Without Water: Valuing the Wasteland

• Misha Grifka Wander ^[1]
  1. [1] Ohio State University

     Ohio State University

     City of Columbus, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Hélice, ISSN-e 1887-2905, Vol. 9, Nº. 1, 2023, págs. 23-35
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto Completo Ejemplar
• Resumen

  • Speculative fiction has long evoked a variety of fantastic landscapes, but in the era of climate change, seems to have settled into two main camps; nature as terror, the unconquerable oncoming tide that will destroy humanity for its sins; or nature as a partner to humanity, whose disagreements over extractive capitalism will be resolved in a hopeful solarpunk future. The middle path is seldom trod in climate fiction. In the short story “Water: A History”, KJ Kabza chooses to take that middle path, describing an environment which is neither totally hostile, nor totally benign. In this essay, I will analyse the aesthetics of Kabza’s story and landscape, close-reading descriptions of the story’s landscape and the main character’s relationship to that landscape.

    In the Anthropocene, humans exist in a relationship with nature wherein we depend on nature but kill it with our actions. In “Water:

    A History”, this structure is reversed — the narrator depends on nature, but it slowly kills her. She is aware of this, but the natural world matters to her enough that she is willing to suffer those consequences, and even introduce a young person to the dangerous landscape. This differs from many depictions of humanity’s reactions to hostile non-Earth landscapes, which often comprise technological and bioengineering adaptation, or struggles of subsistence-level survival. “Water: A History” showcases a different mode of interacting with nature, one where nature is prized even when dangerous to humans, where humans willingly sacrifice their health for a chance to be surrounded by the natural world.