Apocalypse Now? / Features / Untitled Books

“Themes of apocalyptic destruction and catastrophic renewal underpin Sunshine State. Writing it, I wanted to explore the consequences of this nexus of environmental, religious and economic pressures.”

Apocalypse Now?

Time Out labelled James Miller 'London's Rising Star 2008' following publication of his critically applauded The Lost Boys. His latest Sunshine State, is a futuristic dystopian satire.

The end of the world is nigh? In fact, the end of the world has not only already happened, but is happening right now. Not once, but many, many times. The most recent prediction came from Californian doom-monger Harold Camping, who calculated that 'the Rapture' would begin on 20th May. An event anticipated with much enthusiasm by Christian fundamentalists, 'the Rapture' promisesd to whisk the saved to heaven whilst leaving the rest of us behind to fight it out with the anti-Christ. Despite the predictable failure of his prophesy, Camping resorted to the classic trick common to all charlatans of the Armageddon and claimed his calculations were wrong. The end has now been rescheduled for 21st October.

Harold Camping and his followers may seem absurd to the secular observer, but our culture has always been haunted by visions, ideas and ideologies of the end. Fantasies of the apocalypse almost always reflect the concerns and experiences of a particular culture. Most apocalyptic visions have been religious and connected with notions of salvation and punishment. However, these days, our apocalyptic angst also has an environmental and an economic edge. Most commentators agree that the cycles of production, consumption and waste on which our society depends are unsustainable. But so complex and embedded are these arrangements that hope of gradual change or reform seems impossible. Mark Fisher writes in Capitalist Realism (2009) that, "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism." Similarly, as Evan Calder Williams' Combined and Uneven Apocalypse (2011) suggests, change born from catastrophe seems the only outcome for a culture already over-determined by fantasies of the end. Apocalyptic themes prevail in the work of writers as diverse as Slavoj Zizek - whose latest book, Living in the End Times (2010) sounds more like one of Harold Camping's sermons than a work of Marxist critique - to the authors of the multi-million selling, Rapture-promoting 'Left Behind' series.

Themes of apocalyptic destruction and catastrophic renewal underpin my second novel, Sunshine State. Writing it, I wanted to explore the consequences of this nexus of environmental, religious and economic pressures. I sought to dramatise the acute contradictions of our age; the fact that despite overwhelming scientific evidence in favour of climate change so many in power remain sceptical and continue to put their faith in the free market as if capitalism is endless and the earth's resources infinite. If the reality of the impending environmental catastrophe is - according to Mark Fisher "too traumatic to be assimilated into the system" - then I wanted to excavate and dramatise this trauma. But that's not all. As the 2006 Stern Review concluded, global warming and environmental degradation risk more harm to our economic systems than toxic assets or dodgy credit default swaps. Furthermore, these environmental pressures are certain to magnify religious conflict as increasingly displaced and alienated populations realise science and technology cannot solve their problems. My novel suggests that as these pressures reach an acute stage we will witness an unseemly scramble for strategic resources and the collapse of the international laws that regulate our hopelessly divided but invariably co-dependent planet. It's a bleak prognosis, but there is nothing in Sunshine State that has not happened in some form already and continues to happen, even as I write this now. My dystopian vision of the United States was based in part on the work of Chris Hedges, particularly American Fascists: The American Right and War on America (2008) and Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009), Morris Berman, Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire (2007) and Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (2007) and Evil Paradise: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism (2009). I was also heavily influenced by Naomi Klein's masterful reinterpretation of recent history, The Shock Doctrine (2007). Their work offers a scathing critique of Bush-era America, lamenting the degradation of public life, the erosion of critical discourse and the worship of military might shackled to ruthless free-market ideologies and dogmatic notions of Christian supremacy. If the consequences for the US are bad, then the effect of such policies elsewhere is much worse. Mike Davis notes how, according to the Pentagon, the "feral, failed cities" of the Third World will be "the distinctive battlefield of the twenty-first century," a conclusion that has its apotheosis in Sunshine State as I transformed storm-ravaged Miami into a nightmarish fusion of Mogadishu, Gaza and Kabul, with desperate US marines battling insurgent armies for control of the ruins.

Although suffused with scenes of destruction, I never intended Sunshine State to be an apocalyptic novel. It is not a book about the end. Rather it traces a change from one order to another. The novel shows how our environmental crisis will transform our social, cultural and political arrangements into something quite different. The primary influence behind Sunshine State was Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1902), which provided me with both a familiar narrative structure and a set of useful tropes. I have long considered Heart of Darkness a prophetic work, one that seems to anticipate many of the changes brought about by the twentieth century. Conrad shows how Western ideologies of progress and moral superiority are really a "rapacious and pitiless folly" whilst Kurtz - a man said to embody all the ideals of the Enlightenment - leaves us with nothing but "the horror." Conrad understood that the real heart of darkness lies not in the Congo but in the "whited sepulchre" of Europe's imperial capitals. Marlow, the wry narrator, describes European superiority as "an idea... something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to." Conrad's astute choice of words shows how progress and reason are not separate from but actually a part of the atavistic forces they were meant to replace. Thus the barbarism of the 'natives' is displaced by the much more destructive barbarism of the colonialists themselves. The apocalypse in Conrad's novel is the revelation of the moral bankruptcy of Western colonialism as ideals of civilisation end in genocide and brute conquest.

