"Are you an optimist? Or are you a pessimist?"
"I don't know. Perhaps a bit of both. What about you?"
"I'm an optimist, Jonas. And do you know why? I think it's immoral to be a pessimist."
"Immoral?"
"Pessimism is just another word for laziness. Of course I worry. But that's different. A pessimist has given up."
Jostein Gaarder, author of the 1991 classic Sophie's World, commemorates the 20th anniversary of its publication with this haunting tale that features an equally inquisitive protagonist.
The name's Anna, and she's deeply bothered by global warming. Her sixteenth birthday looms, and visions from the future begin to appear more in her dreams more frequently and more vividly than ever. They're so intense she believes they're all real, sort of acts like a message telling her to do something about its revelations, that is, the hopeless state of the world in 2082 when her great-granddaughter, Nova, can no longer enjoy the natural wonders of the world. Despite her sincere concerns, the parents thought she's just imagining things and, instead of listening to her at all, sent her to Oslo for a clinical checkup.
A runaway camel is approaching the staging post. The boy turns to her [Nova] and says: "My great-great-grandfather used to travel by camel. My great-grandfather drove a Mercedes and my grandfather flew across the world in a jumbo jet. But now we're back to camels.
This short conversation alone addresses many issues associated with our current consumeristic culture, inciting the much-needed awareness on the matter and inviting introspection for the reader.
Another commonality with Sophie, Gaarder uses metafiction in Anna as the primary tool to relate with his young audience. By presenting the gravity of climate change issues as a narrative told through the eyes of a sixteen-year-old, I believe it was his intention to convince readers and generations to follow to actually care about the current state of the planet. And so he laid it on the line right from the beginning - what better way to relate with young people than to have your quirks, in this case, Anna's wildly active imagination, deemed by parents as a flaw? Since Sophie's World worked to spark interest in philosophy so much so that in some universities it's a legit required reading for Intro to Philosophy, my guess is Gaarder was hoping this would become Global Warming 101, or something like it.
Which leads me to the misses of this piece of fiction - it's bo-o-o-ohhring. Why? Not exactly because it's supposed to be a philosophical fiction piece and naturally there's not much to the plot (there are a lot of loose ends too), but the fact that about 80% of the book felt more like a university lecture rather than it is about a character's journey. Anna's character didn't develop much because she was already mature from the get-go, which bothers me most about this book. Most of her monologue read like a personal letter of complaint to the otherwise interested layman, or the status message of that activist friend of yours on Facebook. Take this one:
It was probably true that oil had lifted many people out of poverty, as politicians and energy ministers pointed out. But a great many people had been lifted into a life of pointless luxury and overconsumption, the like of which had never been seen before.
Or this comment:
Isn't it ironic that the heyday of nature photography - and the advent of digital storage - coincided with mankind beginning to make serious inroads into the earth's biodiversity? But one day the dinosaurs will be passe and instead we will gaze at technicolour photographs of birds and mammals which have died out in our lifetimes.
Or this lengthy opinion piece, which, to be fair, isn't really her voice (although as the book progresses you'll feel like every dogma is hers) one of the many cut-out articles Anna collects that she categorized under the boxes What is the world? and What has to be done?, which I also believe was created only for the sole purpose of informing readers about the dire truths about present planet earth. This one is under What is the world?:
An important basis of all ethics has been the golden rule, or the principle of mutual respect: do to others as you would have them do to you. But the golden rule can no longer only have a horizontal dimension - in other words a 'we' and 'the others'. We are beginning to realize that the principle of mutual respect also has a vertical dimension: do to the next generation as you would have had the previous one do to you.
It is that simple. You should love your neighbor as yourself. Which, naturally enough, should include the next generation. It must include absolutely everyone who will live on this earth after us.
The fact is, all of mankind does not live on Earth at the same time. All of mankind does not live at the same time. People have lived here before us, some are still living here now and some will come after us. Those who come after us are our fellow humans too. We have to treat them as we would want them to have treated us - if they had been the ones who had inhabited this planet first.
The code of behavior is that simple. So we cannot bequeath a planet that is worth less than the one we have been allowed to live on ourselves. fewer fish in the sea. Less drinking water. Less food. Smaller rainforests. Fewer plants on the mountains. Fewer coral reefs. Fewer glaciers and skin runs. Fewer animals . .
Less beauty! Fewer wonders of nature! Less splendor and joy!
Had Gaarder develop the storyline and supporting adult characters further, we might actually learn the practical ways to push environmental efforts in real life, get inspired by them to start getting our hands dirty, instead of merely insinuating passion about the cause.
Due to its cogent subject and the relevance it'll hold for as long as earth shall live, I would want my children to read this book as soon as they're able to read. Naturally, I don't agree with all of the humanistic doctrines studded throughout Anna, but at best, I think it'll instill in them the seeds of empathy, forethought, and compassion for the planet and the larger society, which will make them good humans when they grow up. But for the average Joe who's just looking for the next imaginary world to engross himself in, I won't recommend this book … unless you're studying how the master of metafiction employs his mastery as a writer, or shares Anna's intense sentiments regarding humanity's negative impact on the global climate.
Love, Stace
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