Tag: Literature

Rear View

An image from the movie “The Wave” from 2015.


In “Being Ecological” Tim Morton wonders about the prevalent mode of climate writing, which he calls “information dump”, “dumping massive platefuls of facts on to us” over and over again. Morton wonders, why we do that and finds the following analogy:

“Imagine that we are dreaming. What kind of dream would it be where the characters and plot vary, sometimes significantly, but the overall impact—where the dream leaves us, its basic color or tone or point of view (or what have you) —remains the same? There is definitely an analogy from the world of dreaming: these are the trauma dreams of sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).” According to Sigmund Freud, Morton writes, “the PTSD sufferer is simply trying to install herself, through her dreams, at a point in time before the trauma happened. Why? Because there is some safety or security in being able to anticipate. Anticipatory fear is far less intense than the fear you experience when finding yourself, all of a sudden, in the middle of a trauma. If you think about it, traumas by definition are things that you find yourself in the middle of—you can’t sneak up on them from the side or from behind, and that’s why they’re traumatic. You just suddenly find yourself in a car crash, for instance. If you had been able to anticipate, you might have been able to swerve out of the way.”
“By analogy, then,” Morton concludes, “information dump mode is a way for us to try to install ourselves at a fictional point in time before global warming happened. We are trying to anticipate something inside which we already find ourselves.”

“Let Venice sink.”

In a 1971 special edition of Architectural Review devoted to the lagoon city author Jan Morris proposes to simply let the city sink. It’s a polemical claim, but one that takes the ambivalences and dilemmata of historic heritage seriously. A different, longer version of the text was printed in the New York Times on July 20, 1975. It is a wonderful piece of polemic and speculative journalism on the city that, according to the words of Jan Morris, “for a thousand years has occupied a unique position in the imagination, the affection and the distaste of all the nations.”
Both version of the text are online here (1971) and here (1975). And in 2023 Catherine Bennett wrote a nice piece for Wired magazine to review Jan Morris original position, which is also online.

Cover from the 1971 special edition of Architectural Review.

The Year without a Summer


The 19. Century was not only the century of industrialization, the spark that “set human civilization aflame” (Andri Snaer Magnason). Between 1800 and 1815 half a dozen large volcanic eruptions all across the globe significantly changed the climate in China as well as all across Europe and practically all continents. What followed was “the year without a summer” 1816 which did not only bring massive crop failures as well as floods and resulting famines and other hardships to societies worldwide, it also influenced European culture so profoundly that a whole new era of the arts and philosophy developed that had a lasting impact on all of modern society: Romanticism. 1816 is not such a distant past and the paintings, poems, novels and scientific treaties of that era by Caspar David Friedrich, Lord Byron or Mary Shelley remain central to our cultural canon and identity today. In fact, all these climate change stories and images have been right in front of our eyes, in museums, libraries, on t-shirts and advertisements all along. To understand better what’s ahead of us now, we should seek advise from ourselves just seven generations back.


This is an image of the first page of Lod Byron’s famous poem “Darkness” from summer 1816. The full text of the poem and more information about the impacts of “The Year without a Summer” can be found online.

The amphibious communities of Bangkok

Three texts, three authors, three different contexts – all describing the amphibious but perilous life style of the inhabitants of Bangkok, the capital of Thailand:

In her essay from 2018 on contemporary flood protection in several metropolises across Asia, researcher Lizzie Yarina writes:

In decades past (and still today in some rural parts of the country) Thai people lived in “amphibious communities”; for example, in “raft houses” which float upwards on stilts during floods, or in villages built on two levels where upper walkways and living quarters can be used during the rainy season. But those adaptive patterns are disappearing, even as climate risk grows.

In a more visual, literary tone is the following passage. In the 2023 novel “Bangkok wakes to rain” by Thai author Pitchaya Sudbanthad, a British missionary in 19. Century Bangkok writes in a letter home:

The Siamese as a race thrive in the aquatic realm. They live as if they have been born sea nymphs that only recently joined the race of man. He goes on to describe the capital Bangkok: An hour beyond lies the capital, its riverside lined with rickety stilt houses that look incapable of withstanding even the most delicate wake of a modern steamer yet somehow maintain a mysterious integrity. Their occupants drink, , swim, wash away their filth, and fill pots to make soupy meals of their catches, everyone joined in the confluence of fluids.