Sunshine State has its own Kurtz - Charlie Ashe, or Kalat, as he renames himself - a rogue British agent who broadcasts mysterious messages from a ruined skyscraper in Miami. In the tradition of all prophets, Kalat's broadcasts are poetic, allusive and highly ambiguous - no true jeremiad can ever be too specific (unless they wish to end up looking as foolish as Harold Camping) and I drew upon two very different sources for his words. The first was Satan's speeches in Paradise Lost. I've always followed Blake's view of Milton's Satan as a Romantic hero, punished for his transgression of God's absolute rule and doomed by his defiant freedom. To be free is to fall. Like Satan, Kalat spurns his omnipotent, omnipresent, all-controlling masters to create a new order for himself. Taking things further and tying Biblical eschatology to present concerns, I found a parallel between Milton's Satan and Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden, the Taliban and radical Islam were part created and sponsored by the CIA to resist Communism and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. But Bin Laden, like my own prophetic terrorist, broke with his sponsors to pursue his own terrible agenda. Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden contains the speeches of the world's most notorious terrorist. They show his commitment to a hard-line Islam and a loathing of Western decadence not dissimilar from the apocalyptic Christianity preached by his enemies on the American right. Kalat might share Bin Laden's opposition to Western power, but he also rejects dogmatic religious faith. Instead, he represents that which will always elide our attempts to manage, contain and control the world.

From the Rapture of the Christian right to the 'Rupture' in Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story (2010). A dystopian satire on contemporary America, Shteyngart's interpretation of his nation's destiny has much in common with commentators like Hedges and Berman. Shteyngart presents us with a post-literate America where privacy has no meaning, where the nation is locked in perpetual war with Venezuela and where everybody carries a smart media device that constantly streams their credit and 'fuckability' ratings. However, his 'Rupture' is economic rather than religious. The novel pivots around this moment - the US economy finally collapses and IMF debt restructuring demands a loss of sovereignty to the oil- and asset-rich nations - China, Norway and Saudi Arabia. Shteyngart takes the sort of catastrophic economic shock treatment described by Naomi Klein and applies it to the United States. As with Sunshine State, Shteyngart uses an apocalyptic moment to amplify existing problems, unsettling the complacent Western reader's certainty that such a catastrophe - economic or otherwise - can only happen elsewhere and to others.

Super Sad True Love Story, like Sunshine State, is better described as speculative rather than science-fiction. However, the genre offers many vivid imaginings of the end. Global warming is a relatively recent concern, but we have long been aware of the potential for extreme weather events and drastic changes to our climate. Scientists now understand that the natural world is not a balanced, holistic system but a chaotic field open to radical reversal and instability. Books such as or The Death of Grass (1956) by John Christopher or Hothouse (1962) by Brian Aldiss are outstanding examples of environmental sci-fi. However, as I set about imagining my own globally warmed future, I turned to J.G. Ballard. The Drowned World (1962) was published in the same year as Hothouse and both novels reflect the emerging ecological concerns of the 1960s. In The Drowned World sunspots heat the planet and melt the ice-caps. Ballard has a compelling understanding of the ways in which the environment shapes human behaviour. Here, he presents us with an entropic world where action seems futile. Ecological catastrophe throws up an array of seductively surreal images and his languid protagonists are left paralysed in the remains of a flooded London warped beyond all recognition. With little hope left for humanity, the real action resides at a textual level as Ballard's overheated prose strives to represent this disorientating future.

The end of the world is nigh. In fact, it may be too late already. Last year saw a record leap in greenhouse gas emissions coupled with an admission by the chief economist of the International Energy Agency that all our strategies for managing carbon production have failed. But that's not all. Our oceans are dying and ecologists say we have entered a new age of mass extinction. Meanwhile, conflict spreads throughout the Middle East and more nations become 'failed states' in a blazing arc of instability that stretches now from Mexico to North Korea. As the global economic crisis deepens, ruthless anti-austerity measures are being imposed to safeguard capital at the expense of social welfare. Even the once protected spheres of education and health are being subjected to free-market reforms. The global super-rich watch as their wealth continues to grow out of all proportion to the rest while for the majority, students and workers alike face a lifetime of debt and those who to dare resist are swiftly neutralised by our pervasive security apparatus. Now, more than ever, the contemporary novelist has a duty to engage with these issues. From the present crop of apocalyptic imaginings we might just be able to discern the shape of the terrible new world that is already upon us.

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Sunshine State by James Miller is published by Little, Brown.

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Tuesday, 5 July, 2011