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A review by erinhly
The Inland Sea by Madeleine Watts
4.0
Is the world we live in safer than those that came before it? In a way. Life expectancy is twice today what it was in 1900. I'm far less likely to die in my workplace, or at home, or walking down the street. Nutrition, sanitation, safety, hygiene, and housing are all much better.
And yet I can't help but wonder if the existential doom/eco-anxiety that so many of us feel so intensely is unique because we're not only living through not only an unprecedented Climate Crisis but an Information Age to boot. The Inland Sea deals directly with these topics.
The protagonist, fresh out of undergrad, lands a job redirecting emergency calls to ambulance, police, or fire services. She's inundated with disasters — natural, personal, domestic, environmental, and otherwise. She copes by keeping a small notebook of disaster verbatim, and by gradually disassociating from her life. Above all else, I found The Inland Sea to be a fascinating study into how we cope when forced to confront the persistent violence of modernity. "Humans cast into a prolonged state of emergency will tend towards... subtle psychological changes," Watts writes. The one that predominates in this book (and this era) is paralysis.
I enjoyed this book but I'm unsure about labelling it cli-fi because the climate often felt peripheral. I appreciated the historical section of the book but I'm not sure how strong the connecting thread between the historical sections and those about the protagonist's relationships or childhood memories was very strong. The prose was beautiful.
And yet I can't help but wonder if the existential doom/eco-anxiety that so many of us feel so intensely is unique because we're not only living through not only an unprecedented Climate Crisis but an Information Age to boot. The Inland Sea deals directly with these topics.
The protagonist, fresh out of undergrad, lands a job redirecting emergency calls to ambulance, police, or fire services. She's inundated with disasters — natural, personal, domestic, environmental, and otherwise. She copes by keeping a small notebook of disaster verbatim, and by gradually disassociating from her life. Above all else, I found The Inland Sea to be a fascinating study into how we cope when forced to confront the persistent violence of modernity. "Humans cast into a prolonged state of emergency will tend towards... subtle psychological changes," Watts writes. The one that predominates in this book (and this era) is paralysis.
I enjoyed this book but I'm unsure about labelling it cli-fi because the climate often felt peripheral. I appreciated the historical section of the book but I'm not sure how strong the connecting thread between the historical sections and those about the protagonist's relationships or childhood memories was very strong. The prose was beautiful.