Du « nature writing » à la « climate fiction » by CLAIRE PERRIN in FRANCE

 

Au tournant des années 2010, la presse américaine relatait l’apparition d’un nouveau genre littéraire, la « cli-fi » (pour climate fiction), terme inventé en 2008 par l’écrivain et blogueur Dan Bloom. Les romans de « fiction climatique » prennent généralement la forme de récits post-apocalyptiques où des personnages évoluent dans un monde ravagé par les effets du changement climatique.
Si les romans de cli-fi sont encensés par la presse américaine aux sympathies écologistes, ils restent cantonnés en France à un public de niche.

Du « nature writing » à la « climate fiction »

Aux États-Unis, la popularité et le nombre des romans de cli-fi s’expliquent d’abord par l’importance culturelle de la nature dans ce pays. Citons ici le poète Walt Whitman et les philosophes Henry David Thoreau et Ralph Waldo Emerson, qui ont parmi les premiers contribué à faire de la nature le personnage principal du roman national américain.
Par contraste, la littérature française s’est passionnée pour la ville : chez Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac ou Charles Baudelaire, c’est Paris, les intérieurs, les arts, bref tout ce qui relève de la « culture » et de la « civilisation » qui semble digne de fiction. La nature et la campagne – que ce soit dans Aux Champs de Guy de Maupassant ou bien dans Madame Bovary de Gustave Flaubert – sont le théâtre de l’avilissement moral.
Si la nature redevient un sujet d’intérêt pour les lecteurs français, ce dont témoigne le retour en vogue des œuvres de Henry David Thoreau, le sujet semble rester cantonné à la littérature d’essai ou aux récits de voyage comme chez Sylvain Tesson.
L’arrivée tardive de la cli-fi en France peut aussi s’expliquer par un certain élitisme littéraire dédaignant encore largement la science-fiction, dont se rapproche tout naturellement ce nouveau genre.

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La question des dangers d’une surexploitation de la nature et du rêve de terraformation d’autres planètes est en effet au cœur de nombreux romans de science-fiction, à l’image de Dune (1965) de Frank Herbert. Citons aussi J.G. Ballard qui publia un an avant le classique d’Herbert Sécheresse, le troisième volet de sa quadrilogie des mondes dévastés ; il y dépeint une apocalypse provoquée par la disparition des eux terrestres sous l’effet de la pollution industrielle des océans.
Mais il est possible de faire remonter la fiction climatique encore plus loin. Avec Les Raisins de la colère de John Steinbeck (1939), par exemple. On y découvre les conséquences sociales de l’épisode climatique du « Dust Bowl » des années 1930 au cours duquel des tempêtes de poussière s’abattirent sur les Grandes Plaines américaines. Climatologues et historiens de l’environnement s’accordent aujourd’hui pour dire que le Dust Bowl fut la conséquence directe de techniques agricoles délétères.

Contre les rêves fous de la géo-ingénierie

Une autre caractéristique de la science-fiction consiste à dénoncer des sociétés grisées par leurs capacités d’innovation, de contrôle de la nature, de progrès scientifique et technologique. Dérivée de la Sci-Fi, la cli-fi n’échappe pas à la règle.
L’un des exemples les plus frappants se trouve chez l’Américain Paolo Bacigalupi. Couronné en 2010 par les prix Nebula et Hugo pour son premier ouvrage La Fille automate, Paolo Bacigalupi fut longtemps journaliste au sein de la revue écologiste High Country News. L’auteur dépeint dans son roman un monde frappé par une pénurie des ressources pétrolières et une montée des niveaux des océans due au réchauffement climatique.
En 2015, Paolo Bacigalupi publie un second roman de cli-fi, The Water Knife. Il y décrit, dans un contexte de sécheresse apocalyptique liée aux activités humaines, la lutte qui oppose les États du Sud-Ouest américain pour l’accès à l’eau de la rivière Colorado. Sous le soleil écrasant du désert de l’Arizona, les habitants de Phoenix en sont réduits à boire leur urine recyclée…
Les plus fortunés, quant à eux, survivent confortablement sous des dômes recréant artificiellement des écosystèmes paradisiaques. Ce type de construction, en projet dans plusieurs grandes villes du monde pose pour Bacigalupi plusieurs questions essentielles : qui y aura accès ? Et quid de la nature à l’extérieur de ces structures ?
Dénonçant à la fois le capitalisme et les rêves de géo-ingénierie des firmes multinationales, les romans de Paolo Bacigalupi illustrent la frange de la cli-fi la plus politisée et la plus investie par la question des responsabilités humaines dans les dérèglements climatiques.

Rencontre avec Paolo Bacigalupi (Laurence Honnorat/YouTube, 2016).

