Vidya Venkat in conversation with Amitav Ghosh, author of a powerful new book of essays on the literary, historical and geo-political raminifactions of climate change, titled THE GREAT DERANGEMENT: Climate Change and the Unthinkable," published now in India by PenguinIndia since July 12 and coming soon in a USA edition from the University of Chicago Press in mid-September.
Photo: Shanker Chakravarty | THE HINDU
It’s time we humans shed our hubris to reckon with the forces of nature shaping lives and fates, says Amitav Ghosh
It was happening, we knew that at the back of our minds, yet we continued to ignore it, until one fine day it came to claim our lives... Climate change — the upsetting of weather patterns across the world — forms the core concern of Amitav Ghosh’s latest work of non-fiction, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. It is dealt with a touch of Márquezian magical realism as Ghosh speaks about the inevitability of the very real ecological disaster unfolding in our midst, so familiar yet unfathomably fantastic in its proportions. The book, parts of which he delivered as a series of lectures at the University of Chicago in 2015, not only raises crucial questions about our lack of intellectual engagement with this natural phenomenon, but also calls for a radical dismantling of the Enlightenment-era hubris possessed by mankind, which sees “nature” as something outside of man.
In a freewheeling conversation in New Delhi acknowledged that within Western academia, and particularly at the University of Chicago where he delivered the lectures, there is a strong awareness and interest in climate change and the Anthropocene, the current era in which human activity has dominated the planet. How man-made global warming (AGW) affects our history, thought and consciousness are major questions they are grappling with. But this cannot make up for the conspicuous absence of discussions on climate change in works of literature and art, he pointed out.......
............. As the conversation ends, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ''One Hundred Years of Solitude'' comes to this reporter's mind. It is a reminder of what Aureliano (II) feels when he finally translates the scrolls of Melquíades, the prophetic gypsy.
The gypsy had foreseen the whole history of the man’s family, including that one day he would have a baby with a pig’s tail, something his great-grandmother had once feared.
As Aureliano (II) finishes reading the scrolls, the house, and the rest of the town he lives in are wiped away by a hurricane; he deciphers the prophecy concerning his future when it is too late to do anything about it.
In a freewheeling conversation in New Delhi acknowledged that within Western academia, and particularly at the University of Chicago where he delivered the lectures, there is a strong awareness and interest in climate change and the Anthropocene, the current era in which human activity has dominated the planet. How man-made global warming (AGW) affects our history, thought and consciousness are major questions they are grappling with. But this cannot make up for the conspicuous absence of discussions on climate change in works of literature and art, he pointed out.......
............. As the conversation ends, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ''One Hundred Years of Solitude'' comes to this reporter's mind. It is a reminder of what Aureliano (II) feels when he finally translates the scrolls of Melquíades, the prophetic gypsy.
The gypsy had foreseen the whole history of the man’s family, including that one day he would have a baby with a pig’s tail, something his great-grandmother had once feared.
As Aureliano (II) finishes reading the scrolls, the house, and the rest of the town he lives in are wiped away by a hurricane; he deciphers the prophecy concerning his future when it is too late to do anything about it.
1 comment:
Actually, dr ghosh is wrong about literature (novels) Not reflecting climate concerns. In fact had ghosh done his homework befote he gave his four lectures in chicago, especially the first two on literature, he would have discovered that in the West a literary movement Called cli-fi has taken the usa and the uk by storm as evidenced over 100 articles in usa anf ik nrwspapers and magazines. So dr ghosh needs to revamp his Lazy and unstudied assessment Of literary matters via vis global warming becos ifvhe clings to his incorrect thesis ouy of pridevor arrogance he is going to Get clobbered by critics and newspaper reporyers in nyc when he Goes there to plug his book. Someone close to ghosh needs to wake him up re the rise of The cli fi genre in the western world. maybe not in india where cLi fi has not made an impact on novels or movies yet but in the west, yes. Someone please wake ghosh up before he goes to nyc.
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