth, as the Anthrocene bears down on us all. ENJOY!
 
Reviewed by Matthew Griffiths
https://www.alluvium-journal.org/author/matthew-griffiths/

Matthew Griffiths was born in Birmingham and worked in London as an editor for ten years before moving to Durham, where he got his  PhD on the poetics of climate change.
His poems have appeared many magazines and his stories in ''Doctor Who: Short Trips'' anthologies. A science-fiction novel, ''The Weather on Versimmon,'' was published by Big Finish in 2012. Matthew Griffiths critical book ''The New Poetics of Climate Change'' is due out from Bloomsbury in 2017.
 
[Matthew Griffiths studied under Timothy Clark at Durham University and has got an academic book coming out on Modernist Poetics and climate change in 2017 through Bloomsbury, which promises to be great. Timothy Clark was most likely fairly instrumental in getting this Adam Trexler tome reviewed (since Dr Clark is editor of the current issue of the OLR) as in Dr Clark's last book he talks about Trexler's work fairly extensively.]

 
 
 
 
The Oxford Literary Review 38.1 (2016): 149–164
 
Anthropocene Fictions: The Novel in a Time of Climate Change (Charlottesville and London, University of Virginia Press, 2015).

Just MOVE YOUR CURSOR ALONG the earlier blacked-out grafs to read them in plain sight.
 
Because it will have to factor in countless human and nonhuman agencies, the great climate change novel is unlikely to be written; yet, on the strength of Adam Trexler’s cogent and ranging account in Anthropocene Fictions, there are already a number of good climate change novels.
 
This makes sense given Trexler’s critique of such novels using the theory of Bruno Latour: fiction that is receptive to the agency of climate is also likely to be receptive to other positions, all of them participating in networks of cultural understanding.
 
We should be wary, therefore, of settling for a handful of texts to tell the tale of climate change. Yet it is also apparent from Trexler’s book that a canon of Anthropocene fiction— or in DanBloom’s coinage “cli-fi”is already solidifying, comprising texts such as Ian McKewan’s Solar, Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Wind-up Girl and Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Science in the Capital’ trilogy.
 
Since these serve for Trexler as indicative examples from what is clearly a comprehensive survey, and each of them is discussed at various points in his book, the dearth of strong examples on which he can draw is unfortunately emphasised. Nevertheless, his analysis is among the strongest of these texts I have read: rather than simply treating them topically, he makes clear the work that they are doing in a Latourian sense.
 
For instance, Trexler describes the melange of technologies put to service in ''The Wind-Up Girl'' as follows: Far from superannuating the past, the factory combines medieval animal power, Victorian presses and labor conditions, early 20th - century assembly lines, late-20th - century computing, and futuristic biotechnology into a single system, all to replicate the density of energy taken for granted in the late twentieth century.
 
Although Trexler does not make the link explicit, this recalls Latour’s illustration of ‘multiple times’ in We Have Never Been Modern: ‘I may use an electric drill, but I also use a hammer. The former is thirty-five years old, the latter hundreds of thousands. [. . . ] show me an activity that is homogeneous from the point of view of the modern time’.
 
Just as we should avoid fixating on the idea of “the” climate change novel, we should likewise be cautious of imagining that the novel is the best mode for engaging with it. Trexler’s occasional asides — for example, documentaries, nonfiction and films are said to ‘lack the novel’s capacity to interrogate the emotional, aesthetic, and living experience of the Anthropocene’ — can sound unhelpful when a multitude of approaches might clearly be adopted. Although Trexler expresses concern that by ‘Following a cross-genre approach, global warming could become still more dematerialized’ , a critical work such as this enables a nuanced understanding of what cultural construction of climate change might mean and, likewise, of how it cannot be used to gainsay the material effects of a warming world.
 
For instance, Trexler capably tackles Michael Crichton’s State of Fear — of which ‘over 1.5 million copies were printed in the United States alone’ (35) and which was invoked by Republican senator James M. Inhofe in rebutting the idea of global warming — by arguing that the novel undermines itself in using fiction to assert the absolute truth of science because it thus cannot account for its own, fictional affirmation of that position.
 
Trexler might then be seen to practise in critical terms the judo politics that Ulrich Beck describes ‘whose goal is to mobilize the superior strength of environmental miscreants against themselves’.
 
