Kinokuniya (TH): THE EXCITING NEW GENRE CALLED "CLI-FI"
June 10, 2019
Kinokuniya (TH): THE EXCITING NEW GENRE CALLED "CLI-FI"
2 BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE UK:
After his epic Ibis trilogy, a rip-roaring, hugely detailed imagining of the Opium Wars, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh turns his hand to ''cli-fi'' — ''climate fiction.''
''Gun Island'' by Amitav Ghosh
a new cli-fi novel reviewed in The Times of London
reviewed by Siobhan Murphy on June 7
Headlined: "Magic and Mangroves
''This tangled tale takes in the refugee crisis and climate change,'' says Siobhan Murphy in her review below
After his epic Ibis trilogy, a rip-roaring, hugely detailed imagining of the Opium Wars, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh turns his hand to ''cli-fi'' — ''climate fiction.''
Gun Island blends Bengali folklore, the historical and present-day links between India and Venice, climate change, the refugee crisis, the power of storytelling and the supernatural in a tale that sometimes wobbles under the weight of such a load.
Dinanath Datta, known as Deen, is a seller of rare books living in New York City, who on a trip home to India humors an old aunt by taking a trip to the Sundarbans, the vast mangrove forest that lies on the Bay of Bengal.
Knowing his interest in Bengali folklore, she had entreated him to visit a shrine she remembered glimpsing there, dedicated to the ''Bonduki Sadagar,'' or The Gun Merchant.
Legend told how the Bonduki Sadagar was chased across strange lands by the snake goddess Manasa Devi, whom he had angered, meeting all manner of calamities until he was saved by a miraculous intervention of nature and returned home a rich man.
The bookish Deen, initially reluctant about the trip, becomes fascinated by what he discovers and begins picking apart the clues in the legend that reveal it could be a true story. Meanwhile, strange events and coincidences — and a preponderance of venomous beasties — start encroaching on his life, shaking his faith in himself as “a rational, secular, scientifically minded person”. [MORE SCROLL DOWN]
The marine biologist named Priya (a character from Ghosh’s 2004 cli-fi novel The Hungry Tide) tells him there is a logical explanation for deadly spiders in Venice and yellow-bellied sea snakes off Venice Beach in Los Angeles; climate change is pushing these creatures to more northerly regions.
But his old friend Cinta, an Italian professor of history, believes in more supernatural causes and that stories from the past contain something “elemental and inexplicable” that can be unleashed.
Through her, Deen starts to see the parallels between the tale of the Bonduki Sadagar and our present day – how the 17th-century merchant’s world was being rocked by the climatic disturbances of the Little Ice Age, and how this ancient traveller’s voyage has much in common with those being made by the refugees flocking to Europe.
Called to Venice to help a documentary-maker make contact with the many Bengalis now in the Italian seaside and canal-linedcity, Deen is plunged into the middle of the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, as all eyes turn to one overcrowded boat that the Italian government has vowed to refuse a safe port.
Flitting across continents, Ghosh deftly summons up a pungent sense of place, whether in the mangrove swamps of Bengal or the misty, cobbled streets of Venice. The past lurks convincingly in the present.
However, you can’t help feeling bashed over the head by all the talk of cyclones, wildfires, oceanic dead zones, dolphin beachings and flooding crises.
And with such a host of characters representing opinions or merely in place to move the plot along, the narrative, and particularly the dialogue, are often stilted.
As such, sadly, ''Gun Island'' is more a fusillade of finger-wagging than a display of sniper-like precision. Gun Islandby Amitav Ghosh,
312 pages
Amitav Ghosh is the author of several important novels, one of which, ''Sea Of Poppies,'' was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 — but GUN ISLAND, a cli-fi novel, his latest, is not his best.
The main character and narrator is named Deen Datta and is a Brooklyn-based rare book dealer born in Calcutta. On a trip back to India, he becomes obsessed with the old Bengali myth of ''The Gun Merchant'', [bundook]
'' बन्दूक'' in Bengali
who fled overseas to escape persecution from a Snake Goddess.
Visiting a shrine to the Merchant, Deen is almost bitten by a snake, and so begins a series of events in which the Gun Merchant’s story starts to become bound up in Deen’s own.
Spanning several continents, this novel is stuffed to bursting with ideas about climate change, migration, the interconnectivity of past and present and the way ancient stories can have a powerfully-imaginative impact on an individual consciousness.
But it’s also a fussily written, hydra-headed mess of madly proliferating, credulity-stretching plot points.
Climate change has started to influence our language. Here's how
There are a lot of words and phrases that are coming into English that are becoming part of the new dialect," Australian crossword creator and self-confessed word nerd David Astle said.
"It's looking at the fact this is a changing world, so what are the words we need?"
The new words
The term cli-fi might not be the most recognizable, but it's something many would be familiar with: climate fiction.
Cli-Fi refers to the barrage of books and films in recent years that usually deal with a world-destroying natural event and the desperate race for humans to survive it.
"Obviously it echoes sci-fi and it's a very particular type of sci-fi that is becoming more, scarily, plausible," Mr Astle said.
Notable film examples include Interstellar, 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow — all of which depict catastrophic natural events that threaten to wipe out humans. While Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road explores what happens after an extinction-level event.
After his epic Ibis trilogy, a rip-roaring, hugely detailed imagining of the Opium Wars, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh turns his hand to ''cli-fi'' — ''climate fiction.''
''Gun Island'' by Amitav Ghosh
a new cli-fi novel reviewed in The Times of London
reviewed by Siobhan Murphy on June 7
Headlined: "Magic and Mangroves
''This tangled tale takes in the refugee crisis and climate change,'' says Siobhan Murphy in her review below
After his epic Ibis trilogy, a rip-roaring, hugely detailed imagining of the Opium Wars, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh turns his hand to ''cli-fi'' — ''climate fiction.''
