Sheer vertigo

Some years ago, in the sliver of time after graduate school and a first job, I was considering, quite seriously, the prospect of a PhD. In English Literature, of course, and in one of two (not entirely unrelated) topics: the poetry of Philip Larkin, or dystopian fiction. More precisely, the manner in which ‘literature’ was treated in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We and George Orwell’s 1984 . Amidst the numerous unsettling scenarios conjured in these novels, I was haunted by the simplest, the most political of acts that, in the end, would condemn both the protagonists — that of putting pen to paper. I was, at the same time, thrilled, that in damning words, the authors were also holding them aloft in reverence. Perhaps, for an early, hesitant practitioner of fiction, it was reassuring to have them say, ‘See how powerful this is.’

In order to write the lengthy, and dreaded, Sample Essay, necessary for a PhD application(which makes me think I wasn’t at all suited for the vocation), I read and re-read stashes of dystopian fiction, Burgess’ Clockwork Orange , Huxley’s A Brave New World , Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 , filling my waking hours with apocalyptic visions. Yet even though I never did end up with a PhD — my academic ambitions fizzled after a friend, who knew me better than I did myself, asked ‘Do you wish to study literature or create it?’ — my love for darkly imagined worlds lingers. Ever so often, they rear up as prophetic warnings, saints of catastrophe, disquieting in their ability to edge closely to our stark and constant failings. I’m perilously drawn to them; now, as the Indian elections roll on, more than ever.

If a Green analysis of the Congress, BJP and AAP manifestos is anything to go by — distressingly lax and uninformed about environmental issues — we may soon be reliving several nightmarish literary scenarios.

In Kate Wilhelm’s Where the Late Birds Sing , civilisation has collapsed from devastating pollution, while JB Ballard’s The Drowned World transports us to a planet struggling with environmental catastrophe. Rising temperatures have created a flooded, an increasingly tropical Earth, and Ballard integrates this changing physical universe with a psychological one, as his characters undergo a strange phylogenetic regression. More post-apocalyptic drama awaits in Margaret Atwood’s lesser known Oryx and Crake (first in the Madd Addam trilogy), which opens in the wake of an unnamed cataclysm. The past unfolds slowly through the narration of a mysterious character named Snowman. Before catastrophe strikes the main features of his world are based on the gradual exaggeration of certain dismal trends in ours — internet child pornography, gated communities, genetic modification, multinational corporations. Atwood wreaks her usual spirited havoc: “He doesn’t know which is worse, a past he can’t regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there’s the future. Sheer vertigo.”

Considering how divisive election processes tend to be, I’m reminded of John Wyndham’s brilliantly satirical The Chrysalids , which presents us with a (post-nuclear, fundamentalist Christian) world obsessed with “purity”. As humans are born with mutations and deformities, the State decides to execute anyone who isn’t ‘perfect’, who is ‘blasphemous’ or ‘abnormal’. When an extra toe can mean a death sentence, it becomes imperative that David, the protagonist, keeps his telepathic powers secret. This is the bible of anti-essentialisation, and David’s gift a metaphor, towards freedom of thought and speech.

If dark times call for dark literature, take succour in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road . I finished it in a single reading, on the banks of the Cam in Cambridge. This last detail important only in that it illustrates how I couldn’t be distracted by charming sun-lit surroundings, gripped as I was by the most harrowing read of my life. The Road left me devastated and uplifted in its outlining of the worst, and best, of human capability. The story is simple: a father and his young son journey, over several months, through a landscape blasted by an unspecified catastrophe, towards the sea. McCarthy’s sparse prose is haunting and bleak, endurable because of its integrity, its utter wholeness of seeing.

With Iron Heel by Jack London (of Call of the Wild fame), we move away from post-apocalyptic settings into a near-future world gripped by the rise of a tyrannical corporate oligarchy. Unusual for this technology-obsessed genre, London focuses on the changes in society and politics, with the oligarchy formed by robber barons who bankrupt the middle class and seize power before enforcing a “caste system” for workers. Disquietingly familiar? Iron Heel was published in 1908.

If the elections are leaving you sleepless, stay up with Adrian Barnes’ debut novel Nod. The eerie premise? Dawn breaks and no one in the world has slept the night before. Or will again. And so we wait, the future sheer vertigo.

Janice Pariat is the author of Boats on Land. Follow her on Twitter >@janicepariat

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