Ben Lerner’s 10:04 touches upon the idea of time travel in a way that other authors don’t. While one of the narrator’s favorite movies to refer to is Back to The Future where characters literally travel through time, the narrator travels through time using his mind. In part three, the narrator speaks about how much he enjoys walking across the Brooklyn Bridge because he can “see the latter from the former, and because the latter is more beautiful” (Lerner, part 3), which is a reference to how he always generates a memory from his experiences; earlier in the story, I did not understand how he could believe the latter, or the future, is more beautiful, because he spent more time thinking about his past than his future because of his condition, but once he saw what life had to offer, he started to consider the beauty of the future.

Since he is diagnosed with a life threatening dilated aortic root, he spends a lot of time thinking about the past because of the memories brough up by his New York surroundings and the people he surrounds himself with. He writes “The Golden Vanity”, a story about a character like him, and when asked about his character’s actions and thought process, he says that “it’s more a response to his own mortality- like he’s trying to time-travel, to throw his voice, now that he’s dealing with his own fragility.” (Lerner, part 3).

While he is in Marfa, Texas, he has nothing to really stimulate these memories, so we experience empty, forced thoughts. In this part of the story, it feels like his is just describing his surroundings and doings rather than relating them to experiences like he did when he was in New York. He goes weeks without talking to anyone and uses words like “vastness” to describe the atmosphere of his quarters in Marfa, while roaming around “looking at the walls” (Lerner, part 4). It feels like his thoughts have slowed significantly, as he has nothing to stimulate his memories because Marfa is all new to him. He is forced to live in the present.

Once he gets back to New York, the world is faced with a large cyclonic system that would force the city into evacuation in certain zones, “once-in-a-generation weather” (Lerner, part 5) for the second time, as he describes it. He finally receives published volumes of his own books, which is something he was excited about, and after this, we see him start imagining the future, which he never really considered earlier on in the book. He imagines the state of the world after the storm hits, and a scenario with him and Alex while she is pregnant with his child. To end off the book is a from Ronald Reagan that says “Never has there been a more exciting time to be alive, a time of rousing wonder and heroic achievement”; this quote closely relates to our narrator because we see that even though his condition stunted his thoughts and perception of time, his career progress and achievement gave him excitement for the future. The narrator still overthinks, but now instead of dwelling in the past, he lives in the present and considers a possible future for himself and the world around him.

I don’t know if you’ve been following the World Cup coverage and the tragic death of 48-year-old sports journalist Grant Wahl, but in an uncanny coincidence, he died from a ruptured aortic aneurism, precisely the condition that Lerner’s protagonist worries over in 10:04.

He was a superb reporter and all-around good guy, who was harassed by officials this month for his refusal to remove a rainbow-themed tee in support of the rights of LGBTQ+ folk who suffer under Qatar’s draconian policies. Rest in peace.

 In Ben Lerner’s 10:04, a theme I’ve seen recurring within it is the intricacies of love and relationships. The protagonist of Lerner’s novel is shown to have complex relationships, especially as it deals with love. Sexually/romantically, this revolves around Alex and Alena.

Alena, as the novel progresses, is shown to be his steady girlfriend. From what I’ve read and discerned in 10:04, their relationship is mostly casual, as is shown in his comments to his married mutual friend Sharon: “I’m the one having casual sex with a woman who probably doesn’t care about me.” [pg 30].  They seem to have a foundation for a good friendship, as seen with the underpinnings of their dynamics, such as spending time with each other outside of sex (him with her discussions of her own artwork/his commentary on them, as well as her liking his poetry and being attentive to his discussions). 

Alex is a 180 of that dynamic. Alex and the protagonist have a deep, close friendship, as is evident through her trust in him (as is seen in her telling him about her want to have a child and wanting him to be the dad), as well as them staying over at each other’s place and hanging out. As the story progressed to the end, I noticed we were left with loopholes left in the story (as like whether or the protagonist would end up staying with Alena because he made out with her on their final meetup or he would end up being with Alex for good; the novel abruptly ended with him and Alex walking down Manhattan and into Brooklyn during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy). 

I wondered as I read the novel that whether the protagonist’s propensity to procrastinate (as was with his book and poems) was also indicative of his love life. He hesitated ending up with Alex and breaking off his relationship with Alena, as well as the sperm donation appointment. I think it’s somewhat indicative of him not being sure of what he’s getting into and the anxiety that comes with it (such as him imagining his future daughter with Alex asking him about her origins and him not really being able to cough up a straight answer). I think we can all relate over agonizing over big decisions such as conceiving a child and getting with someone. 