The other strength of Trexler’s survey is in its explication of what climate change does to literary form. The book details the gradual distortions and complications that occur to generic structures until they are better able to explore the Anthropocene’s complexities and implications. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is in the period of the Anthropocene’s recognition as such, or as a possibility, that the fiction emerges which Trexler finds most suited to the task.
 
The novels he ultimately endorses broadly fall in the mode of realism, although this conclusion is surprising given that Trexler premises his book on the idea that the concerns of canonical literature — character, society and so on — are in themselves ill-equipped to engage with the exigencies of a changing climate. The (relative) success of realism stems from the fact that earlier cli-fi novelists had attempted to reject climate change tout court, directing all their resources against it as a narrative event because none of these could bring its scale, agency and unintended emergence within the frame of fiction.
 
Latour observes in Politics of Nature that environmentalists had ‘come up with nothing better than a nature already composed, already totalized, already instituted to neutralize politics’,5- and there seems to have been a similar fear among the earlier novelists cited by Trexler that climate change would neutralise the operation of fiction as well. As a result of this threat, initial, more sensational examples of cli-fi homogenised the societies they represented to unify them in “overcoming” the “problem” of global warming, but thereby ended up championing a species of heroic, Western individualism. Understandably, this did not lead to particularly good novels; so, the emergence of more successful ones suggests merely that literary novels about climate change are written by writing literary novels about climate change.
 
The broadly canonical remit of such novels, however, still cannot allow for a correspondingly full recognition of relations among nonhuman agents and their effects on humans, and Trexler might usefully have drawn on work in new materialism to give a stronger account of this aspect of his study. Trexler’s other difficulty in Anthropocene Fictions is conceptual rather than analytical, in the shape of the more-problematic-than-itseems equivalence he proposes between the Anthropocene and climate change.
 
Neither is reducible to the other— if anything, anthropogenic climate change is merely one symptom of the Anthropocene— so while Trexler is wise to seek a term that will ‘shift the emphasis from individual thoughts, beliefs, and choices to a human process that has occurred across distinct social groups, countries, economies, and generations’, it is difficult to argue that this approach does more than swapping one contention for another.
 
The title seems more likely to have been chosen because the Anthropocene’s critical stock is currently high; even if the term is not formally adopted, it still reflects broader cultural concerns relating to anthropogenic climate change.
 
Another unanticipated quality of the phrase ‘Anthropocene fictions’ is its potentially tautological quality: all fictions could be considered ‘Anthropocenic’ in that both literary practice and the putative geological era are the result of complex networks of intentional and unintentional forces that, while directed in particular way, are irreducible to those directions.
 
If the Anthropocene is ratified as a geological epoch, then we should see more exploratory investigations of this correspondence— whether novelists intend them or not.
 
NOTE: At the time of writing, the question of whether we have entered the Anthropocene, and when it might have begun, is still in the process of being determined by the Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, under the International Commission on Stratigraphy.
 
 ===============
FULL TEXT
http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/olr.2016.0184

Because it will have to factor in countless human and nonhuman agencies, the great climate change novel is unlikely to be written; yet, on the strength of Adam Trexler's cogent and ranging account in Anthropocene Fictions, there are already a number of good climate change novels. This makes sense given Trexler's critique of such novels using the theory of Bruno Latour: fiction that is receptive to the agency of climate is also likely to be receptive to other positions, all of them participating in networks of cultural understanding.
 
We should be wary, therefore, of settling for a handful of texts to tell the tale of climate change. Yet it is also apparent from Trexler's book that a canon of Anthropocene fiction — or in Dan Bloom's coinage “cli-fi” — is already solidifying, comprising texts such as Ian McKewan's Solar, Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Wind-up Girl and Kim Stanley Robinson's ‘Science in the Capital’ trilogy. Since these serve for Trexler as indicative examples from what is clearly a comprehensive survey,1 and each of them is discussed at various points in his book, the dearth of strong examples on which he can draw is unfortunately emphasised. Nevertheless, his analysis is among the strongest of these texts I have read: rather than simply treating them topically, he makes clear the work that they are doing in a Latourian sense. For instance, Trexler describes the melange of technologies put to service in The Wind-Up Girl as follows:

