A surrealist imagining of the end of the world
With nature trashed, society has reinstated the worst aspects of the old culture. There is no empathy and little art
Towards the end of Joy Williams’s glittering climate change novel Harrow, the main character, Khristen, is being quizzed on the Kafka short story, . It’s about a man who, upon his death, is fated to sail forever on choppy . The writing is electric, the imagery unforgettable, the satire unflinching, but the meaning is sometimes wilfully obscure. The reader is meant to share the protagonists’ disorientation.
