Review of: Patrick West and Om Prakash Dwivedi (eds), The World to Come. Spineless Wonders, Strawberry Hills, New South Wales, 2014. ISBN 9781925052046

Sulway, Nike

English

University of Southern Queensland ePrints

Review of Gaskin, Bud TEXT Vol 19 No 1http://www.textjournal.com.au/april15/sulway_rev.htm[19/05/2015 10:06:36 AM]TEXT reviewAre you there? Can you forgive me?review by Nike Sulway  Patrick West and Om Prakash Dwivedi (eds)The World to ComeSpineless Wonders, Strawberry Hills, New South Wales 2014ISBN 9781925052046Pb 241pp AUD27.99ebook AUD9.99 In the early eighteenth century, Isaac Watts published the religious treatise fromwhich this collection takes its title. His work, which was subtitled ‘Discourses on theJoys or Sorrows of Departed Souls at Death, and the Terror of the Resurrection’,was a 453-page exploration of the world that would come after the apocalypse. Thetext was deeply concerned with what that world to come might look like, and withwhat ‘portion of paradise’ (Watts 1811, 40) the dead (most particularly the Christiandead) would receive when they were resurrected in this other place.Watts took as his starting point the theological debates of his time; the writers in thisanthology take as their starting point for imagining the world to come, the variouspersonal and cultural debates of our time. As the editors note in their introduction,the intention was to publish works that reflected on ‘what the world to come lookslike from where they are writing, in place and in time’ (2).The anthology brings together 21 stories from a range of cultural backgrounds.Despite the overt focus on cultural and geographic diversity, Anglophone voicesdominate the collection, with eleven of the stories from Australian writers (includingMarcus Waters, a Kamilaroi man), three from the US, and the rest a smattering ofEuropean (French, British), African (Ugandan), Caribbean (Jamaican) and Asianwriters (Malaysian, Indian).The world to come, as imagined in the 21 stories, will be an enactment of both ourReview of Gaskin, Bud TEXT Vol 19 No 1http://www.textjournal.com.au/april15/sulway_rev.htm[19/05/2015 10:06:36 AM]deepest fears and our wildest fantasies. Worlds in which climate change has broughthumanity to the brink of extinction, biomedical technology has changed our bodiesbeyond recognition, and loss is a constant companion. As such, most of the stories inthis anthology are speculative: they are visions of the future imagined in terms ofchanges in technology and culture. Worlds in which we colonise planets, live inenclosed cities, modify our bodies and live in mediated digital environments. Thereare, however, a small number of stories that are less concerned with technologicalchange than with cultural and emotional responses to change.John Fulton’s ‘Caretakers’ is perhaps the most realist piece in the collection,exploring the shifting relationship between Jane, a teenage girl, and Mr McGuire,Jane’s father’s best friend, during her father’s last few months of life. This tenderstory is told in a deft, seamless style that is perfect for this uncomfortable story ofone young woman approaching the convergence of two ‘worlds to come’: one inwhich her father has died, and the other in which she moves from childhood toadulthood:Recently, Jane has been uncomfortably aware of looking forward tothese short trips in his car, to sitting next to this family friend, thisman whom she practically grew up with, whose daughter, Lizzie,was her best friend for years, this man who glances now in therearview mirror, his soft blue eyes falling on her and asks,‘Everyone buckled up?’, before pulling out of the driveway. (81-2)Two other stories that focus more on mood and metaphor to engage with thecollection’s theme are Leah Swann’s ‘Of Life Below’, and Jeanette Zissell’s ‘TheWhale God’. Zissell’s ‘The Whale God’ is told from an unnamed child narrator’sperspective and, like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road¸is set in a post-apocalypticworld where what has happened is less clear (and less important) than thecharacter’s responses to the death of their world. The writing is lucid and magical,infusing this dark tale of loss and grief with naïve beauty:Most things died when the Whale God filled the sky. He