Far from superannuating the past, the factory combines medieval animal power, Victorian presses and labor conditions, early-twentieth-century assembly lines, late-twentieth-century computing, and futuristic biotechnology into a single system, all to replicate the density of energy taken for granted in the late twentieth century. (217)
 
Although Trexler does not make the link explicit, this recalls Latour's illustration of ‘multiple times’ in We Have Never Been Modern: ‘I may use an electric drill, but I also use a hammer. The former is thirty-five years old, the latter hundreds of thousands. […] show me an activity that is homogeneous from the point of view of the modern time’.2
Just as we should avoid fixating on the idea of “the” climate change novel, we should likewise be cautious of imagining that the novel is the best mode for engaging with it. Trexler's occasional asides — for example, documentaries, nonfiction and films are said to ‘lack the novel's capacity to interrogate the emotional, aesthetic, and living experience of the Anthropocene’ (6) — can sound unhelpful when a multitude of approaches might clearly be adopted. Although Trexler expresses concern that by ‘Following a cross-genre approach, global warming could become still more dematerialized’ (6), a critical work such as this enables a nuanced understanding of what cultural construction of climate change might mean and, likewise, of how it cannot be used to gainsay the material effects of a warming world. For instance, Trexler capably tackles Michael Crichton's State of Fear — of which ‘over 1.5 million copies were printed in the United States alone’ (35) and which was invoked by Republican senator James M. Inhofe in rebutting the idea of global warming — by arguing that the novel undermines itself in using fiction to assert the absolute truth of science because it thus cannot account for its own, fictional affirmation of that position. Trexler might then be seen to practise in critical terms the judo politics that Ulrich Beck describes ‘whose goal is to mobilize the superior strength of environmental miscreants against themselves’.3
The other strength of Trexler's survey is in its explication of what climate change does to literary form. The book details the gradual distortions and complications that occur to generic structures until they are better able to explore the Anthropocene's complexities and implications. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is in the period of the Anthropocene's recognition as such, or as a possibility,4 that the fiction emerges which Trexler finds most suited to the task. The novels he ultimately endorses broadly fall in the mode of realism, although this conclusion is surprising given that Trexler premises his book on the idea that the concerns of canonical literature — character, society and so on — are in themselves ill equipped to engage with the exigencies of a changing climate. The (relative) success of realism stems from the fact that earlier cli-fi novelists had attempted to reject climate change tout court, directing all their resources against it as a narrative event because none of these could bring its scale, agency and unintended emergence within the frame of fiction. Latour observes in Politics of Nature that environmentalists had ‘come up with nothing better than a nature already composed, already totalized, already instituted to neutralize politics’,5 and there seems to have been a similar fear among the earlier novelists cited by Trexler that climate change would neutralise the operation of fiction as well. As a result of this threat, initial, more sensational examples of cli-fi homogenised the societies they represented to unify them in “overcoming” the “problem” of global warming, but thereby ended up championing a species of heroic, Western individualism. Understandably, this did not lead to particularly good novels; so, the emergence of more successful ones suggests merely that literary novels about climate change are written by writing literary novels about climate change. The broadly canonical remit of such novels, however, still cannot allow for a correspondingly full recognition of relations among nonhuman agents and their effects on humans, and Trexler might usefully have drawn on work in new materialism to give a stronger account of this aspect of his study.
Trexler's other difficulty in Anthropocene Fictions is conceptual rather than analytical, in the shape of the more-problematic-than-it-seems equivalence he proposes between the Anthropocene and climate change. Neither is reducible to the other — if anything, anthropogenic climate change is merely one symptom of the Anthropocene — so while Trexler is wise to seek a term that will ‘shift the emphasis from individual thoughts, beliefs, and choices to a human process that has occurred across distinct social groups, countries, economies, and generations’ (4), it is difficult to argue that this approach does more than swapping one contention for another. The title seems more likely to have been chosen because the Anthropocene's critical stock is currently high; even if the term is not formally adopted, it still reflects broader cultural concerns relating to anthropogenic climate change.
Another unanticipated quality of the phrase ‘Anthropocene fictions’ is its potentially tautological quality: all fictions could be considered ‘Anthropocenic’ in that both literary practice and the putative geological era are the result of complex networks of intentional and unintentional forces that, while directed in particular way, are irreducible to those directions. If the Anthropocene is ratified as a geological epoch, then we should see more exploratory investigations of this correspondence — whether novelists intend them or not.
Notes
1 Trexler's study was partly resourced by the European Social Fund and conducted with Adeline Johns-Putra at the University of Exeter, as he acknowledges.
2 Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, translated by Catherine Porter (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf–Simon & Schuster, 1993), 75.
3 Ulrich, Beck, World at Risk, translated by Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), 99.
4 At the time of writing, the question of whether we have entered the Anthropocene, and when it might have begun, is still in the process of being determined by the Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, under the International Commission on Stratigraphy.
5 Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy, translated by Catherine Porter (Cambridge, MA and London, Harvard University Press, 2004), 3.