And in the debut novel by US-American sci-fi author Paolo Bacigalupi “The Windup Girl” from 2009, the scene is set in a future Bangkok:

Just beyond, the dike and lock system of the King Rama XII’s seawall looms, holding back the weight of the blue ocean.
It’s difficult not to always be aware of those high walls and the pressure of the water beyond. Difficult to think of the City of Divine Beings as anything other than a disaster waiting to happen. But the Thais are stubborn and have fought to keep their revered city of Krung Thep from drowning. With coal-burning pumps and leveed labor and a deep faith in the visionary leadership of their Chakri Dynasty, they have so far kept at bay that thing which has swallowed New York and Rangoon, Mumbai and New Orleans.

For further reading on Thailand and living with water see the interview with architect Sumet Jumsai.

Atlantis in “20.000 Leagues under the Seas”

There is a beautifully written passage on the submerged continent and city Atlantis to be found in Jules Verne’s famous novel published in French in 1869/1870. The English translation of the chapter is available online. For simplicity reasons I simply copy the link to the chapter here.

The Fall of Numenor

This is the cover of the 2022 edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories about the sunken island kingdom Numenor, with an illustration by Alan Lee. In Tolkien’s oeuvre Numenor is geographically situated west of Middle-Earth and shows strong similarities to Plato’s Atlantis.

Its major cities are located along the coast and the inhabitants are a sea-faring, maritime society, refered to by the people of Middle-Earth as “Sea-Kings”.

I am no expert on the oeuvre of J.R.R. Tolkien. My knowledge is from vague memories of reading some books as a teenage so I rely here solely on source from the internet that are manifold and sometimes contracitory. As I understand, Numenor is not the only flooded land in the Tolkien Universe.

Among the texts I have read, the most astonishing invention by Tolkien to me is the idea of the bending of the earth which leads to the destruction of the island. Here is a quote from Wikipedia: “Eru Ilúvatar, the One God, caused the Changing of the World: the hitherto flat Earth was transformed into a globe, Númenor sank beneath the ocean. The whole population on the island was drowned.” (quote from wikipedia) This flood story is told in a short story entitled “Akallabêth“. The full text can be found here.

Tolkien was apparently influences by the story of “Lyonesse“, a faraway land that sank into the sea in the Middle English romance King Horn.

Thanks to Manuel Rivera for the lead!

Rich men’s flood myths: Batem and Yann’s comic “Fordlandia”

In a comic book from the Belgian comic series Marsupilami the artists Batem and Yann create a satire on megalomania pipe dreams of the super rich and the fascination of the flood myth.

Set in the South-American Amazon basin, the plot is based on the true stoy of Henry Ford’s „Fordlandia“ project, a business venture the us-American automobile entrepreneur conducted in the 1920‘s in the region to secure rubber supply for the booming car industry. In the comic book a fictitious billionaire follows Ford’s footsteps into the jungle to pick up the ruinous business. But he is obsessed with the idea of a second deluge and devotes all his time – and money – into catching animals to cage on his arch. Like a true business man he does not build the arch himself but buys a mega-flying boat off another billionaire, Howard Hughes. Like Fordlandia, the legendary „H-4 Hercules“ was a massive fail too; the only one of these planes ever produced had one flight only in 1947.

The images are from my german edition of the book:

The story was published in 1991 but one can’t help think of today’s grant rescue schemes of the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. It’s a common feature of today’s climate debate, that billionaires seek and successfully generate public attention to techno-utopian elitist projects. (See this article by Douglas Ruschkoff on his encounter with prepper billionaires which caused quite a buzz upon it’s publication last year) The nice twist in Batem and Yann’s story is that this rescue project is completely built on the past failures of similar minded men.

In addition to these megalomania schemes and failures, the story also references environmental destruction and authoritarian development projects in developing countries: When the deluge does eventually come, it is not a universal one but just the massive tidal wave from a bust reservoir dam, that was finished just before by the authoritarian regime of Palumbia, the fictitious state the adventures of the Marsupilami are set in.