What made this all really confusing at times was the going back and forth with the present and the past and the fictional world of his book. I felt all over the place with this book at times because of this, of not knowing if the fictional world events have actually happened and vice versa. Things blend into each other like granules of sand, sometimes being indiscernible from other granules. 

I think, in retrospect, the author wanted kids because in a basic/primal sense, they want to leave something behind. I remember him connecting the idea of having kids as a part of their “legacy” of something greater than himself. He has feelings of self doubt about his ability as a writer and I think probably feels leaving behind a child is something more concrete, more impactful because of what it represents (him and Alex’s DNA and by extension characteristics fused together, serving as a harbinger of memories of him and her, continuing on even after things might fizzle out between them). 

Overall, this was a provocative, insightful/amusing/funny and interesting book. I would recommend it to anyone looking for something new to read. It’s all over the place, but perhaps, that is part of what makes it unique.

The Question:

How does the shift in views and expressions of gender and social status effect the potential future climate outcomes in Gosh’s The Hungry Tide and Butler’s Parable of the Sower?

Works Cited

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Hungry Tide. HarperCollins Publishers, 2017.

Hampton, Gregory J. “MIGRATION AND CAPITAL OF THE BODY: OCTAVIA BUTLER’S ‘PARABLE OF THE SOWER.’” CLA Journal, vol. 49, no. 1, 2005, pp. 56–73. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44325296.

Patrick D. Murphy. “Community Resilience and the Cosmopolitan Role in the Environmental Challenge-Response Novels of Ghosh, Grace, and Sinha.” Comparative Literature Studies, vol. 50, no. 1, 2013, pp. 148–68. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5325/complitstudies.50.1.0148.

Naumann, Lalita Jagtiani. “The Other Woman in The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh”. Dove-Rumé, Janine, et al.. L’autre. Tours: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2008. (pp. 271-278) Web. <http://books.openedition.org/pufr/5061>.

Nilges, Mathias. “‘We Need the Stars’: Change, Community, and the Absent Father in Octavia Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’ and ‘Parable of the Talents.’” Callaloo, vol. 32, no. 4, 2009, pp. 1332–52. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27743152. Accessed 9 Dec. 2022.

Theiss, Derek. “Care Work, Age, and Culture in Butler’s Parable Series.” Femspec, vol. 15, no. 1, 2015, pp. 63-99,208. ProQuest, http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/care-work-age-culture-butlers-parable-series/docview/1726394732/se-2.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement : Climate Change and the Unthinkable. The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Ghosh recognizes challenges that science fiction authors may come across while trying to convey a bigger message about climate change and the human role in the Anthropocene.  Stresses how realism in scientific fiction is important in order for the genre to be taken seriously.

Jeff Menne. “‘I LIVE IN THIS WORLD, TOO’: OCTAVIA BUTLER AND THE STATE OF REALISM.” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 57, no. 4, 2011, pp. 715–37, https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2011.0089.

Menne stresses how science fiction should aim to make humans subject to nature rather than making nature subject to change, using examples from Butler’s Parable. By realistically showing how nature is guided by our actions, it allows us to reflect and act differently.

JIANG Zhenyu. “Contributions and Misunderstandings: Zheng Wenguang and ‘Science Fiction Realism.’” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, vol. 14, no. 2, 2020, pp. 202–27, https://doi.org/10.3868/s010-009-020-0010-3.

Science fiction is used as a derogatory term because of its refractive qualities, but these qualities are used to reflect a realistic future with a degree of accuracy based upon our current actions. Science fiction writers must take on the responsibility of creating a new generation of socialists that take the climate crisis more seriously.

Li, Hua. “Don’t Allow Troubled Visions in Science Fiction to Become Reality.” Science-Fiction Studies, vol. 47, 2020, pp. 359–61.

Pandemic fiction created a fear of human extinction and the collapse of society. Human society has to rise above national interests to work as a whole to put an end to the pandemic climate crisis. By giving readers a scare with realism, perhaps science fiction will encourage everyone to change how we interact with nature.

Wood, Niamh. “Realism in Eco Fiction: Climate Change and the Short Story Cycle.” Social Alternatives, vol. 41, no. 3, 2022, pp. 43–47.

Science fiction maintains a close relationship with our recognizable reality, rather than a speculative future, presents what we are already experiencing in new ways so we get a broader perspective on global issues. By understanding the larger scale of these climate issues, science fiction encourages readers to understand their current habits and adopt new ones.