About this Journal

OLR devotes itself to outstanding writing in deconstruction, literary theory, psychoanalytic theory, political theory and related forms of exploratory thought. Founded in 1977 it remains responsive to new concerns and committed to patient, inventive reading as the wellspring of critical research. It has published work by many trailblazing thinkers and seeks to take forward the movement of deconstructive thought in the face of as many forms and institutions as possible.
The journal publishes both general issues and special issues, each of the latter featuring a provocative theme (e.g. ‘The Word of War’, ‘Telepathies,’ or ‘Disastrous Blanchot’). It invites relevant contributions across a wide range of intellectual disciplines on issues and writers belonging to or engaging the work of deconstructive thinking (such as Derrida, Heidegger, Blanchot, Levinas, Irigaray, and others).
 

Monday, May 30, 2016

Jonah Bromwich on Stonehenge in the Anthrocene

New Report Warns of Climate Change Disasters That Rival Worst of Scary Hollywood’s Cli-Fi Flicks


Photo
Stonehenge, Salisbury, England. Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times
Stonehenge eroding under the forces of extreme weather. Venice slowly collapsing into its canals. The Statue of Liberty gradually flooding.
 
Images like these, familiar from Hollywood climate-catastrophe thrillers, were evoked by a joint report, released on Thursday by Unesco, the United Nations Environment Program and the Union of Concerned Scientists, that detailed the threat climate change could pose to World Heritage sites on five continents.
 
(The Australian continent was originally included in the report, but that its government requested it be removed because of concerns that the information would hurt its tourism industry.)
 
Adam Markham, the deputy director for climate and energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and the report’s lead author, said that while many of the sites were bound to be affected by factors including a rise in sea levels, intense storms and wildfires, planning could go a long way toward protecting them.
 
“It is a very tough challenge, but if we recognize the scale of the problem — and I don’t think most people realize how big it is or how fast the changes are coming — then I think there is a lot we can do,” he said.
The report highlights 31 sites in 29 countries that have already felt some impact from climate change, including well-known tourist destinations like Easter Island and Yellowstone National Park. It was drawn from peer-reviewed science literature, technical reports and local experts, as well as domestic evaluations of the sites prepared for the World Heritage Committee.
Photo
Venice’s Grand Canal. Credit Andrea Wyner for The New York Times
Though the report emphasizes the importance of the recent Paris climate accord, Mr. Markham said that emissions already affecting the climate are likely to create “a lot of change and impact.”
“We don’t have enough resources to save every threatened asset,” he said. “Can we save every lighthouse that is on an eroding cliff? Probably not. So there are going to have to be hard choices made in every country.”
Thirteen listed heritage sites were examined in comprehensive case studies intended to demonstrate the way climate change has already had an impact. In a study of the Statue of Liberty, for instance, the effects of Hurricane Sandy, which scientists have shown were exacerbated by a rise in the sea level, are explored at length.
Photo
The Statue of Liberty, New York City. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Rebecca Beavers, the coastal adaptation coordinator of the National Park Service who helps the agency plan for the impact of climate change, and was an adviser on the report, said the damage to the facilities and infrastructure at the Statue of Liberty from the 2012 storm had precipitated a new focus on how best to contend with extreme weather.
“I think that it’s important to recognize that adaptation is continuous change,” Ms. Beavers said. “It’s not isolated action, it’s not a single step. It really is a process.”
The report includes a series of recommendations for government agencies, the tourism industry and heritage site managers. It emphasizes that the sites themselves represent a trove of historical information on human responses to extreme weather, and that the archaeological data they hold can help guide policy makers.
Mr. Markham, who is British, said he personally was very upset about what was happening to Skara Brae, a 5,000-year-old Neolithic settlement that is one of many sites off the coast of Scotland at risk from coastal erosion.
“This is the famous one, which I’ve never seen and I want to be able to see, but I care about all of those sites,” Mr. Markham said. “For me, that is my cultural heritage, disappearing into the ocean.”

