The Slovenian philosopher picks five novels about global catastrophe that changed his thinking. He will be speaking about the ideas in his new book – “Liberal Fascisms” – in Bristol and London on 5 and 6 May.
The Drowned World
J.G. Ballard, 1962
This work depicts a future Earth made largely uninhabitable by solar radiation. In a flooded London, scientists take advantage of societal collapse to fulfil unconscious urges. The idea that a mega-catastrophe could create an opportunity to experience jouissance – surrendering oneself to a bliss that obliterates the limits of our subjectivity – profoundly influenced me.
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The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin, 2006
Cixin’s masterpiece confronts Earth with Trisolaris, a planet whose unpredictable suns cause severe temperature shifts. As a critical ecologist, I see it as Earth in the near future; are we facing something for which the only appropriate term is “the end of nature”?
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005
Arguably the most depressing novel I’ve ever read, it explores a society where human clones are created to supply organs for transplant, a practice that requires a major shift in public morals. Is this not our situation today? We cope with new threats by reshaping our ethical principles.
I Who Have Never Known Men
Jacqueline Harpman, 1995
Perhaps even darker than Ishiguro’s novel, this work is about a girl locked in a bunker with 39 women. When the male guards flee, they emerge into a barren plain. The girl, the last to survive, writes about her life. Existentially, I feel like the girl: even in a crowd, I am totally alone, and my words will probably never reach their addressee. I think truly great thinkers also accept there will be no one to read them properly.
Station Eleven
Emily St John Mandel, 2014
An apocalyptic novel with a sort of happy ending. After an epidemic devastates humanity, one group, the Travelling Symphony, connects scattered communities by performing Shakespeare. I agree that, in our catastrophic predicament, we need more than just survival to survive.
