Eco-Fiction: Bringing Climate Change Into the Imagination
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Eco-Fiction: Bringing Climate Change into the Imagination Submitted by Sophia David, to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in June 2016. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. (Signature) ……………………………………………………………………………… Abstract Abstract As a global population, inclusive of humans, fauna, and flora, we are each subject, though disproportionality, to the risks associated with our planet’s changing climate. These changes are largely caused by our unabated expulsion of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Our globalized world and economic activities have largely engendered the burning of fossil fuels. The 2014 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that to mitigate the worst effects of climate change, which means keeping warming below 2°C, we need to achieve emissions scenarios relative to pre-industrial levels. Without such reductions we can expect substantial species extinction, increased food insecurity, frequent extreme precipitation events, continued warming and acidification of the ocean, global mean sea level rise, and more frequent and longer lasting heatwaves. Responding to this means collective action at a global level. In my thesis I ask how the novel can respond to and help us to cognise these demands, as well as to cognise the scale and complexities of climate change, its philosophical and physical implications, and to attend to the particularities of local place whist remaining global in its scope and vision. I argue that climate change gives rise to a new form of novel. My work is primarily concerned with eco- fiction and how it can raise consciousness about climate change. I consider that the novel, as a counterfactual narrative, can personalise the issue, create stories so that we have ways to speak about it and enchant us towards an ecological imagining. My thesis begins by discussing the existing genre of popular climate change fiction. This mostly consists of clichéd, post-apocalyptic and hero-orientated disaster narratives. These novels are often predictable and limited in how they can engage the reader with climate change. In my second chapter I look at how climate change affects and alters our language. Certain processes belonging to it lead to a loss of words but also to the production of new words. I examine these themes in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003), Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006), Marcel Theroux’s Far North (2009) and Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007). My third chapter considers how climate change confounds scales and forms of measurement, as it can be invisible, trans-temporal and trans-spatial. I discuss this ii Abstract in reference to John Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956), Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1984) and Nadine Gordimer’s Get a Life (2005). In my fourth chapter, by close reading of Ian McEwan’s Solar (2010) and Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow (2013), I suggest how much of our existing climate change discourse has become outworn and fails to prompt critical reflection. In my fifth chapter I argue that particular mitigation strategies and consequences of climate change force us to revise certain epistemologies. I examine how this is represented in Jean Hegland’s Into the Forrest (1995) and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behaviour (2012). In each of these chapters I suggest that creative writing and revising the form of the novel can take account of these aspects and bring climate change into the imagination. In my final chapter I discuss how Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2005) overcomes some of the obstacles associated with representing climate change in the novel. The Hungry Tide’s form, plot and characters are structured by the unique tidal landscape of the Sundarbans, Bengal. Popular fiction typically provides an egocentric account, concerned with the development and interior world of an individual. Yet, they must move towards a more holistic outlook, as found in Ghosh’s example, which can depict the wider interconnections of the nonhuman world. Though climate change is both global in impact and the response it demands, it is particularity with the local that I consider to be essential to eco-fiction. The complexity, wonder and incalculable interconnections and variety owing to place cannot be evoked without such particularity. Therefore climate fiction must balance itself against the broad demands of a global crisis whilst attending to the special character of place and fabric of the local. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Regenia Gagnier for her guidance and generosity over the last four years. Laura Salisbury’s advice has also been invaluable. The energy for this work has been greatly enhanced by a supportive postgraduate community at the University of Exeter and I would like to thank all those part of this community. The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment has offered the opportunity for many stimulating conversations and feedback for my research from fellow ecocritics, which have greatly shaped this thesis. My research has led me in some exciting directions, the experiences of which have greatly invigorated my work and I would like to thank all those who made such opportunities possible. Scientists from the Royal Society have allowed me to realise the impact and application of my research. Sailing with Semester at Sea was an incredible adventure and the experiences afforded by it have no doubt fuelled my writing. Being invited by the residents of Nida Art Colony to share my research and collaborate on an artistic project was an inspiring and important experience to my PhD. I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding this project. Friends have offered me support and relief in more challenging moments of this thesis. My family have been a constant source of encouragement and comfort. I would especially like to thank Jonathan Acknowledgements Godshaw Memel for supporting me, unwaveringly, throughout; from reading drafts to the many conversations that have inspired and consolidated ideas, not to mention his love, humour and brightness that have sustained me. I would like to dedicate this thesis to my Grandparents. v Contents Contents Title Page…......………………………………………………………………………..……i Abstract……………...……………………………………………………………………....ii Acknowledgments .....................................................................................................iii Contents ...................................................................................................................vi Foreword .................................................................................................................viii 1. The Novel and Cognising Climate Change .....................................................12 1.1 Reshaping the Field…………………………………………………...…………….14 1.2 What is a Climate Novel?..................................................................................20 1.3 Climate Change Impacts……………………………………………………………54 1.4 Outline of Chapters………………………………………………………….............59 2. Ecocide and Naming in The Road, Oryx and Crake, Far North, and Animal’s People……………………………..............................................................................70 2.1 Organic Language………………………………..................................................74 2.2 Oryx and Crake……………………………………………………………………….80 2.3 The Road……………………………………………………………………..............86 2.4 Animal’s People………………………………………………………………………96 2.5 Far North……………………………………………………………………………..101 2.6 Landmarks…………………………………….……………………………………..103 2.7 Conclusion…………………………………………….……………………………..110 3. Climate Change and Ineffability: How Environmental Disasters Elude Representation in The Death of Grass, White Noise, and Get a Life…………113 3.1 Temporality, Spatiality, and Immateriality........................................................118 2.2 The Death of Grass .........................................................................................123 3.3 White Noise ...........................................................................................……...132 3.4 Get a Life .........................................................................................................144 3.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….................158 Contents 4. Outworn Climate Change Discourse: How Solar and Odds Against Tomorrow Expose Impoverished Climate Language.......................................160 4.1 Climate Reportoires.........................................................................................162 4.2 Solar ...........................................................................................................…173 4.3 Odds Against Tomorrow .................................................................................198 4.4 Conclusion ......................................................................................................224 5. New Ways of Knowing in Into the Forest and Flight Behaviour..................228 5.1 Into the Forest..................................................................................................235 5.2 Flight Behaviour ..............................................................................................244