“The sea has covered the plain of Gwydneu”

A Welsh legend tells the story of the sunken land Gwydneu (also known as “Gwydno” and later Cantre’r Gwaelod, “antref Gwaelod”, “Cantref y Gwaelod” and in English “: “The Lowland Hundred”) off the coast of Wales, UK.

It first appears in the Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin, considered to be the oldest book written in Welsh and dating from the middle of the 13. Century. Several later and differing versions of the legend exist. But as the BBC here writes:

“Whichever version of the legend you choose, it is said that if you listen closely you can hear the bells of the lost city ringing out from under the sea, especially on quiet Sunday mornings, and particularly if you’re in Aberdyfi [also known as Aberdovy], which is famous in Welsh folk legend as being the nearest place on dry land to Cantre’r Gwaelod.”

Here is the poem from the “Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin” in a modern English translation. The name “Seithenin” in the first line refers to one of two sons of the legendary ruler of Gwydneu, Gwyddno Garanhir. It was the princes’ duty to guard the floodgates that protected the low lying land:

Seithenhin, stand thou forth,
And behold hte billowy rows;
The sea has covered the plain of Gwydneu.

Accursed be the damsel,
Who, after the wailing,
Let loose the Fountain of Venus, the raging deep.

Accursed be the maiden,
Who, after the conflict, let loose
The fountain of Venus, the desolating sea.

A great cry from the roaring sea arises above the summit of the rampart,
To-day even to God does the supplication come!
Common after excess there ensues restraint.

A cry from the roaring sea overpowers me this night,
And it is not easy to relieve me;
Common after excess succeeds adversity.

A cry from the roaring sea comes upon the winds;
The mighty and beneficent God has caused it!
Common after excess is want.

A cry from the roaring sea
Impels me from my resting-place this night;
Common after excess is far-extending destruction.

The grave of Seithenhin the weak-minded
Between Caer Cenedir and the shore
Of the great sea and Cinran.

This is the online source. For the full book go here.

See also the posts on Marcus Vergette‘s art installation and the song The Bells of Aberdovey.

Similar legends from Northern Europe are the kingdom Ys in Brittany, the sunken palace Llys Helig in Wales or the land Lyoness in Cornwall.

Man made flooding in “Tintin and the Lake of Sharks”

The Belgian animation movie and comic book from 1972 and 1973 is set around an artificial lake in a fictious mountain state in the Balkans. We do not learn much about the history of the lake but Tintin explains during the landing flight that a whole town had to be evacuated in order to create the lake. We also learn that the locals think of the lake as a bad place or as cursed, implying that the flooding was not at all desirable, possibly it was experienced as an act of cruelty and arrogance towards the local population.

As Tintin finds out eventually the buildings of this submerged town now serve as hideaway for the story’s villain.

Later in the story, there is a submarine chase in the town’s streets. The movie makes much humorous use of the strange intactness of the architecture of the submerged city, for example when Capt. Haddock in his submarine ponders over a “Do not enter”-street sign whether to ignore it or not. In the comic book, Haddock cusses at the other submarine just like a typical driver in any city traffic:

This illustrates quite well the peculiar condition and uncanny of submerged cities.

At the climax of the plot, the submerged town is once again destroyed, this time by explosives set within the villain’s hideaway. In an interesting revearsal of the function of a flood meter above water, the explosives are triggered by a flood meter, measuring the rise of the water entering into the building that is below the lake’s surface. When the room become fully flooded, the buildings of the submerged town explode, sending a massive tsunami-like wave across the lake’s surface.

This probably mirrors and repeats the situation the town got submerged in originally. And it signals the second and presumably final destruction of the town.

The full comic book in english is available here.

See also my other post on the various covers here.

Covers of “Tintin and the Lake of Sharks”

This classic Tintin comic story around an underwater city in a lake appeared first as a movie and a year later as a comic book. While the movie poster displayed various images from the movie in a rather playful manner, the first French language book edition had a much more dramatic cover, clearly shifting the focus of the story towards disaster narrative.

The movie poster from 1972:

The cover of the Belgian comic book from 1973:

At least two other covers appeared for different editions of the story:

See also my other post about the story here.