A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #14-26 - A "Flood" of Pages to Read (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

I don't usually review novels. Furthermore, it's generally not a good 
idea to write on the spur of the moment-but the damage is already done, 
as this article demonstrates. I'm writing these lines a few hours after 
finishing "Flood" by Stephen Markley (Einaudi, 2024), a novel that 
deeply affected me and which I can only recommend. As I learn from those 
who understand literature better than I do, Markley is part of a new 
generation of American writers who intend to forge a very clear pact 
with the reader: elaborate plots that aren't afraid to unfold at length, 
in-depth exploration of characters and their relationships, and an 
implicit demand for the reader's commitment to following the plot and 
those relationships with the promise that in the end, everything will 
add up. In other words, no flights of fancy, no vague endings, but a 
confident return to realism. I also highly recommend Markley's first 
book, "Ohio" (first published in 2020), a vivid and stark portrait of 
small-town America, where four characters intersect and tell part of a 
larger story from their own perspectives. The first character is 
initially under the influence of psychotropic substances, so his 
narrative is a bit confusing, but just stick with it for the first 50 to 
80 pages and everything will become clear.

"The Flood" is her second novel: a massive tome of over 1,200 pages that 
aims to chronicle the world affected by global warming over a period of 
time spanning approximately 2013 to 2045. Be warned, however: these 
aren't the facile catastrophes we've become accustomed to in Hollywood 
(which I regularly watch because I have a taste for trash). Markley 
translates scientific predictions into narrative form, as if they had 
already happened. From this perspective, "Diluvio" isn't a dystopian or 
apocalyptic novel; on the contrary, it's a profoundly realistic novel, 
drawing (as far as I can tell) on solid research in various fields. Here 
too, I recommend getting past the first ten pages dedicated to 
clathrates: it may seem like a strange start, but then everything 
becomes clear. This is the beauty of the novel: everything holds 
together, supported by a perspective that's as realistic as possible, 
never moralistic, always plural, because the characters are plural (in 
terms of age, gender, cultural background, social class, etc.), their 
tones are varied (perplexed, enthusiastic, militant, at the mercy of 
events, etc.), and their choices. Markley avoids fetishes, holy 
pictures, and easy, reassuring solutions, aware that things don't go as 
hoped (and when will they ever go?), that history, to quote Malatesta, 
"has no libretto." Markley's dispassionate and at times disenchanted 
gaze leads him to imagine a political evolution profoundly influenced by 
the impact of artificial intelligence and polarized by the shocking 
effects of global warming (floods, inundations, fires...), an evolution 
that, frankly, didn't strike me as far-fetched. The novel was published 
in 2022: Markley imagines that Trump hasn't won the Republican primaries 
and therefore hasn't obtained a second term, but that doesn't mean 
things will go well, given that at a certain point we find Anders 
Breivik (the perpetrator of the 2011 Utoya massacre) as president of 
Norway. Mind-blowing? Considering that words like deportation 
("remigration") are now part of the political debate, Breivik as 
president doesn't (unfortunately) seem such an absurd hypothesis.

Despite its size, the book is a quick and easy read, thanks in my 
opinion to the clever and original use of different narrative formats 
(interviews, newspaper articles, reports, etc.) to tell parts of the 
story and thus avoid being too didactic. Among the literary references, 
I would definitely mention Stephen King's "The Stand" (referenced 
several times by the characters in "The Flood"). Markley's novel 
entertained me, made me think (and occasionally even pissed me off), but 
once I finished it, I couldn't help but think that I had before me a 
classic that recounts this "barbaric and alien age," as Markley writes 
(p. 640), in which the impossible seems to happen just around the 
corner. It's not an anarchist book, let's be clear, but it's a book 
that, in my opinion, speaks volumes to those who want to change the 
world we live in, aware that power will always seek to screw over the 
least privileged-an awareness that one of the characters in "The Flood," 
Keeper, is well aware of. From right-wing paramilitary groups, new 
fundamentalist religions, mass profiling for political and commercial 
purposes, occupations, disasters, and democratic governments ready to 
forget their vaunted constitutional principles in favor of the worst 
authoritarian solutions, "The Flood" recounts, without embellishment, 
complacency, or morbidity, what could happen to "this magnificent and 
ancient world" (p. 1293) in which we have been fortunate enough to live.

D.B.

https://umanitanova.org/un-diluvio-di-pagine-da-leggere/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en