Une réponse au climato-scepticisme

Dans un contexte où des personnalités climato-sceptiques occupent aux États-Unis les plus hautes fonctions, un genre littéraire tel que la cli-fi peut véritablement faire œuvre de résistance.
En cherchant à éveiller les consciences à l’aide de récits apocalyptiques, la cli-fi rejoint ainsi la rhétorique des écologistes américains et européens dénonçant la surexploitation de la nature et l’absence de réaction adaptée face aux changements climatiques.
Ces accents eschatologiques exposent toutefois les romanciers à la critique d’écologistes plus modérés : représenter le réchauffement climatique comme un phénomène apocalyptique revient à se couper l’herbe sous le pied en risquant de désintéresser le public de la question, convaincu par ces œuvres qu’il n’y a plus rien à faire.

Des histoires plutôt que des courbes de CO₂

Si la cli-fi est bien souvent catastrophiste, elle ne se limite pas à des récits d’apocalypses préfabriquées.
En 2017, paraît en français Les Sables de l’Amargosa de la Caliornienne Claire Vaye Watkins. Alors que les changements climatiques composaient le sujet central du roman de Paolo Bacigalupi, ils figurent ici comme un arrière-plan réaliste du récit mettant en scène un couple de Californiens tentant de survivre à la sécheresse en se ralliant aux adeptes d’un gourou sourcier et manipulateur.

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Autre aspect étonnant, Claire Vaye Watkins répertorie, dans des chapitres pastichant les grands naturalistes et explorateurs américains, les nouvelles espèces animales apparues avec les changements climatiques.
Pour ce qui est de la cli-fi française, on peut citer le roman Terre Lointaine de Pierre-Yves Touzot. Post-apocalyptique sans verser dans le sensationnalisme, ce roman débute sur l’éveil d’un personnage, ne connaissant ni son identité ni son passé, dans un environnement peuplé de créatures étranges et familières à la fois, dans lequel il tentera de survivre et de comprendre ce qui s’est passé durant son sommeil. Sur 300 pages, Pierre-Yves Touzot présente de façon précise et accessible toutes les théories et données scientifiques permettant de prendre la mesure de la crise environnementale.

Atteindre les imaginaires

C’est là tout l’enjeu de la fiction climatique : exposer l’ampleur de la crise environnementale et civilisationnelle pour mobiliser les consciences. Le point commun entre les œuvres de cli-fi n’est pas tant la place accordée à l’environnement que ce lien direct qu’ils tracent entre activités humaines et changements climatiques.
La fiction climatique peut aujourd’hui constituer une arme efficace pour les défenseurs de l’environnement : après avoir entendu les multiples cris d’alarme des chercheurs, lu avec effroi les rapports du GIEC et suivi toutes les campagnes de sensibilisation à la question du climat, on peut s’étonner – avec Bruno Latour (Face à Gaïa), Clive Hamilton (Requiem pour l’espèce humaine) et tous les autres penseurs de la question environnementale – que rien n’ait encore été fait qui soit à la mesure du problème. En utilisant le médium du récit et celui de la littérature, il faut espérer que les auteurs de cli-fi apporteront leur pierre à cette nécessaire prise de conscience.
S’il est fort possible que ceux qui lisent de la cli-fi soient déjà sensibles à ces questions, on peut espérer que des lecteurs de science-fiction encore peu réceptifs aux dangers du changement climatique changeront d’avis en se plongeant dans un roman de Paolo Bacigalupi, Claire Vaye Watkins ou Pierre-Yves Touzot.
Quoi qu’il en soit, on doit se réjouir de la présence grandissante de la question climatique dans toutes formes d’art. En peuplant désormais les imaginaires, elle devient de plus en plus difficile à ignorer.

At the turn of the years 2010, the American press reminisced about the emergence of a new literary genre, the "CLI-fi" (for climate fiction), a term coined in 2008 by the writer and blogger Dan bloom. The novels of "Climate fiction" generally take the form of stories post-apocalyptic views where the characters are evolving in a world ravaged by the effects of climate change.
If the novels of CLI-fi are praised by the American press to the sympathy ecologists, they remain stationed in France to a niche audience.
The "nature writing" to the "climate fiction" in
the United States, the popularity and the number of the novels of CLI-fi can be explained first by the cultural importance of the nature in this country. Include here the poet Walt Whitman and philosophers Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who were among the first helped to make the nature The main character in the novel American national.
By contrast, French literature is passionate about the city: at Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac or Charles Baudelaire, it is Paris, interiors, the arts, in short everything that falls under the "culture" and "civilization" which seems worthy of fiction. The nature and the campaign - that this either in the fields of Guy de Maupassant or well in Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert - are the theater of the debasement morale.
If the nature becomes a subject of interest for the french readers, which is reflected in the return in vogue works of Henry David Thoreau, the subject seems to remain confined to the literature of test or to travel stories as in Sylvain Tesson.
The late arrival of the Cli-fi in France can also be explained by a certain literary elitism disdaining still largely science-fiction, which approximates quite naturally this new kind.