Gun Island blends Bengali folklore, the historical and present-day links between India and Venice, climate change, the refugee crisis, the power of storytelling and the supernatural in a tale that sometimes wobbles under the weight of such a load.
Dinanath Datta, known as Deen, is a seller of rare books living in New York City, who on a trip home to India humors an old aunt by taking a trip to the Sundarbans, the vast mangrove forest that lies on the Bay of Bengal.
Knowing his interest in Bengali folklore, she had entreated him to visit a shrine she remembered glimpsing there, dedicated to the ''Bonduki Sadagar,'' or The Gun Merchant.
Legend told how the Bonduki Sadagar was chased across strange lands by the snake goddess Manasa Devi, whom he had angered, meeting all manner of calamities until he was saved by a miraculous intervention of nature and returned home a rich man.
The bookish Deen, initially reluctant about the trip, becomes fascinated by what he discovers and begins picking apart the clues in the legend that reveal it could be a true story. Meanwhile, strange events and coincidences — and a preponderance of venomous beasties — start encroaching on his life, shaking his faith in himself as “a rational, secular, scientifically minded person”. [MORE SCROLL DOWN]
The marine biologist named Priya (a character from Ghosh’s 2004 cli-fi novel The Hungry Tide) tells him there is a logical explanation for deadly spiders in Venice and yellow-bellied sea snakes off Venice Beach in Los Angeles; climate change is pushing these creatures to more northerly regions.
But his old friend Cinta, an Italian professor of history, believes in more supernatural causes and that stories from the past contain something “elemental and inexplicable” that can be unleashed.
Through her, Deen starts to see the parallels between the tale of the Bonduki Sadagar and our present day – how the 17th-century merchant’s world was being rocked by the climatic disturbances of the Little Ice Age, and how this ancient traveller’s voyage has much in common with those being made by the refugees flocking to Europe.
Called to Venice to help a documentary-maker make contact with the many Bengalis now in the Italian seaside and canal-linedcity, Deen is plunged into the middle of the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, as all eyes turn to one overcrowded boat that the Italian government has vowed to refuse a safe port.
Flitting across continents, Ghosh deftly summons up a pungent sense of place, whether in the mangrove swamps of Bengal or the misty, cobbled streets of Venice. The past lurks convincingly in the present.
However, you can’t help feeling bashed over the head by all the talk of cyclones, wildfires, oceanic dead zones, dolphin beachings and flooding crises.
And with such a host of characters representing opinions or merely in place to move the plot along, the narrative, and particularly the dialogue, are often stilted.
As such, sadly, ''Gun Island'' is more a fusillade of finger-wagging than a display of sniper-like precision. Gun Islandby Amitav Ghosh,
After his epic Ibis trilogy, a rip-roaring, hugely detailed imagining of the Opium Wars, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh turns his hand to cli-fi — climate fiction.Gun Island blends Bengali folklore, the historical and present-day links between India and Venice, climate change, the refugee crisis, the power of storytelling and the supernatural in a tale that sometimes wobbles under the weight of such a load.
After his epic Ibis trilogy, a rip-roaring, hugely detailed imagining of the Opium Wars, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh turns his hand to ''cli-fi'' — ''climate fiction.''
This tangled tale takes in the refugee crisis and climate change, says Siobhan Murphy... After his epic Ibis trilogy, a rip-roaring, hugely detailed imagining of the Opium Wars, the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh turns his hand to cli-fi — climate fiction. ''Gun Island'' blends Bengali folklore, the historical and present-day links bet ... Read full article: thetimes.co.uk- Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh review — magic an ... →
KEYWORD: '' बन्दूक'' in Bengali, or Bangla ''bundook'' ... written in English... and meaning "gun" --
and "bundooki sadagur" = the gun merchant, (h/t Dr. Arin Basu)
Amitav Ghosh goes 'cli-fi' in new novel 'Gun Island' set for publication on June 16, 2019 (Bloomsday in Ireland)
Above is the entire video of the event, about 90 minutes long, and about two minutes into the video, Dr Ghosh begins to read from the first chapter to the assembled audience of about 100 people from his new cli-fi novel GUN ISLAND... HERE IS THE self-TRANSCRIBED TEXT by Dan Bloom:
Standing on stage, Dr Ghosh, born in 1956 but looking half his age and with an engaging, broad smile and a handsome shock of shiny white hair, gave a brief reading from the beginning pages of the novel, and the 5-minute reading turned out to be a stellar performance by the gifted orator and storyteller. I could have listened to the entire novel spoken out loud by the author on video, just to hear his wonderous voice and watch his animated face as he tells the tale. [Sign me up for the ten-hour performance if he ever gets coaxed into doing it!]
In the meantime, this is the real world, and this is what Dr Ghosh said, transcribed by this blogger's secretary Lily Chen in Taiwan after they both watched the UK event live the night before. The host of the event was Jonathan Derbyshire, opinion page editor of the Financial Times newspaper in London.
============================================
Dr Ghosh begins his tale this way: [The narrator of the novel, Deen Datta, is speaking:]
"The strangest thing about this strange journey was that this journey was launched by a word coinage which was in wide circulation from Cairo to Calcutta. That word is "bundook" which means ''gun'' in many languages, including my own mother tongue, Bengali, Bengla. Nor is the word a stranger to English by way of British colonial use of the word. ''Bundook'' found its way into the Oxford English Dictionary where it was glossed as "rifle".
''But there was no rifle or gun on the day this journey began, nor indeed was the word intended to refer to a weapon, and that precisely is why it caught my attention. Because the word in Bengali -- "bundooki sadagur" could be translated as ''The Gun Merchant.''
''The Gun Merchant entered my life not in Brooklyn where I live and work, but in the city in which I was born and raised, Calcutta.''
''That year, as in many others, I was in Calcutta for much of the winter months for my business. My work as a dealer in rare books and Asian antiquities required me to do a lot of on-site scouting, and since I happened to have a small apartment in Calcutta, the city became a second place for scouting operations for me.