’umanità sopravvivrà ai cambiamenti climatici? Arriva in Italia la “climate fiction”

’umanità sopravvivrà ai cambiamenti climatici? Arriva in Italia la “climate fiction”

di Redazione Il Libraio | 08.05.2016

Nel suo ultimo romanzo Bruno Arpaia immagina un mondo sconvolto dai cambiamenti climatici. In un'Europa devastata, gli uomini migrano verso Nord, in cerca di un posto dove sopravvivere. Arriva anche in Italia la "climate fiction"

Pare sia in arrivo dagli Stati Uniti una nuova tendenza letteraria: la “climate fiction” o “fantaecologia”. Un sottogenere della fantascienza che si concentra sulle conseguenze dell’inquinamento e dei cambiamenti climatici, immaginando i futuri scenari ecologici con cui dovrà confrontarsi l’umanità.
Bruno Arpaia, primo autore italiano a scrivere “involontariamente” (“In verità, ho scoperto l’esistenza di questo genere quando avevo già scritto i due terzi del romanzo”) un libro che si lega a questo filone (Qualcosa, là fuori, Guanda), ha dichiarato all’Espresso: “Credo che la ‘cli-fi’ ci offra l’opportunità di sapere di più sul cambiamento climatico attivando la parte emozionale di noi stessi. Vivere, attraverso un romanzo, l’innalzamento del livello del mare a New York, o partecipare con i protagonisti di un racconto a una tragica migrazione climatica in una Germania desertificata ci colpisce dritto al cuore e, grazie all’empatia con i personaggi, ci immerge nelle complesse questioni scientifiche alla base degli avvenimenti narrati”.
E veniamo alla trama del nuovo romanzo di Arpaia, che ci mostra Pianure screpolate, argini di fango secco, fiumi aridi, polvere giallastra, case e capannoni abbandonati: in un’Europa prossima ventura, devastata dai mutamenti climatici, decine di migliaia di “migranti ambientali” sono in marcia per raggiungere la Scandinavia, diventata, insieme alle altre nazioni attorno al circolo polare artico, il territorio dal clima più mite e favorevole agli insediamenti umani.
Livio Delmastro, anziano professore di neuroscienze, è uno di loro. Ha insegnato a Stanford, ha avuto una magnifica compagna, è diventato padre, ma alla fine è stato costretto a tornare in un’Italia quasi desertificata, sferzata da profondi sconvolgimenti sociali e politici, dalla corruzione, dagli scontri etnici, dalla violenza per le strade. Lì, persi la moglie e il figlio, per sedici anni si è ritrovato solo in un mondo che si sta sfaldando, senza più voglia di vivere, ma anche senza il coraggio di farla finita.
Poi, come migliaia di altri, ha pagato guide ed esploratori e ora, tra sete, fame e predoni, cammina in colonna attraverso terre sterili, valli riarse e città in rovina, in un continente stravolto e irriconoscibile…

A cli-fi novelist from Italy: BRUNO ARPAIA -- author of "'Qualcosa, là fuori"

Bruno Arpaia, 'Qualcosa, là fuori' - La recensione

Un viaggio avventuroso con gli scafisti del 2080 A.D.: il futuro contemporaneo di un pianeta morente

 
In the novels of Bruno Arpaia one of the most charming aspects is the role of science: strict in sources and in the arguments put forward yet completely at the service of the plot. Something out there pushes the suggestion in the near future, to here of parallel worlds evoked by the energy of the vacuum. Is a news on the road from cinematographic cuts that in its own way takes the place of science itself - to the multiplication of its appeals inascoltabili, annoying as insects - in making imaginable the horizon that perhaps awaits us. Between neuroscience and cli-fi -- aka climate fiction, a nightmare limpid, inexorable, compelling: a formidable allegory of the present.
 