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The question of the dangers of over-exploitation of nature and the dream of terraforming other planets is indeed at the heart of many science fiction novels, in the image of Dune (1965) of Frank Herbert. Also include J.G. Ballard who published a year before the classic of Herbert drought, the third component of its quadrilogie of worlds devastated; there depicts a revelation caused by the disappearance of the terrestrial them under the effect of the industrial pollution of the oceans.
But it is possible to raise the climate fiction even further. With the Grapes of Wrath of John Steinbeck (1939), for example. There discovers the social consequences of the climate episode of the "dust bowl" of the 1930s during which dust storms pounded the American Great Plains. Climatologists and historians of the environment agree today to say that the Dust Bowl was the direct consequence of agricultural techniques deleterious.
Against the Crazy dreams of the Geo-engineering
Another characteristic of the science-fiction is to denounce societies grayed out by their innovation capacity, control of the nature, scientific and technological progress. Derived from the Sci-Fi, the CLI-fi does not escape the rule.
One of the most striking examples is found in the American Paolo Bacigalupi. Crowned in 2010 by the prices Nebula and Hugo for his first book The Daughter plc, Paolo Bacigalupi was long a journalist within the review ecologist High Country News. The author depicts in his novel A world struck by a shortage of petroleum resources and a rise of the levels of the oceans due to climate warming.
In 2015, Paolo Bacigalupi publishes a second novel of CLI-fi, the Water knife. There described, in a context of apocalyptic drought linked to human activities, the struggle between the States of the American Southwest for the access to the water of the Colorado River. Under the crushing sun of the Arizona desert, the inhabitants of Phoenix are reduced to drink their own urine recycled…
The more fortunate, as to them, survive comfortably under domes artificially recreating of ecosystems paradise. This type of construction, project in several major cities of the world poses for Bacigalupi several essential questions: who will have access? And what about the nature outside of these structures?


Denouncing both capitalism and the dreams of geo-engineering of multinational firms, the novels of Paolo Bacigalupi illustrate the fringe of the Cli-fi the most politicized and the more invested by the question of human responsibilities in the climate change.


Meeting with Paolo Bacigalupi (Laurence Honnorat/YouTube, 2016).
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A response to the Climatic scepticism
in a context where climatic personalities-skeptical occupy in the United States The highest functions, a literary genre such as the Cli-fi can truly do the work of resistance.
In seeking to awaken consciences to the help of apocalyptic narratives, the CLI-fi thus joins the rhetoric of environmentalists Americans and Europeans denouncing the overexploitation of the nature and the absence of suitable reaction in the face of climate change.
These eschatological accents expose however the novelists of the criticism of environmentalists more moderate : represent the global warming phenomenon as an apocalyptic returns to cut the grass under the foot in risking to ignore the public of the question, convinced by these works that there is nothing more to do.
The stories rather than of the curves of CO2
If the CLI-fi is often catastrophiste, it is not limited to the stories of prefabricated apocalypses.
In 2017, appeared in French The Sands of the Amargosa (of the clear Caliornienne Vaye Watkins. While the Climate Change comprised the central subject of the novel of Paolo Bacigalupi, they appear here as a rear-realistic plan of the story featuring a torque of Californians trying to survive drought in joining the followers of a guru water witch and manipulator.


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Another amazing aspect, Claire Vaye Watkins lists, in chapters pastichant the great naturalists and American explorers, new animal species emerged with the climate change.
For this which is of the Cli-fi French, we can cite the novel distant land of Pierre-Yves Touzot. Post-apocalyptic without pay in the sensationalism, this novel begins on the awakening of a character, who know neither his identity nor its past, in an environment populated by strange creatures and familiar to the time in which it will attempt to survive and to understand what happened during his sleep. On 300 pages, Pierre-Yves Touzot presents accurately and accessible all theories and scientific data to take the measure of the environmental crisis.
Achieve the imaginary
C is the whole challenge of the climate fiction: expose the magnitude of the environmental crisis and civilizational to mobilize consciences. The common point between the works of CLI-fi is not both the place accorded to the environment that this direct link that they trace between human activities and climate change.
The fiction climate may today constitute an effective weapon for the defenders of the environment: after having heard the multiple cries of alarm researchers, read with horror the IPCC reports and followed all the campaigns to raise awareness of the issue of climate, it may be surprising - with Bruno Latour (face-to-Gaia), Clive Hamilton (Requiem for the human species) and all other thinkers of the environmental question - that nothing has yet been done to the extent of the problem. Using the medium of the story and that of the literature, it was to be hoped that the authors of CLI-Fi will bring their stone to this necessary awareness.
It is very possible that those who read the CLI-fi are already sensitive to these issues, it may be hoped that readers of science-fiction still little responsive to the dangers of climate change will have a change of opinion by immersing herself in a novel of Paolo Bacigalupi, Claire Vaye Watkins or Pierre-Yves Touzot.
In any event, it must rejoice in the growing presence of the climate issue in all forms of art. In populating now the imaginary, it becomes more and more difficult to ignore.