''The day of my return to Brooklyn was almost at hand when I went to the last of my social engagements of the season -- the wedding reception of a cousin's daughter. I had just entered the venue, a stuffy colonial-era club, when I was accosted by a distant relative named Kanai Datta.
I had not seen Kanai in many years, which was not entirely a matter of regret for me, as he had always been a glib, precocious know-it-all who used his quick tongue and good looks to look for women and get ahead in the world.
''Tell me, Deeno,'' he said, "is it true that you hold yourself up as an expert in Bengali folklore?'' (The almost audible sneer rattled me.)
"Well," I sputtered, "I did some research on that kind of thing a long time ago, but I gave it up when I left academia and became a book dealer."
"But you did get a PhD, did you not?" he said, (with barely-concealed derision), "so you are technically an expert."
"I am not an expert..." I started to say... He cut me short.
"So tell me, Mr Expert," he said, "have you heard of a figure called The Gun Merchant?"
''He had cleary been intending to surprise me, and he succeeded. The name, 'The Gun Merchant,' was so new to me that I was tempted to think that Kanai had made it up...."
BOOK REVIEW FROM THE UK:
Amitav Ghosh is the author of several important novels, one of which, ''Sea Of Poppies,'' was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 — and GUN ISLAND, a cli-fi historical novel, "cli-fi-histo," his latest, is his best.
The main character and narrator is named Deen and is a Brooklyn-based rare book dealer born in Calcutta. On a trip back to India, he becomes obsessed with the old Bengali myth of ''The Gun Merchant'', [bundooki sadagur]
'' बन्दूक'' in Bengali...
who fled overseas to escape persecution from a Snake Goddess.
Visiting a shrine to the Merchant, Deen is almost bitten by a snake, and so begins a series of events in which the Gun Merchant’s story starts to become bound up in Deen’s own.
Spanning several continents, this novel is stuffed to bursting with ideas about climate change, migration, the interconnectivity of past and present and the way ancient stories can have a powerfully-imaginative impact on an individual consciousness.
And it’s a well written, hydra-headed mix of proliferating, magical plot points.
========== NOTES:
It is in his home town of Kolkata that Deen Datta meets, by chance, his distant relative Kanai Dutt, who upends his view of the world with a single word: ''bundook.'' Gun. A writer and folklorist, Datta has for years dedicated his research to the Halders of Raskhal, a once grand land-owning family, in whose downfall he sees the seed of his own misfortunes - his serial divorces and history of mental instability the legacy of his long-dead kinswoman, whose cruel impoverishment and suffering at the hands of that great family has been handed down from generation to generation. Now, at Kanai's briefest suggestion, he realizes that this family legacy may have deeper roots still, in the tale of a merchant that the narrator had always understood to be the stuff of Bengali legend. As the ground beneath him shifts, Deen sets out on an extraordinary journey that will take him from Kolkata to Venice and Sicily via a tangled route through the memories of those he meets along the way. What emerges is an extraordinary portrait of a man groping toward a sense of what is happening around him, struggling to grasp, from within his accepted understanding of the world, the reality with which he is presented.
''Bundook''. Gun. A common word, but one that turns the narrator of the novel Deen Datta’s world upside down.
A dealer of rare books based in Brookln most of the time, Deen is used to a quiet life spent indoors, but as his once-solid beliefs begin to shift, he is forced to set out on an extraordinary journey; one that takes him from India to Los Angeles and Venice via a tangled route through the memories and experiences of those he meets along the way. There is Piya, a fellow Bengali-American who sets his journey in motion; Tipu, an entrepreneurial young man who opens Deen’s eyes to the realities of growing up in today’s world; Rafi, with his desperate attempt to help someone in need; and Cinta, an old friend who provides the missing link in the story they are all a part of. It is a journey that will upend everything he thought he knew about himself, about the Bengali legends of his childhood, and about the world around him.
Amitav Ghosh‘s Gun Island is a beautifully realized novel that effortlessly spans space and time. It is the story of a world on the brink, of increasing displacement and unstoppable transition. But it is also a story of hope, of a man whose faith in the world and the future is restored by two remarkable women.
Amitav Ghosh is the author of the Ibis trilogy, which includes Sea of Poppies (which was short-listed for the 2008 Man Booker Prize), River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire. His other novels include The Circle of Reason, which won the Prix Médicis for forgeign language novels in France, and The Glass Palace. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his Amerian wife, the writer Deborah Baker and their two adult children, a son and a daughter.
===============
Streamed live
We were told we were nearing the end of history; that globalisation would lift millions out of poverty, and that the onward march of time would bring unprecedented peace and stability across the world. But globalisation is delivering on its promises only to a powerful minority, and the result is a global system that our planet can’t sustain.
Acclaimed writer Amitav Ghosh visits the RSA to reflect on humanity’s condition in the Anthropocene era, and how the stories we tell can help us understand our place in a drastically changing world. What we need, he says, is to be able to think the unthinkable; if the climate catastrophe we’re facing is a collective failure of imagination as well as one of ethics and action, we need to think beyond the limits of realism to confront the state in which we find ourselves. Fiction, he tells us, can be a powerful force for good in helping us to recognise the realities of our condition, and navigate the constant change that defines the modern world.
NEW YORK CITY -- As climate fiction novels are beginning to resonate more deeply as the current “climate crisis” climate makes the headlines in over a dozen languages worldwide every day, publishing industry players in Manhattan and London are beginning to look the looming crisis right in the eye of the storm. Thanks for activists like Greta Thunberg in Sweden and Bill McKibben in Vermont, cli-fi is catching on with literary agents, acquiring editors and publishing CEOs as well.
I recently asked a top literary agent in New York if she was handling cli-fi novels yet. and she replied in internet time: “Hi Danny, Yes, I am. In fact, I am representing several novelists now who have cli-fi novels in the pipeline, so feel free to send any writer friends you know in your neck of the internet woods my way!”