Time, Space, light. Is a tripartite synesthesia and distorted to govern the structure of something out there. The action takes place in 2080 or thereabout, women soldiers guide a transhumance desperate from Italy to Scandinavia, the north still living in a world that is dying. Liveable and armoured therefore by the European Union of the north, beyond the Baltic Sea penetrated in the lowlands of the Germanic in a maze of mangroves. To his adventures in the middle of the caravan Livio, the elderly protagonist, sandwiching dramatic flashback of the past: the failure of the technological revolution, America that expels immigrants, Naples a casbah prey of chaos, the regression of civilization.
 
The light pervades this novel so ansiogena, spectral. Now labored to brush the sky behind a ridge, now dense, dusty, full of lumps and impurities, now bloody and implacable as the sun at midday to braccare migrants. Up to damped at sunset in a "malva painful", a breach of the indigo and the prelude to the dark lercio night and new albe gruesome. With respect to other apocalyptic visions to which particular cinema has accustomed us - typical one of the nature that takes precedence over the planet inurbato - here nature seems to suffer together to his creatures with the rains evaporated before touching the ground, the alvei burned rivers, the coasts impaludate, dust ubiquitous.
 
The phase shift of the temporal order is at the origin of the thrill that i travels while I write in thirty degrees of spring in Milan. Nobody remembered with accuracy when everything was started but Livio kept in the memory the picture of a polar bear imprisoned in ice, the entries for a conference on climate change held in Paris in '15, epoch in which humanity still believed to be able to repair the planet as you do with a crack in the wall... I now take a newspaper at the event: in the torrid 2016 each month has already reached a record of temperatures on the previous year, 2015 which was the hottest ever strilla Nasa in a low voice. The speed with which increase the global temperatures (April 2016 in Italy has marked 2.8 degrees above average), whisper experts of the Cnr, is higher than the speed with which decisions are taken to mitigate the effects of climate change.
 
When will it be, or when it was the famous point of no return? The contemporaneity of the future is the brilliant narrative trick that allows the writer to tell the anthropological changes and the social upheaval and politicians to a future that resembles damn at present. The water crisis and the muscular demagoguery in odor of racism of possible new leader of the United States and conflicts in the Middle East and the great migrations that in Europe tickling ancient instincts, recovery of borders and iron curtains, deculturizzazione of society. Naples, recalls Livio, at a certain point sold the Veiled Christ to the museum of Nuuk, Greenland. That fantasy. However a well thought of the world has already gone back, as there are already member of heritage destroyed by violence and fanaticism or by the fury of nature?
 
 
 
Even in the damnation of an inhuman time, Bruno Arpaia remains faithful to the famous words of the American poet Muriel Rukeyser ("The universe is made of stories, not of atoms") and to a way of narrating full rhythm but at the same time mild and reflexive, and empathetic with salted leaps of irony, for example on the oasis at 1500 meters where the Swiss are asserragliati. Something out there that is not a warning to consciences nor simply a "uncomfortable truth". The adventure of the characters takes place especially on the most intimate of the meditations and of human relations.

Poetic intermezzos are dedicated to the relationship between the time of the exterior and the interior one, to the discovery of the finiteness of the institution (Ground) on which basavamo our representation of infinite, to the mysterious instinct that allows our species to survive even in the face of pain immeasurable. And the perception of fear that slows down the time, the creative process and recreation of the memory. The Madeleine proustiana, Livio tells the day that the dewatering pumps found an unexpected pit, you transustanziò in the base element: water.

Is there something out there behind the clouds of ephemeral storm or just our raffigurarcelo with those colors, flavors that we seem to have already tasted? There is no time for responses. Runs off in one breath this novel as a tide, leaving on the shore a burr of light full of tenderness and solidarity, to float on the long trail of questions.