 Robin MacArthur publlished a

collection of short stories, HALF WILD, published by ECCO (Harper Collins) in 2016. She is a freelance writer, educator, musician (Red Heart the Ticker) and mother of two who lives on the rock-studded hillside where she was born in southern Vermont.

Now in her early 40s, Robin got an MFA in Fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts  and a BA from Brown University.

 When not writing, she spends her time prying rocks out of unruly garden soil, picking blackberries and raspberries outside her back door, and traipsing through woods with her big-hearted and half-wild children.

Vermont ''cli-fi'' novel debut by Robin MacArthur illuminates ''spiritual substance during dark times''


 https://vtdigger.org/2018/01/08/post-irene-novel-illuminates-spiritual-substance-dark-times/ 


Kevin O'Connor reviews for VTdigger


Book excerpt:

 

The darkest night of the year. An ice storm. A party! She puts on her warmest boots and coat, gathers the champagne she bought three days ago for this occasion. She’s about to leave when she sees the deer vertebra and her mother’s sneaker on the kitchen counter. An unbearable shrine. She places them in a paper bag, tucks it under her arm, and sets off up the hill to Hazel’s house.
She has to punch through the crust with the heel of her boot to not slide, barely makes it up the already ice-slicked field. But if there’s going to be an ice storm, the old house is the place to be. She wonders how many ice storms its bones have stood through. And isn’t this what people have always done — will continue to do — during dark times: gather?
— Robin MacArthur, from her novel “Heart Spring Mountain”




Robin MacArthur won the publishing lottery when HarperCollins offered her a book contract to pen a novel that depicts how climate change — and, specifically, 2011’s Tropical Storm Irene — can alter the course of land and life.



Then the 2016 presidential election hit her with an equally hard wallop. Could a leader of the free world actually doubt the science behind her book, the Marlboro writer wondered, and who would want to read fiction when reality had turned so surreal?


Nevertheless, she persisted.


“I realized this is very relevant,” MacArthur says, “because it’s about how we find spiritual substance during dark times.”

 “Heart Spring Mountain'',
tackles global warming — as well as heroin addiction and women’s struggles — at the most local level.




She wrote some short stories as a teenager and take her first writing class in her 20s. But juggling marriage, music, two young children and a hammer to build a family house in Vermont, she kept her words confined to her computer.


Then an editor at HarperCollins contacted her and offered to publish a collection of her short stories, 2016’s PEN/New England Award-winning “Half Wild,” with the contract calling for a follow-up book -- a novel.




“There is no better way to force oneself to write a novel,” she says, “than to have a contract to write one.”


And so the author came up with a three-generation family of characters — including a farming widow, a back-to-the-land dreamer and an owl-loving hermit — and a plot set in the days and weeks after the Aug. 28, 2011, storm that ravaged her southeastern Vermont hometown.

“I quote writer Evan Pritchard in the novel, who says, ‘To do damage to the earth does spiritual damage as well.’ This book is, in some ways, about that spiritual damage — what does it feel like to live in this time of disconnection — from community, from the land, from families — and this time where the most basic of givens — seasons, food cycles — have been upended? Will we have apples? Will there be honeybees? When and where will the next catastrophic storm strike?”



MacArthur labels the book “a meditation on what we do with this spiritual malaise.”


Others have called it a poetic cli-fi novel,part of the new literary genre of climate fiction, dubbed cli-fi, about global warming and climate changes memes.


“I wrote the first fragments of this book 9 years ago when I was first becoming a mother. The concerns then were how to love and give of oneself and do so well. I picked the book up 6 years later and my concerns were different. All I could think about were the ailments of the world and how they were linked. How the machinations of capitalization had led to a loss of connection to one another and to the natural landscape, to the wisdom of our ancestors. At that point the question of the book became we are so broken, everywhere. How do we heal?”




Library Journal may sum up her novel as “soberingly relevant,” but the book also contains what Kirkus Reviews calls “a sliver of optimism.”


“We find community and connection where we are,” MacArthur says. “We find communion in the most old-fashioned of ways — with food, and wine, and music, and art and candlelight. Ultimately, this is a story about hope. Dark times are here, and more dark times await us, but love and connection and resiliency can be found, and will hold us when they are.”