I am paraphrasing her response but you can readily see the message she is sending.
I had sent her a short email asking: “Do you handle cli-fi novels yet?”
Elated to read her response, I wrote back: ”Great to hear! Will do. Will let people who contact me know about your and your literary agency.”
Her reply: “Fantastic, many thanks!”
Given that I didn’t know this agent personally and had never had any communications with her (her name and email address had just popped up by chance on my Twitter feed last week), I took our brief exhange to be an important and telling one. The publishing industry is onto — and into — cli-fi now and the next 10 years should prove very fruitful for both novelists and Hollywood film agents, and the book industry.
I am not printing this agent’s name here in this blog post in order to protect her privacy for now, as I had promised.
However, if any novel writers or screenplay scriptwriters want to contact her about their book or movie projects, please contact me here and I will pass on your name and address to the agent. I cannot guarantee she will be taking anyone else on, but one thing is for sure: if one savvy literary agent in New York is now publicly accepting cli-fi writers as clients, then that means the floodgates are open and the gatekeepers are loosening their grip and what gets published and what doesn’t.
Greta Thunberg will never write a cli-fi novel or even a YA cli-fi novel, but then again, one never knows. She might grow up to become a climate-themed novelist herself. She certainly has a good start, and if I was an agent in Sweden or Britain, I would sign her up right now, manuscript sight unseen, just based on her potential to make a difference globally. Her novels might begin to appear in her mid-20s. Greta?
Storytelling will be pivotal in the next 30 years as the climate emergency we are in makes itself felt in all corners of the globe. With literary agents now scouting for cli-fi novels and actively signing them up as clients, there’s a whole new world of literature to explore.
Contact me and I will pass some book agent information on to you in strictest confidence.
When it comes to 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, there are a variety of reasons people admire and respect her, and for the most part, she has has the whole world in her hands, as the song goes. But at the same time, Greta also has her critics and her detractors, some of them rightwing hate-mongers and outright liars, and some of them climate activists who basically support her work and public profile but who also from time to time try to offer some constructive criticism about some of the choices she makes as a public intellectual with a global following.
Case in point is the recent and ongoing brouhaha over the way TIME magazine put Greta on the cover of the May 27 issue of the magazine wearing a controversial green dress picked out by a Dutch photographer commission by the magazine to do the photo shoot in Stockholm.
The result is an interesting Twitter war of words from people around the world, with some fans of Greta saying they love the cover photo and the green dress (and also the inside photo with Greta pulling the same dress down over her bare shoulders with long flowing hair making her look lik a movie star -- with others saying they dislike the green dress and the bare shoulders pose and the way the entire photo shoot was staged and styled.
Me, I'm just an observer, and Greta has my full support as a human being and a climate activist. I'm on her side. Her work on behalf of the planet is important.
But you? After you read some of these posts from Twitter, and you look at the cover photo and inside photo with the sexualized bare shoulders look. what is your opinion on this brouhaha? A tempest is a Swedish teapot, or something more serious?
Comments are welcome in the comments box below this article, as always, pro and con.
So here are some Twitters posts online now:
"Dear Time editors, Greta is great. But why did you choose to lower the public's empathy for her through this kind of dress?'' asked one woman in Europe?
"Is the dress sewn from sushi separators?" tweeted another woman.
And another woman tweeted: "'Okay I will put on the green dress if I can keep my blue sneakers on,' I imagine Greta was thinking."
Yes, in the cover photo, in which Greta was shown looking not very happy as she dutifully faced the middle-aged Dutch woman's camera and seem to grit her teeth, was allowed to sport her blue sneaker below the green dress, which had been picked out for her by the photographer and was not her first choice for clothes that day.
More tweets:
"Bottom layer on that dress has to go!" said a guy in Britain.
"Is she gifted that beautiful dress? Why is she sitting on the ground?" another tweet read.
"They can dress you up as a doll, Greta, but you still give us the 'gimlet eye', that accusing look. Yes! Guilty! Must do more!" said another tweet.
Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene gets the credit for the photos. Some admirers of the photo, and there are many, said on Twitter that "Greta looks like old photos of a young Queen Elizabeth here."
One expects TIME magazine to get things right most of the time, and it usually does. But for its recent photo for its cover story about eco-warrior Thunberg, TIME got it all wrong, very wrong, many critics on Twitter opined, even though they said they are fans and admirers of Greta and remain in her corner.
Some liked the photo, others didn't like it. Some love it, others feel its ''styling'' was misguided and unflattering to Greta.
On Twitter, a woman wrote: "Great news article about Greta, but who chose that green dress, paired with her sneakers"?
Another woman tweete to TIME: "CAN WE TALK?' I know GretaThunberg has become a bit of an icon for other reasons. I think she is bloody wonderful. The cover of TIME magazine is a big deal. But can we talk about this dress? With the sneakers?''
A man chimed in: ''I would encourage Greta to refuse to let the corporate media manipulate her image. Including TIME magazine. Greta is Greta and US corporate media insanity has no control.''
On Yahoo, a woman wrote of the photo: ''She looks like a very unhappy child who has been robbed of her innocence.''
But take note and take heart: not all the tweets were negative.
This tweet from a woman in Australia: "I don't think the green dress is unflattering, I love the random-ness of the dress and Greta isn't exactly known for being a cutesy smiling person so I like the juxtaposition of the serious face with the interesting frock.''
And said another climate activist in Australia via Facebook: "Maybe the TIME cover photo was meant to be subversive?"
As readers know, the 16-year-old Greta has had quite a year or two, beginning in August 2018.
When Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene was commissioned by TIME to create a portrait of Greta for the cover of the magazine's May 27 issue, she said knew that she wanted to portray the teenager in a different light to how the world has seen her before. “When someone asks me to make a portrait, I always think about the subject and my opinion of them. Thinking about Greta, I wanted this photo to be different, because her story is bigger than life,” van Meene said.
