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Art Shapiro

No exit?

Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2017

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Amitav Ghosh, who is about equally known as a novelist and an essayist, begins this terrifying book--really a "cri du coeur"-- by asking why anthropogenic climate change, the central crisis of our time, is nearly absent from contemporary fiction. This question initially struck me as odd and narrowly-focused and poorly reflective of the broader societal response to the problem. But he devotes most of the rest of the book to showing that the absence of climate change from fiction is indeed reflective of society's unwillingness to confront it at all. Why? Because of its scale, its pervasiveness, its dreadful implications for the future; the perfect conditions to trigger denial. Ghosh compares the texts of the 2016 Paris Agreement and Pope Francis' environmental encyclical "Laudato Si." Of the first, he writes: "The Agreement's rhetoric serves to clarify much that it leaves unsaid; namely, that its intention and the essence of what it has achieved, is to create yet another neo-liberal
frontier where corporations, entrepreneurs, and public officials will be able to join forces in enriching each other." He is much more sanguine about the encyclical, seeing it as a moral guidepost to effective action, if not a directly applicable one. But to what extent can moral force overcome entrenched interests, short-term vision, and institutionalized hypocrisy?
Two more observations: (1) This display of Ghosh's wide-ranging erudition encompasses many allusions unfamiliar to American readers. Because I teach tropical ecology I am familiar with the Sundurbans. I am not familiar with many of the South Asian writers and thinkers referenced here. I hope other readers will be motivated, as I am, to learn more about them. (2) On page 5 Ghosh refers to the Lake Nyos outgassing disaster, in which some 1700 people died. He says Lake Nyos is in the Congo. It's in Cameroon. The error has no impact on the message of the book, but it's annoying that it got through the editing process.

Joan Harvey

his conclusion disappointed me and colored my overall feeling for the book

Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2017

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This book, though very short, has many valuable ideas that one doesn't encounter often in discussions of climate change in the West, such as how critique of empire is neglected for critique of capitalism, when in fact they are two separate issues. His discussion of why coal leads to more worker solidarity than oil is also something I haven't seen addressed elsewhere, and he generally thinks through climate change in original ways. However he completely lost me at the end when he compared the Pope's encyclical with the Paris Accord -- criticizing Paris for being written by a committee and neglecting completely the fact that it was binding among governments whereas the Pope didn't have to get anyone to agree to do anything. His conclusion that religious groups might be our only hope seemed bonkers -- most of the rational European West is increasingly secular -- and most of the power is in this West. The religious American Right of course opposes the idea of climate change, and I doubt that Islamic countries which are heavily dependent on oil revenues will move this way. China is not religious, and as he points out in India there is a move toward increased accumulation of Western things. The Pope can't speak for birth control and women having many children won't help. Buddhists? So far not a very powerful force in world politics that I can see. Anyhow, his conclusion disappointed me and colored my overall feeling for the book.

Amazon Customer

An Important Book - Read it, buy it for others

Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2017

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I very strongly recommend this book. "Where was I at 400 ppm?" should be asked on all campuses by all students. We need to change the way humanity thinks, and Gosh helps point out where the problem lies, in part.

There are so many insights in this book in historical, cultural, and political economy terms that it's really too hard to write about them here.
In parts two and three Gosh shares his insights into the role of fossil fuel's role in imperialism, cultural chauvinism, technological innovation, and climate denialism. I asked, "When's the last time you were reminded that imperialism actually helps slow the addition of carbon dioxide to the?". Well, Gosh reminds readers that by controlling the growth of non-carbon societies like India and China, they slowed the increase in carbon dioxide, although unwittingly, unknowingly, violently. Fossil fuel driven economies did not care.
One of the reasons we don't care is that anywhere we look in our culture we find individualized modes of expression and symbolism. We find the role of capital and the drive for the greatest return in the shortest time leading to environmental suicide. Meanwhile, the collective mindset, the holistic view of the earth for the long-term goes unheeded. These are my terms and I cannot hope to match Gosh's control of the English language in print. I can only recommend that you read this book and lead others to. Talk with others about this book and the role of the arts, religion, and literature in climate denial. It's very important.
Eddie Evans - ClimateDeception.Net

Provivalist

Climate change phenomenon from a novel perspective (see what I did there?)

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2020

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Ghosh talks about why climate change (CC) is almost entirely absent from literary novels. This is an excellent discussion, and you get the sense that the reason novelists don't include CC in their work is one and the same with why we don't include it in our national life/discussions. Which isn't an answer in itself, more of a pointing toward a mystery. Literary novels have conventional wisdom as their foundation--their basis is a kind of facile knowledge of the world. Conventional wisdom cannot grasp CC, probably because its implications spell the total and complete end of conventional wisdom. CC will make our knowing and grasping of the world largely extinct (it's already happening), and along with that facile knowing, the novel as we know it will likely also become extinct. (Good thing I like genre novels.)

Top reviews from other countries

Ben

A very important book for our times.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2016

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This is a clear, well researched, confidently developed argument. Climate change and its consequences will soon eclipse everything else and this book exposes the way every one of us is trying to pretend it's not happening. Are we prepared to give up our greedy, selfish way of life? Probably not. And it's probably too late anyway.

Allie

Important & interesting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2020

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Excellent read and an interesting way to approach this. I absolutely loved the first section on stories and kept reading sections to people around me.

My only comment would be that Gosh seems, at times to repeat himself near the end of the book; this is the reason i've dropped the review downs to a 4

R Chacko

Brilliant

Reviewed in India on January 24, 2017

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There is no denying that Amitav Ghosh is a brilliant writer. I have had many moments of amazement on this book, each necessitating a re-read of the portion. Of course, the re-read is often also necessary to understand what is being said. Ghosh is not for lazy readers; he demands that you make the effort to engage with his work constantly. No distraction and skipping of lines is possible. If your mind strays, as it sometimes will, the writing requires you to start over. With Ghosh, there is rarely half-hearted reading. It’s pretty much all or nothing.

Of course, it should be that way, given you have the privilege to read not just a wordsmith but also someone who is immensely well-read himself. The Great Derangement references writing genres as varied as philosophy, climate change, literature, literary theory, evolutionary theory, cultural theory, anthropology, and more. There are even references to movies. There is, of course, as a result, a certain exclusion inherent.

The book is divided into three sections—Stories, History, and Politics. Stories with its play on words and contemplation on the absence of climate change in serious literature might not be for everyone. It is too much like literary theory to engender universal appeal. With History and Politics, he discusses at length the reality, political negotiation, and the reportage of climate change and his anecdotes, brilliantly rendered as usual, are more widely appealing.

After I finished the book, I looked for a Preface but couldn’t find one. Ghosh dives right in to what he wants to say. The Acknowledgements, however, told me what I wanted to know. The book has grown from a series of lectures delivered at the University of Chicago. It explains the intellectual exclusivity, the seemingly meandering form. A climate change primer it is not. However, for someone like me who has never read anything other than the odd news article or two (and what he has to say about media makes this all the more appalling), this offers much food for thought and is of course, a marvelous example of some fine writing.

Sahha

Philosophical

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2019

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Easy reading

johnny10

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2018

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Original and thought provoking

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