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CTGttW Question 1: Wastelands as a metaphor for ..?
The Wastelands are obviously a metaphor. But a metaphor for what? I think there are multiple ways to read the idea of the Wastelands. The Wastelands could represent:
- nature, perhaps including the Gaia hypothesis, and are a metaphor for ecological collapse and us making our environment unlivable
- disease and pandemic, where outsiders are deadly and the only safe space is in your "bubble"
- the collapse of colonialism, maybe specifically the Russification of Asia. Colonised areas are reverting to their "uncivilised" and unknowable form
- life, and the novel is a Bildungsroman. The train represents childhood, and the story is how the inhabitants transition from the controlled, safe environment to the uncontrolled wider world.
What other things could the Wastelands stand for? Which, if any, do you think are the author's intendend readings? Which, if any, do you think are useful readings?
What do you make of the description of the Exhibition on p. 360:
row upon row of tall glass cases stretch out as far as she can see. In some ther are lifeless creatures, eyes unseeing. In some there are things the climb or crawl or fly, bumping furred bodies against the glass. This is what the Exhibition is saying -- Look at our achievements, look at what we have made. Then look at what we are not.
Comments
I felt (not during reading, but on reflection afterwards) that the wastelands were The Future, and in particular the future state of life as a hybrid of the known/familiar and the unknown/wild.
It seemed to me that there was a parallel with a book we all read some time ago, The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey (looking back through the archives it was a long time ago, around 2017/18 before we moved from Google+ to this platform). In both books there was a"new" state of nature and/or humanity which seemed at first like a terrible threat but later appeared in a new light as actually a Good Thing and an inevitable next stage for humanity.
I mostly thought it was an ecological fable, so more the first, however I could see a side case for the second interpretation. I saw it as a metaphor for shutting ourselves off from nature, and perhaps a hopeful message for the future- the environmentalists on the train breaking through the barriers put up by ‘the man’ at the end.
And I think the exhibition scene supports this - an exhibition of our failures, of extinct species. The results of our achievements are dead species and dying environment. But that’s not what we have to be.
I also picked up on the similarities with The Girl with all the Gifts, but didn't mention it mainly because I couldn't remember the title!
As for the different metaphors, do you think any of the alternatives are worthwhile to consider? Does the book change when you look at it through a different lens?
For me, I think a strength of the book is that I have to come to my own understanding of what it's about (and it's clearly about something). There's more to the book than just an adventure romp.
Another similarity with The Girl with all the Gifts is that both books grew on me as I thought about them over a span of time after finishing them. I remember not linking Gifts much for the first 1/2 or maybe 2/3, and then being somewhat taken over by the later stages. Likewise with Wastelands my reaction in the first part was "well it's OK but not sure it justifies the review comments", but again it definitely grew on me. I still think about Gifts every now and again and was rather taken aback to realise how long ago we all read it. (In fact, I ought to reread it, and I have a feeling there was a sequel as well?)
As to the metaphors, I think it's a great question but I don't think I have articulated it well enough to myself to pick one or two of them! I think there's something in the issue of the presence of the train itself causes some of the external change (as I mentioned elsewhere, all very quantum mechanical). And there's something in the range of travellers' responses, which include at least the following:
- if I don't look at it it can't hurt me
- I need to keep to the rules to make sure we arrive safely
- I'm going to keep repeating my own world-view as a defence
- I really want to go out and collect some of it and then study it when I'm back in a safe place
- I don't understand this and I want to find out what I can
- I want to find out more but I'm frightened of what might happen
and probably a whole lot more. So the Wastelands, whatever they symbolise, are a thing which splits people into different groups rather than unifying them. Some are drawn to it, some are repelled, but none of them can ignore it.
On a different tack, maybe it's always true that wildernesses divide people by their response - or at very least our collective response to wilderness changes with time.
So regarding our own mini-wilderness here in Cumbria, in 1724 Daniel Defoe called it "the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over in England". Fifty years later it was being promoted as a landscape that people (especially artists) should admire. Another fifty years, and tourism is beginning, and new railway lines are luring folk away from the Grand Tour of European cities. Now we are collectively wondering if there are too many people being drawn in and it needs to become wilder and less occupied again.
Not the way I think...