In the cover photograph, Greta wears a stylish and colorful green dress that the Dutch photographer found in a shop in Copenhagen on her way to Stockholm for the photo shoot. The dress is a departure from what Greta usually wears, favoring more practical clothing like hoodies, jeans and tracksuits, according to TIME reporter Suyin Haynes in London.
But for van Meene, the color has a deeper meaning, especially against the backdrop of a concrete archway in Stockholm’s Old Town of Gamla Stan. “The green for me symbolizes life,” she said. “And the darkness of the corridor is what we will end up in if we don’t pay attention to what Greta is telling us.”
The Dutch photographer’s teenage daughter also accompanied her to Stockholm, and van Meene says the 16-year-old has been inspired by Thunberg to strike from school in the Netherlands.
“We shouldn’t see Greta as a young cute thing, she’s a serious girl with a serious message,” van Meene says. “Don’t get fooled by her age, listen to what she wants to warn us about. She and her generation will have to pay the price, and that’s why we should act.”
According to TIME, van Meene has been best known for her photographic portraits of teenage girls, with her work exhibiting internationally. She favors working outdoors in natural light and with a film camera, giving her work a timeless, painterly-like quality.
“I like that you can’t really tell exactly when any of my work has been created, and that was really important in this portrait of Greta,” she says. “By making a photo not about her age, but about the personality she will grow into, it means that in 10, even 20 years’ time, this image will be important. It’s not so much a reference to her age, but a reference to her story.”
More tweets:
Said one person in Europe: ''Greta Thunberg's 'green shiny bamboo-like dress' was a big mistake to choose that photographer and to put that unflattering zombie-like photo on cover worldwide. Tasteless. An affront to brave little Greta. She was used, to sell magazines!''
But the positive side, a woman wrote: ''Love this cover. #youth #activism #hope GretaThunberg wears a green dress that photographer Hellen found in Copenhagen on her way to Stockholm."
James Freedman, an art gallery owner in London, tweeted: ''Many congratulations to Hellen van Meene for her Time magazine cover image, a portrait of Greta Thunberg. Stunning work Hellen!"
''What a powerful and beautiful photo, just like you, Greta! Momentum is building. Now is the time to harness and expand that energy. We are with you, Greta,'' tweeted a fan.
But a woman took issue with the bare shoulders and movie star hair shown on the inside photo, saying: "And the hair. Loose hair? Another potent feminine symbol. Have you any idea how impractical, how constricting, hampering these things are? It's no coincidence. At least she refused the 'visit to the footbinder' that is women's shoes."
"Chaps, really, 'something not right'? Look at any other picture of Greta. She is never ever shown wearing one single dress. Those of us girls who notice sexism early, and rise against it, tend not to like being forced into wearing this symbol of our oppression," tweeted a woman in Europe, adding: ''Dress is now off the shoulder.
''It's ok boys, she's just a nubile little girly. No need to listen to her!''
And a very positive tweet by Genevieve Cerf in the USA: "Lawdy, how I love Greta Thunberg! Great article in Time Magazine. And I love the cover photo, with this beautiful green dress which looks like a spring field of grasses waving in the...
So there you have it, the pro and the con over Greta's TIME cover photo and dress.
[NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Emily Coren and Jenny Dusheck have science communication degrees, with Emily's in science illustration and Jenny's in science writing.]
Telling Better Climate Stories
by Emily Coren and Jenny Dusheck
The right story for the job
Someday, when historians recall how humans overcame climate
change to build a livable new world, writers might shine as some of
the biggest heroes.
Surprisingly, some of the best tools we have to solve the climate
problem are stories. Solutions like energy conservation and shutting
off the flow of fossil fuels are critical, of course. But stories can help
us envision a brighter future and then empower us to build it.
Unfortunately, we’re not telling those stories as well as we could.
Storytelling about climate change leans hard toward the apocalyptic,
with slim hope of rescue. In the 2004 film ''The Day After Tomorrow,''
for example, a massive storm floods and then freezes New York City,
stranding a teenage boy and his friends in the New York Public
Library.
His desperate dad (a climate scientist) struggles across a
frozen New Jersey icescape to rescue them.
Dad beats the odds and miraculously saves his son, but he’s
powerless to save the rest of the United States and Canada, now
covered by a massive ice sheet. The main characters survive, but
millions of others perish.
In our hearts, we all know dad, or some other rescuer, isn’t likely
to save us. Yet, many of us hope that government will ultimately force
change or that a miracle technology will appear, like a magician’s
dove fluttering from a hat. And that’s partly because of the kinds of
stories we consume.
Stories of apocalypse may wow us, but they neither bolster our
courage nor inspire us to engineer our own rescue.
Instead, they can leave us with a sense of misplaced impotence. But if we change the
stories we tell, we can change the way our own real-life story unfolds.
And that’s where the makers of games, films, television, and other
fiction come in.
This month, for example, Firaxis Games released a climate change
version of the game Civilization, called ''Gathering Storm,'' that tells
players, “Our survival necessitates new solutions to old problems.”
Flooding, sea level rise, and carbon emissions are all part of game
play. As Mary Beth Griggs reported in The Verge:
''Randomized future technologies let players develop advanced batteries, or AI, or other ways to cope with a rapidly changing world. There are diplomatic paths to action, infrastructure projects that can protect cities, as well as incentives for conservation. It’s a low-stakes place to wrap your head around climate change without some of the existential dread that hovers on the outskirts of any modern discussion of the environment.''
''Gathering Storm'' is one of several climate change related games.
But entertainment that helps us cope with global change needn’t be
explicitly about climate change or energy. In the board game
Pandemic, players collaborate to prevent outbreaks of diseases
threatening the world. The game play is all about cooperation,
exchanging information and planning ahead, even in the face of
serious peril.
