Tuesday, January 31, 2017

''Memory of Water'' a cli-fi novel by Emmi Itäranta

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta 
           
The Memory of Water (2014) is a cli-fi novel set in a distant dystopian future where global warming has already done most of the damage it can, submerging cities and drying up fresh water. China is now the planetary power; the political and cultural bully. Whole nations have been swallowed and never spit out, and one young woman in occupied Finland, is trying to uncover a secret and keep a secret, and honor the past and create a future for herself. Her name is Noria and she tells her story slowly, poetically, often touching into a bit of Taoism or some other unnamed eastern philosophy. Like water, the story isn’t always linear. Like memories, it gets a bit misty and doesn’t really take a solid shape. So, it feels foreign, which is good, but also a bit tricky in that the reader is has a built in excuse to keep a safe distance from the setting and character. Despite that, the words on the page are pretty and they flow and I haven’t put it down yet.

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