In 2014, Martin Scorsese selected Knife in the Water to be screened as part of the festival of Polish films in the United States and Canada entitled "Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema". [20] Caputo, Davide (2012). Polanski and Perception: The Psychology of Seeing and the Cinema of Roman Polanski. Bristol, England: Intellect Books. ISBN 978-1-841-50552-7. Consider the structure of the story. How do the alternating chapters and points of view affect your interpretation of each character? Does one point of view seem to stand out from the others? How do you think that your interpretation of the story would be different if the story was told only from the point of view of a single character? Brown, L. (2015, August 28). Paolo Bacigalupi Interview. Retrieved from www.sffword.com: https://www.sffworld.com/2015/08/paolo-bacigalupi-interview/

Where abstruse science and journalistic integrity struggles to find the simple clear messaging that will shift minds and attitudes, climate change fiction has more freedom to engage readers at the emotional level. As Bacigalupi observes, Admussen, N. (2016, May-June). Six Proposals for the Reform of Literature in the Era of Climate Change. Retrieved July 23, 2022, from criticalflame.org: http://criticalflame.org/six-proposals-for-the-reform-of-literature-in-the-age-of-climate-change/

Become a Member

Angel enjoys the television show Undaunted. Why does he seem to like this particular show? Does his view of the show change after he discusses it with Lucy? Why or why not? What might this suggest about the influence of arts and media, and the way that we approach these forms of entertainment? Would you say that the television show is propaganda? Why or why not? Are any other forms of propaganda evident in the story? How can something be recognized as propaganda? Bacigalupi recognises the difficulty of generating narratives about climate change that might appeal to the sceptical rather than preach to the choir. The Water Knife is an noir-tinged, apocalyptic vision of the near-future: What will the world be like, and how will we live in it? Bacigalupi already seems to live there. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down.”—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble Sarah was schooling away her Dallas drawl, scraping away Texas talk and Texas dirt scrubbing and scraping as hard as her pale white skin could take the burn.” (p. 39) One way to answer these questions is to explore the possibilities via fiction. As we march slowly but relentlessly into a climate-changed future, many writers have taken up the challenge by feeling out the limits of its contours. The genre is called " cli-fi." At its worst, cli-fi is simply "collapse porn" replete with repeating narratives of the post-apocalypse.

Schneider-Mayerson, M. (2020, June 10). “Just as in the Book”? The Influence of Literature on Readers’ Awareness of Climate Injustices and Perception of Climate Migrants. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 27(2), 337-364. On the other hand, we found that the Hobbesian violence of The Water Knife is potentially counterproductive. Authors and critics might hope that portraying a dystopic cautionary future will scare readers into engaging in progressive politics today, but it might not work out that way. Bacigalupi plays on a grand scale, but he does so with a keen eye for detail, from the designer dust masks worn by the rich to the "construction printers" used on an industrial scale — like giant 3-D printers — for the building of SNWA's super-resorts. His big triumph, though, is never forgetting that The Water Knife is a thriller at its pounding heart. Even amid reams of deeply researched information about the economy, geology, history and politics of water rights and usage in the U.S., he keeps the plot taut and the dialogue slashing. How does The Water Knifecompare to Bacigalupi’s previous novels? What common themes are evident among the works? Are they treated similarly in each work? What do the characters have in common? Do any universal views or themes begin to emerge? About this AuthorAs some of you may know I am currently undertaking a creative writing PhD with the catchy title Navigating the mystery of future geographies in climate change fiction. The way fiction, as exemplified in The Water Knife, aims to instil empathy for less than a handful of key characters can mean the form neglects other emotions and wider foci. Ada Palmer and Jo Walton described it as The Protagonist Problem (Palmer & Walton, 2021) the way the narrative success or failure rests on the shoulders of a few key individuals. This is a feature also of the great men approach to the teaching of history, and indeed educational policy in the UK where the notion of hero school leaders who can be parachuted into any school ignores the massive contribution made by layers of staff and specific contexts within their successful schools. As Palmer and Walton note, Angel and Lucy make it to another Las Vegas safe house. Angel places a call to Las Vegas pretending to be helpless and in need of extraction. Angel and Lucy relocate to another building and watch as a helicopter blows up the safe house with two missile strikes. After the smoke clears, Angel and Lucy ambush the men searching for Angel’s body in the rubble. Angel discovers that Case is working with California to secure the water rights from Angel, whom she believes is withholding them from her. Angel attempts to convince Case that he never double-crossed her and that he will bring her the water rights. Nonetheless, whatever Bacigalupi’s intent, Schneider-Mayerson has identified some surely unintended consequences amongst the reader reactions. The pacey thriller style narrative following vulnerable individuals through life changing events does make for an engaging story with a reach beyond the climate change converted readership. However, the book offers little hope or guidance about how to avoid this future or how to respond in ways other than a focus on individual survival.