Everyone wins or everyone loses. In real life, we need
the same mindset and skills to tackle sea level rise, heat waves,
superstorms, and, of course, real pandemics.
Entertainment can also model civic engagement.
Imagine an episode of virtually any television show in which the right to vote is a
subplot. Maybe one character is registered to vote but is upset when
he learns he can’t vote without a driver’s license. Another character
shows him that that’s not true and the two go to the polls together.
Entertainment can casually address real barriers to voting and other
forms of civic engagement. And engaged voters are an essential
component of tackling climate change.
We can change our stories from disempowering stories that tell
us,“Disasters are scary and inevitable and only a hero can save us”
to empowering ones that show us, “We can solve problems and here
are skills and actions that will help us do that.”
Don’t get us wrong; we know that real apocalypse remains a
possibility.
But that’s no reason to sit passively, hoping it won’t
happen. Both individually and collectively, we already have a hundred
things we could be doing to slow climate change and prepare to adapt
to it. What many of us lack is the confidence, fortitude and
commitment to start, and the humor and hope that could keep us
working.
Social psychology can guide us toward success.
Research shows that we succeed best when we combine a realistic evaluation of tough
odds; an optimism that we can beat those odds; and, finally, dogged
perseverance. To promote that perseverance, psychologists
recommend setting goals in stages, with separate long-term and short-
term goals and periodic reevaluation.
Beyond stories that bolster our sense of community and the
confidence that we can succeed, we also need to articulate what we
want our future to look like.
Whether we put individual climate solutions into effect this weekend or in 50 years, we need stories that help us envision a future that’s fun to imagine and satisfying to build.
Stories make culture. And stories that offer enticing futures, as
well as those that uplift and make us laugh, can guide us to survive
and flourish in the next century and beyond.
=======================================
FOR A LIST OF ACADEMIC CITATIONS, REFERENCES AND FOOTNOTES in this article, please contact the two authors via this blogsite using this email address for forwarding to them: danbloom@gmail.com
THE REAL GRETA The entire Greta cover photo shoot in Stockholm by Dutch photographer Helen Van Meene (@hellenvanmeene) was financed and paid for by multinational capitalist fashion VIP watch maker ROLEX WATCHES, massively expensive time pieces/watches for wealthy people with money to spend on extravagant vanity watches to show off how wealthy they are, and ROLEX customers and ROLEX CEO are the same people who have messed with the planet promoting pollution and consumerism and climate change and poor Greta was NOT AWARE of this contract with ROLEX. TIME editors themselves admit ROLEX sponsored the photo shoot and Greta's inside text story. A ''soft advertisement for ROLEX. If Greta knew this, she never would have gone for this cover shoot sponsored by the one's world's worst VIP capitalist fashion companies making extravagant watches for wealthy people to show off how cool they think they are. More Twitter chatter: "Dear Time, editors, Greta is great. But why did you choose to lower the public's empathy for her through this kind of dress?'' asked "@pietrafocaia "Is the dress sewn from sushi separators?"tweeted @NaikeLeNormand @SKRIBENT tweeted:"Okay I will put on the green dress if I can keep my blue sneakers on, I imagine Greta was thinking." page_what [tweeted] "Bottom layer on that dress has to go!" "Is she gifted that beautiful dress? Why is she sitting on the ground" another tweet read. "They can dress you up as a doll, Greta, but you still give us the 'gimlet eye', that accusing look. Yes! Guilty! Must do more!" said another tweet. Editors in the UK who were responsible for this cover fiasco and won't face up to it: Dan Stewart in UK @thatdanstewart Naina Bajekal in UK @naina_bajekal
Climate activist in USA tells me to shut up! ''Dear Dan, as a friend and ally of yours, can I ask you to please shut the fuck up and stop tweeting harshly at Greta Thunberg? She's a kid and the mistakes that you and some others are pointing out are so minor in comparison to the good she's doing. We're in this together and we need your voice as well as hers. These minor squabbles detract from the crisis at hand.''
Photograph of an unsmiling, seemingly unhappy Greta in ''a green bamboo-like dress'' chosen for the shoot and styled by Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene: note: some say Greta looks like old photos of a young Queen Elizabeth here Hellen van Meene helping Greta to relax using ''New Age relaxation techniques'' during the TIME photo shoot in Sweden. Gretta mighthave been thinking to herself: "Hey, wait a minute, I don't like this cockamamie green sushi rollers dress at all, I don't like it one bit -- picked out by my well-paid commissioned photographer -- and I'd rather be anywhere else then here right now and certainly not holding hands with some New Age hippie tryng her best to hypnotize me into accepting this stupid dumb dress, but hey, what can I do?"
You expect TIME magazine to get things right, and it usually does. But for its recent photo for its cover story about 16-year-old Swedish eco-warrior Greta Thunberg, TIME got it all wrong, very wrong. While the magazine article was well-reported and interesting, the photo on the cover and how it came to be ''styled'' and photographed by a Dutch stylist and photographer on paid assignment for TIME, Hellen Van Meene @Hellenvanmeene has divided readers around the world. Some like the photo, others don't like it. Some love it, others feel it styling was misguided and unflattering to Greta. On Twitter, some said: "Great news article about Greta, but who chose that green dress, paired with her sneakers"?
AND another person tweeted: re CAN WE TALK?
''I know @GretaThunberg has become a bit of an icon for other reasons. I think she is bloody wonderful. the cover of time magazine is a big deal. But can we talk about this dress?With the sneakers''.
''I would encourage Greta to refuse to let the corporate media manipulate her image. Including TIME magazine. Greta is Greta and US corporate media insanity has no control.''
CHERYL wrote at Yahoo.com news story about Greta and TIME cover:
''She looks like a very unhappy child who has been robbed of her innocence.''
BUT another person tweeted: "I don't think the green dress is unflattering, i love the random-ness of the dress and she isn't exactly known for being a cutesy smiling person so I like the juxtaposition of the serious face with the interesting frock.''
