The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker
While reading this book I became depressed and lonely. I identified so poignantly with the main character that her sadness became my sadness; her tiny triumphs made my heart soar. Her frustration became my anger. By the time I finished the book I felt like a complete outcast from society. Of course, that's not really new feeling for me.
This is one of the best books I've read in a long time.
Julia is 11 when the world finds out that the spinning of the earth is slowing. The Age of Miracles gives us the quiet story of living through the apocalypse, a novelty among the onslaught of distopian, post-apocalyptic thrillers on the shelves these days. There are no zombies, no vampires, none of our nightmarish, horror packed imaginings. There is only nature, and the slow adaptation of civilization; of a family: off one little girl. In some respects I'd almost prefer monsters and gore. What this book gives us, the horrors of slow compromise, is so realistic that I found it far more frightening.
The effects of the earth's slowing slowly cause Julia's contemporary California society to change - slowly at first, but then more noticeably. They face problems and deal with them one at a time, each time losing a piece of life as we know it, (bees, then birds, grapes, the warm feeling of sun on your face) until life has turned upside down and no one really knows how they got there. Each time a seemingly small decision is made some portion of people disagree with the compromise and become outcasts from society. They are labelled, persecuted and hated. Again, the reality is startling.
The lessons of this book can be applied everywhere. The environmental atrocities committed every second of every day are the results of slow compromise and adaptation: small decisions made throughout not only the industrial revolution, but all of civilization. The modern US government would horrify the "founding fathers," and looking back through American history it would be an easy task indeed to find small decisions and points of divergence that led us here.
So far I've made this book seems pretty bleak, and as I said, while I was reading it I myself felt quite the outcast. When you understand that you disagree with a fundamental decision made hundreds or thousands of years ago, the tiny shifts and pushes we can see in modern society seem hopeless. But just think. If one small shift a hundred years ago or a thousand years ago could cause a tidal wave today, the decisions we're making take on the utmost importance.
If we make our decisions out of love and kindness, generosity and good will, and if we do it consistently, the ripples we make will turn into waves and before you know it, the world will be better.
Do not allow love and kindness to be overruled by mob-mentality. Do the right thing because it's what you want to do without fear of the opinions of others. Do not stand by quietly when you know the masses are wrong. Science may be in charge of saving our existence, but humanity is in charge of saving our souls.
Without our souls, this book leads me to argue, our existence isn't worth much.
