Marooned! On Mars With Matt And Hilary

In this FINAL episode of our discussion of Green Earth, Matt and Hilary talk about the themes of unintelligibility throughout the novel(s) and think about the ways the novel(s) insert climate change into both the political and the everyday lived realities of people who are used to living relatively comfortable lives. We work through some issues on the historical contexts of the novel's publication and our reading of it a mere 18 (or 7) years later, but in what feels like a radically different world both politically and with regards to climate. The ways the novel does show in a subtle way some of the holes in the kinds of solutions it posits, like the Quiblers' possibility of moving in with the Khembalis, the questionable nature of American democracy vis a vis the fixed (or unfixed) presidential election, and the cloudy relationship between capitalism and liberal democracy, especially in light of the role China plays in the denouement.  We touch on metaphor, science, Buddhism, 1000-year projects, the Chem