And a fellow climate activist, fro the USA, a friend of this blog, wrote via twitter:"Hi, as a friend and ally of yours, can I ask you to please stop tweeting harshly at Greta? She's a kid and the mistakes you and some others are pointing out are so minor in comparison to the good she's doing. We're in this together and we need your voice as well as hers. These minor squabbles detract from the crisis at hand."
And another American climate activist, this one a sci-fi novelist, wrote via twitter: ''Sir, I kinda think you being hard on Greta, she is just a kid after all, and she is doing better than most of us to make change. I mean, your post has made *me uncomfortable. I was a idiot when I was 16.''
And said another friend in Australia via Facebook: "Maybe the photo was meant to be subversive?"
Greta is featured on the May 27 cover of the May 27 issue Time magazine ''in recognition of the global impact she has had in holding strikes for climate action outside Sweden’s parliament since August.''
“Now I Am Speaking to the Whole World,” she tweeted after seeing the cover, referencing a quote from the article by TIME reporter Suyin Haynes @suyinsays
Greta's tweet @GretaThunberg included a photo of the magazine’s cover, and she said to her followers "I'm on the cover of TIME this week!" She wasn't bragging, she was just stating a fact.
The 16-year-old has had quite a year or two, beginning in August 2018.
“Before, I never really spoke when I was in my lessons or with my classmates,” Thunberg told Haynes. “But now I am speaking to the whole world.”
SO HOW DID THE CONTROVERSIAL ''STYLED'' PHOTO COME TO BE? READ ON BELOW:
When Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene was commissioned by TIME to create a portrait of Greta for the cover of the magazine's May 27 issue, she said knew that she wanted to portray the teenager in a different light to how the world has seen her before. “When someone asks me to make a portrait, I always think about the subject and my opinion of them. Thinking about Greta, I wanted this photo to be different, because her story is bigger than life,” van Meene told TIME.
Van Meene’s weird, controversial and unflattering photograph of Greta was taken near the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm in April.
In the cover photograph, Greta wears a weird and very un-Greta-style green dress that the Dutch photographer found in a shop in Copenhagen on her way to Stockholm. The dress is a departure from what the teenager usually wears, favoring more practical clothing like hoodies, jeans and tracksuits.
But for van Meene, the color has a deeper meaning, especially against the backdrop of a concrete archway in Stockholm’s Old Town of Gamla Stan. “The green for me symbolizes life,” she said. “And the darkness of the corridor is what we will end up in if we don’t pay attention to what Greta is telling us.”
The Dutch photographer’s teenage daughter also accompanied her to Stockholm, and van Meene says the 16-year-old has been inspired by Thunberg to strike from school in the Netherlands. “We shouldn’t see Greta as a young cute thing, she’s a serious girl with a serious message,” van Meene says. “Don’t get fooled by her age, listen to what she wants to warn us about. She and her generation will have to pay the price, and that’s why we should act.” Since the mid-1990s, van Meene has been best known for her square photographic portraits of teenage girls, with her work exhibiting internationally. She favors working outdoors in natural light and with a film camera, giving her work a timeless, painterly-like quality. “I like that you can’t really tell exactly when any of my work has been created, and that was really important in this portrait of Greta,” she says. “By making a photo not about her age, but about the personality she will grow into, it means that in 10, even 20 years’ time, this image will be important. It’s not so much a reference to her age, but a reference to her story.”
''The danger lies not with Greta Thunberg (she did good, though there is a hype problem I feel).
The danger lies with a later "Greta Thunberg"-like person inspiring millions, but for dubious matters.''
TWEET INCOMING: #GretaThunberg's fugugly "green shiny bamboo-like dress" that graces TIME mag May 27 issue, a big mistake to choose that photographer and to put that unflattering zombie photo on cover worldwide. Tasteless. An affront to brave little Greta. She was used, to sell magazines! Sigh.''
TWYG mag tweeted: ''Love this cover. #youth#activism#hope@GretaThunberg wears a green dress that photographer #HellenvanMeene found in Copenhagen on her way to Stockholm. Hellen told @TIME “The green for me symbolizes life”. ''
James Freedman tweeted: ''Many congratulations to Hellen van Meene for her Time magazine cover image, a portrait of Greta Thunberg. Stunning work Hellen!
In July we will have a solo exhibition of Hellen van Meene's photography @jamesfreemangallery
In London. Contact us for more … ''http://bit.ly/2M4tpdV
TWEETED: Yes, totally weird and unflattering dress and photo choice by Dutch photog hired by TIME for this gig. I support Greta. But this photo shoot and cover pic totally wrong-headed. Who decides these things? Poor Greta looks unhappy here.''
dave@davelostdave
''The year is 2050. We have failed to act on climate change. The world is in chaos. Our last hope is to send @GretaThunberg back in time...''
''What a powerful and beautiful photo, just like you!
Momentum is building. Now is the time to harness and expand that energy. We are with you, Greta.''