Qualcosa là fuori
Qualcosa, là fuori, particolare della copertina – Credits: © plainpicture / Böhm Monika
Nei romanzi di Bruno Arpaia uno degli aspetti più affascinanti è il ruolo della scienza: rigorosa nelle fonti e nelle argomentazioni eppure completamente al servizio dell'intreccio. Qualcosa, là fuori spinge la suggestione nel futuro prossimo, al di qua dei mondi paralleli evocati da L'energia del vuoto. È una novella on the road dal taglio cinematografico che a suo modo prende il posto della scienza stessa - al moltiplicarsi dei suoi appelli inascoltabili, fastidiosi come insetti - nel rendere immaginabile l'orizzonte che forse ci aspetta. Fra neuroscienze e cli-fi -- aka climate fiction, un incubo limpidissimo, inesorabile, avvincente: una formidabile allegoria del presente.

Il tempo, lo spazio, la luce. È una sinestesia tripartita e distorta a governare la struttura di Qualcosa, là fuori. L'azione si svolge nel 2080 o giù di lì, donne soldato guidano una transumanza disperata dall'Italia alla Scandinavia, il nord ancora vivibile in un mondo che sta morendo. Vivibile e perciò blindato dall'Unione Europea del Nord, oltre il mar Baltico penetrato nel bassopiano germanico in un dedalo di mangrovie. Alle sue avventure nel mezzo della carovana Livio, l'anziano protagonista, inframmezza drammatici flashback del passato: il fallimento della rivoluzione tecnologica, l'America che espelle gli immigrati, Napoli una casbah preda del caos, la regressione della civiltà.

La luce pervade questo romanzo in maniera ansiogena, spettrale. Ora affaticata a pennellare il cielo dietro un crinale, ora densa, polverosa, piena di grumi e impurità, ora sanguinosa e implacabile come il sole di mezzogiorno a braccare i migranti. Fino a smorzarsi al tramonto in un "malva doloroso", una breccia d'indaco che prelude al buio lercio della notte e a nuove albe raccapriccianti. Rispetto ad altre visioni apocalittiche a cui soprattutto il cinema ci ha abituato - tipica quella della natura che riprende il sopravvento sul pianeta inurbato - qui la natura sembra soffrire insieme alle sue creature, con le piogge evaporate prima di toccare il suolo, gli alvei riarsi dei fiumi, le coste impaludate, il pulviscolo onnipresente.

Lo sfasamento dell'ordine temporale è all'origine del brivido che mi percorre mentre scrivo nei trenta gradi della primavera milanese. Nessuno ricordava con esattezza quando tutto era cominciato ma Livio serbava nella memoria la foto di un orso polare imprigionato nella banchisa, le voci di una conferenza sul clima tenutasi a Parigi nel '15, epoca in cui l'umanità pensava ancora di poter riparare il pianeta come si fa con una crepa nel muro... Ora prendo un giornale a caso: nel torrido 2016 ogni mese ha già segnato un record di temperature sull'anno precedente, il 2015 che fu il più caldo di sempre, strilla la Nasa a bassa voce. La velocità con cui aumentano le temperature globali (aprile 2016 in Italia ha segnato 2,8 gradi sopra la media), sussurrano gli esperti del Cnr, è superiore alla velocità con cui vengono prese le decisioni per mitigare gli effetti del cambiamento climatico.

Quando sarà, o quando è stato, il famoso punto di non ritorno? La contemporaneità del futuro è il geniale trucco narrativo che permette allo scrittore di raccontare i mutamenti antropologici e gli sconvolgimenti sociali e politici di un futuro che somiglia maledettamente al presente. La crisi idrica e la demagogia muscolare in odor di razzismo del possibile nuovo leader degli Stati Uniti, i conflitti mediorientali e le grandi migrazioni che in Europa solleticano antichi istinti, il ripristino delle frontiere e delle cortine di ferro, la deculturizzazione della società. Napoli, ricorda Livio, a un certo punto vendette il Cristo velato al museo di Nuuk, in Groenlandia. Che fantasia. Però a ben pensarci il mondo è già tornato indietro, quanti ce ne sono già stati di patrimoni dell'umanità distrutti dalla violenza e dal fanatismo, o dalla furia della natura?

Perfino nella dannazione di un tempo disumano, Bruno Arpaia rimane fedele al celebre detto della poetessa americana Muriel Rukeyser ("L'universo è fatto di storie, non di atomi") e a un modo di narrare pieno di ritmo ma nello stesso tempo mite e riflessivo, empatico e con salati guizzi d'ironia, per esempio sull'oasi a 1500 metri dove gli svizzeri si sono asserragliati. Qualcosa, là fuori cioè non è un monito alle coscienze né semplicemente una "scomoda verità". L'avventura dei personaggi si svolge soprattutto sul registro più intimo delle meditazioni e delle relazioni umane.