came witha corona of light that illuminated his great shadow. The deeprumbling whale-cry of his voice filled the air and echoed out overthe cow field. (111)Leah Swann’s ‘Of Life Below’ is a more explicit story, focusing on a young womantravelling alone in Europe whose memories of the past and premonitions of thefuture infuse her experiences of the present.Many of the stories are more traditionally speculative, including Dirk Strasser’s‘2084’, which explores a world in which our reliance on digital records hascompromised our relationships with ourselves, and our past. Abir Hamdar’s ‘TheCure’ is the story of a retired physician from Baghdad University Hospital whoencounters a troubling ‘deformity’ that has rudely erupted in a young female patientcenturies after it was eradicated. While Tabish Khair’s ‘Game’ is the story of afuture in which citizens of a post-apocalyptic earth go hunting in the wastelands.Many of the stories are concerned with conversations between the present and thepast, and with the ways in which they continue to influence each other. MarcusWaters’s ‘No Going Home’ speaks explicitly of this dynamic, in a story in whichAustralia’s colonial past, present and future are entwined. In this story, the barriersbetween different times are understood in complex ways: they are rigid andReview of Gaskin, Bud TEXT Vol 19 No 1http://www.textjournal.com.au/april15/sulway_rev.htm[19/05/2015 10:06:36 AM]persistent, but permeable. The past, present and future ‘become one’ (230), but thereis also a strong sense of the responsibility that we – the inhabitants of the present –have to the citizens of the past and the future. As one of the characters, Dundalli,says to Make-A-Light:You show only concern for this physical world. You forget ourBurruguu-ngayi-li: our Dreaming goes beyond this world. You willhave to answer for what you have done. (225)This sense of having to answer for what we have done (and continue to do) pervadesmany of the stories, with characters, and cultures, living in the ruined shadows ofour own time. This is true in the stories that feature landscapes ravaged byenvironmental change (such as ‘Into the Stillness Came the Rain’ by CrisettaMacLeod), as well as cultures – whole civilisations – destroyed by an over-relianceon technology, by cruelty, by violence and inhumane politics. In one story about aworld in which falling asleep is fatal (‘Awake’ by Ben Brooker), a character thinksthat his is ‘not the apocalypse we were supposed to have’ (45), but in a sense mostof the stories align in interesting ways with the focus of Watts’s The World to Come:they are stories of apocalypse we are supposed to have, if we continue to live as wedo now. Each story imagines the consequences of the choices we make now, in thisworld: the joys and sorrows of the resurrection. They are pleas for forgiveness.Urges to hope. Warnings. Stories as imagined, half-heard answers to the questionsposed by those living now to the citizens of the future. Perhaps most poignant are thequestions posed in Jeannette Delamoir’s ‘The World to Come is Made of Love’:Are you there?Has your pain gone?Do you love me?Can you forgive me?…Can you give me a sign that you are there? Any sign, the smallestsign, the slightest, tiniest, most subtle sign, just one sign? (60)   Nike Sulway is a writer and academic. She is the author of several novels, includingRupetta, which – in 2014 – was the first work by an Australian writer to win theJames Tiptree, Jr Award. The award, founded in 1991 by Pat Murphy and Karen JoyFowler, is an annual award for a work of ‘science fiction or fantasy that expands orexplores our understanding of gender’. She teaches creative writing at theUniversity of Southern Queensland. Return to Contents Page Return to Home PageTEXT Vol 19 No 1 April 2015http://www.textjournal.com.au Review of Gaskin, Bud TEXT Vol 19 No 1http://www.textjournal.com.au/april15/sulway_rev.htm[19/05/2015 10:06:36 AM]General Editor: Nigel Krauth. Editors: Enza Gandolfo & Linda WesteReviews Editor: Ross Watkins text@textjournal.com.au

Are you there? Can you forgive me? [Book review]

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Are you there? Can you forgive me? [Book review]

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