Greta Thunberg beskrivs som en ledare för en ny generation i nya ==========MORE TWEETS ON TWITTER Chris West @littlerobbergrl Seriously? I am *pointing out* that she *is* being objectified. Replying to @littlerobbergrl @do_you_cli_fi_ and 6 others Dress is now *off the shoulder* It's ok boys, she's just a nubile little girly. No need to listen to her!2 replies 0 retweets 1 like Reply 2 Retweet
Liked 1 Direct message Chris West @littlerobbergrl · 1h1 hour ago More Replying to @cathyloftus @do_you_cli_fi_ and 6 others Seriously? I am *pointing out* that she *is* being objectified.0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes Reply Retweet
Liked 2 Direct message Truthseeker 🏁 liked Tweets you were included in · 4h4 hours ago Erica Eller @EricaEller I agree—her image with braids and her calm unsmiling look is already iconic without the fussy dress. 3 other likes Truthseeker 🏁
Truthseeker 🏁 liked your reply · 4h4 hours ago #CapitalizeEarth as "Earth" in TIME mag, not earth @do_you_cli_fi_ What went wrong with TIME magazine's surreal, unflattering and controversial cover photo shoot of Greta Thunberg? ....Everything! -- https://5511hour.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-went-wrong-with-time-magazines.html … SEE THIS MESSAGE TO TIME EDITORS: Please #CapitalizeEarth if you really respect Greta! Truthseeker 🏁 @Women_Exist · 4h4 hours ago More Replying to @littlerobbergrl @do_you_cli_fi_ and 7 others A fine point.0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes Reply Retweet Like Direct message RadFemininityXX
RadFemininityXX liked a reply to you · 4h4 hours ago Erica Eller @EricaEller I agree—her image with braids and her calm unsmiling look is already iconic without the fussy dress. Dr Fox up a Thorntree liked Tweets you were included in · 4h4 hours ago Chris West @littlerobbergrl Here is the worse image with lose hair. Great article btw which makes this 'barbie-fication' even more troubling. http://time.com/collection-post/5584902/greta-thunberg-next-generation-leaders/ …😠 😒 5 other likes Dr Fox up a Thorntree
Rival Platinum and Chris West liked this reply · 4h4 hours ago Bianca Nardon @pietrafocaia I'm not interested in the artistic quality of the picture. I look at the message it brings to the people. And I see a drawing about a girl who tries to be a princess without succeding. But she isn't the center of the climate crisis. She asks questions, beyond her character. Chris West @littlerobbergrl · 4h4 hours ago More Replying to @pietrafocaia @do_you_cli_fi_ and 5 others Exactly. It's a way of trying to make her 'safe'. It won't work.=================== Bianca Nardon liked Tweets you were included in · 4h4 hours ago Chris West @littlerobbergrl Here is the worse image with lose hair. Great article btw which makes this 'barbie-fication' even more troubling.http://time.com/collection-post/5584902/greta-thunberg-next-generation-leaders/ …😒3 other likes Bianca Nardon @pietrafocaia · 4h4 hours ago More Replying to @aviaum @do_you_cli_fi_ and 5 others I'm not interested in the artistic quality of the picture. I look at the message it brings to the people. And I see a drawing about a girl who tries to be a princess without succeding. But she isn't the center of the climate crisis. She asks questions, beyond her character.1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes Reply 1 Retweet Like 2 Direct message Chris West @littlerobbergrl · 4h4 hours ago More Replying to @littlerobbergrl @do_you_cli_fi_ and 6 others Here is the worse image with lose hair. Great article btw which makes this 'barbie-fication' even more troubling.4 replies 0 retweets 2 likes Reply 4 Retweet Like 2 Direct message Chris West @littlerobbergrl · 4h4 hours ago More Replying to @pietrafocaia @do_you_cli_fi_ and 6 others It's a pretty material. If it was on David Bowie, I would like it 😂0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes Reply Retweet
Liked Direct message Chris West
Chris West liked this reply · 4h4 hours ago Bianca Nardon @pietrafocaia I don't see anything "nice". I see only something that's not @GretaThunberg Bianca Nardon @pietrafocaia · 4h4 hours ago More Replying to @littlerobbergrl @do_you_cli_fi_ and 5 others I don't see anything "nice". I see only something that's not @GretaThunberg1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes Reply 1 Retweet
Liked 3 Direct message Bianca Nardon liked Tweets you were included in · 4h4 hours ago Chris West @littlerobbergrl Chaps, really, 'something not right'? Look at any other picture of Greta. Here, is there one single dress? Those of us girls who notice sexism early, and rise against it, tend not to like being forced into wearing this symbol of our oppression 😒 https://www.google.com/search?q=greta+thunberg&client=ms-android-motorola&prmd=vni&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi39cGZ4KviAhW8QxUIHaoPDEIQ_AUoA3oECA4QAw&biw=320&bih=497 … 2 other likes Chris West @littlerobbergrl · 4h4 hours ago More Replying to @littlerobbergrl @do_you_cli_fi_ and 6 others And the hair. Loose hair? Another potent feminine symbol. Have you any idea how impractical, how constricting, hampering these things are? It's no coincidence. At least she refused the 'visit to the footbinder' that is women's shoes 😠1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes Reply 1 Retweet
Liked 2 Direct message Chris West @littlerobbergrl · 5h5 hours ago More Replying to @littlerobbergrl @do_you_cli_fi_ and 6 others The photographer brought the dress with her. She is wearing one just the same, it is her taste, not Greta's. There was some bargaining going on, or why the trainers? And why would she need 'relaxation' technique? She's never been nervous before! All red flags.1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes Reply 1 Retweet
Liked 2 Direct message Chris West @littlerobbergrl · 5h5 hours ago More Replying to @littlerobbergrl @do_you_cli_fi_ and 6 others We get conflicted about it, because it's nice to look attractive, but it's like wearing a golden collar - it's lovely, but still a symbol of your slavery2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes Reply 2 Retweet
Klimataktivsten Greta Thunberg pryder omslaget till Time Magazines nästa nummer. Sedan tidigare finns hon på tidskriftens lista över världens 100 mest inflytelserika personer.
Du läser nu en av dina fria artiklar på GP.se
- Allt kändes meningslöst, det kändes inte som att det var någon idé att gå till skolan om det inte finns någon framtid, säger hon till tidningen om varför hon startade sin klimatstrejk som gjort henne känd i hela världen.
Nu har skolan blivit en fristad och hon beskriver hur det känns som att hon lever i två olika världar. "Här är jag bara en tyst tjej och där är jag väldigt känd".
Greta Thunberg tar även upp hur hon hanterar hoten och hatet på nätet - Det är ganska roligt när det enda folk kan göra är att håna dig, eller prata om ditt utseende eller din personlighet. Det betyder att de inte har några argument, eller inget annat att säga, säger hon till tidningen.
