“It’s the end of the world every day, for someone.”
– Margaret Atwood
As the bustle of our workday fades, we invite you to leave behind the noise and join us in the serene embrace of the St Andrews Botanic Garden. We delve into stories and reflections that challenge our understanding of the world as we know it. Together, we’ll consider themes of ecological collapse, transformation, and the ways in which we might engage with these monumental shifts.
Amitav Ghosh -The Great Derangement (excerpt)
Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability at the level of literature, history, and politics to grasp the scale and violence of climate change. The extreme nature of today's climate events, Ghosh asserts, make them peculiarly resistant to contemporary modes of thinking and imagining. This is particularly true of serious literary fiction: hundred-year storms and freakish tornadoes simply feel too improbable for the novel; they are automatically consigned to other genres. In the writing of history, too, the climate crisis has sometimes led to gross simplifications; Ghosh shows that the history of the carbon economy is a tangled global story with many contradictory and counter-intuitive elements. Ghosh ends by suggesting that politics, much like literature, has become a matter of personal moral reckoning rather than an arena of collective action. But to limit fiction and politics to individual moral adventure comes at a great cost. The climate crisis asks us to imagine other forms of human existence a task to which fiction, Ghosh argues, is the best suited of all cultural forms. His book serves as a great writer's summons to confront the most urgent task of our time.
Themes: Climate Change, Limits of Imagination and Narrative, Ecocriticism, Colonialism and Environmental Exploitation, The Anthropocene, Global Responsibility and Disconnection, Failure of Political Will
Buy book here.
About the Reading Group
In this reading group, we’ll journey through both fiction and non-fiction, where we’ll unearth narratives that encourage us to question, reflect, and reimagine what might come after the end. In shared conversation, we’ll ask what it means to live through moments of profound change, and how literature can equip us to witness and engage with these shifts.
Whether you are a seasoned reader of ecocritical literature, or someone simply interested in the intersection of the written word and the natural world, this group encourages diverse perspectives. We’ll be reading the chosen texts beforehand, and coming together to discuss them in a relaxed, open-minded atmosphere.
No matter your familiarity with the material, we encourage everyone to share their thoughts, and questions as we explore the themes together. As we go along, we’ll adapt our discussions to the group’s interests and pace, allowing room for both joint exploration and personal reflection.
Essential Information:
Minimum age 18. Please bring your own reading/writing materials.
The entrance fee covers access to the garden, as well as tea, coffee, shortbread, and water. Free RSVP for those with exisiting admission tickets for this date, students and Friends Members.
As this is an out of hours event, please meet at the main gate to the Garden at 6pm. If you are running late, please notify Anne Daffertshofer via adaffertshoferstandrewsbotanic.org (Subject line: late/book club).