Poetici intermezzi sono dedicati al rapporto fra il tempo esteriore e quello interiore, alla scoperta della finitezza dell'ente (la Terra) su cui basavamo la nostra rappresentazione di infinito, al misterioso istinto che permette alla nostra specie di sopravvivere anche di fronte a dolori incommensurabili. E alla percezione della paura che rallenta il tempo, al processo creativo e ricreativo della memoria. La madeleine proustiana, racconta Livio il giorno che le idrovore trovarono un pozzo inaspettato, si transustanziò nell'elemento base: l'acqua.

C'è qualcosa, là fuori dietro le nubi di effimera tempesta o siamo solo noi a raffigurarcelo con quei colori, quei sapori che ci sembra di avere già assaggiato? Non c'è tempo per le risposte. Corre via d'un fiato questo romanzo come una marea, lasciando sulla riva una bava di luce piena di tenerezza e solidarietà, a galleggiare sulla lunga scia di domande.


Bruno Arpaia
Qualcosa, là fuori
Guanda
220 pp., 16 euros

© Riproduzione Riservata

see also

’umanità sopravvivrà ai cambiamenti climatici? Arriva in Italia la “climate fiction”

L’umanità sopravvivrà ai cambiamenti climatici? Arriva in Italia la “climate fiction”

di Redazione Il Libraio | 08.05.2016

Nel suo ultimo romanzo Bruno Arpaia immagina un mondo sconvolto dai cambiamenti climatici. In un'Europa devastata, gli uomini migrano verso Nord, in cerca di un posto dove sopravvivere. Arriva anche in Italia la "climate fiction"

Pare sia in arrivo dagli Stati Uniti una nuova tendenza letteraria: la “climate fiction” o “fantaecologia”. Un sottogenere della fantascienza che si concentra sulle conseguenze dell’inquinamento e dei cambiamenti climatici, immaginando i futuri scenari ecologici con cui dovrà confrontarsi l’umanità.
Bruno Arpaia, primo autore italiano a scrivere “involontariamente” (“In verità, ho scoperto l’esistenza di questo genere quando avevo già scritto i due terzi del romanzo”) un libro che si lega a questo filone (Qualcosa, là fuori, Guanda), ha dichiarato all’Espresso: “Credo che la ‘cli-fi’ ci offra l’opportunità di sapere di più sul cambiamento climatico attivando la parte emozionale di noi stessi. Vivere, attraverso un romanzo, l’innalzamento del livello del mare a New York, o partecipare con i protagonisti di un racconto a una tragica migrazione climatica in una Germania desertificata ci colpisce dritto al cuore e, grazie all’empatia con i personaggi, ci immerge nelle complesse questioni scientifiche alla base degli avvenimenti narrati”.
E veniamo alla trama del nuovo romanzo di Arpaia, che ci mostra Pianure screpolate, argini di fango secco, fiumi aridi, polvere giallastra, case e capannoni abbandonati: in un’Europa prossima ventura, devastata dai mutamenti climatici, decine di migliaia di “migranti ambientali” sono in marcia per raggiungere la Scandinavia, diventata, insieme alle altre nazioni attorno al circolo polare artico, il territorio dal clima più mite e favorevole agli insediamenti umani.
Livio Delmastro, anziano professore di neuroscienze, è uno di loro. Ha insegnato a Stanford, ha avuto una magnifica compagna, è diventato padre, ma alla fine è stato costretto a tornare in un’Italia quasi desertificata, sferzata da profondi sconvolgimenti sociali e politici, dalla corruzione, dagli scontri etnici, dalla violenza per le strade. Lì, persi la moglie e il figlio, per sedici anni si è ritrovato solo in un mondo che si sta sfaldando, senza più voglia di vivere, ma anche senza il coraggio di farla finita.
Poi, come migliaia di altri, ha pagato guide ed esploratori e ora, tra sete, fame e predoni, cammina in colonna attraverso terre sterili, valli riarse e città in rovina, in un continente stravolto e irriconoscibile