Archer, Neil. “Transnational Science Fiction at the End of the World: Consensus, Conflict, and the Politics of Climate Change.” Cinema Journal, vol. 58, no. 3, 2019, pp. 1–25, https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2019.0020.

Canavan, Gerry. “Science Fiction and Utopia in the Anthropocene.” American Literature, vol. 93, no. 2, 2021, pp. 255–82, https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-9003582.

Nikoleris, Alexandra, et al. “Narrating Climate Futures: Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and Literary Fiction.” Climatic Change, vol. 143, no. 3-4, 2017, pp. 307–19, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2020-2.

Ortiz, Diego A., “How science fiction helps readers understand climate change” BBC, 15 January 2019. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190110-how-science-fiction-helps-readers-understand-climate-change

Levinson, Eliza.”The climate is changing. Science fiction is too.” The Story, 29 June 2022. https://the-story.media/articles/books-about-climate-change-cli-fi-sci-fi-science-fiction/

Vint, Sherryl. “A Century of Science Fiction That Changed How We Think About the Environment.” The Mit Press Reader, 20 July 2021. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/century-of-science-fiction-environment-anthropocene/

My search began on old reliable, Google.  There I found some opinion pieces that mentioned Ghosh and Butler. I also found some pieces that simply covered the topic of the science fiction and climate change working together to reach and educate readers. Something else I did was go through the handy dandy class bibliography page where, after much deliberation, decided the Canavan could have a cozy spot on my very own bibliography. Finally, I used OneSearch on the Hunter Library to put the final touches on perfecting this bibliography pie. The two “words” that I used mostly in my searching were climate change and Sci-fi. As a result, my wonderfully beautiful (simple) bibliography was born.

Ben Lerner’s 10:04 is an interesting novel to say the least, as well as an interesting insight into the world of writing. The basic premise of 10:04 is about our protagonist (an unnamed author) who discovers, shortly after agreeing to do a book deal, gets hit with a potentially harmful medical diagnosis through going to the dentist, as well as navigating the intricacies of love and friendships as a middle aged man living within the worlds of NYC; (his best friend, named Alex, confessing to him her want of having a child: “Not a day has gone by in six years when I haven’t wanted a child. What if you donate the sperm? I know it’s crazy.” [9] ). 

What I love and admire the most about Lerner’s 10:04 so far is the way he writes. Lerner has a stream of consciousness type of feel about with his work and the way he constructs sentences, namely, through the usage of run on sentences as the following: “after two quick glasses of Sancerre, the distinguished male author started holding forth, periodically tugging at his salt and pepper beard, his signature gesture, moving from one anecdote about a famous friend or triumphant experience to another without pausing for the possibility of response..” [pg 117]. What makes this unique is that I haven’t encountered many other writers who have done this, especially in a novel, but that also makes it disorienting and hard to read b/c it seems all over the place with its over detailedness. It’s almost like a podcast, in the frank way he talks about stuff (like parties and the mundanities of life, like when he went back to his apartment to cook for the protestor and had that inner voice in his head talking to him and then to us how he barely cooks but rather helps; like we all do to a degree). 

The concept of time and space become muddled in this book. He keeps on going back and forth between the present and past (like the part with Noor and her telling of the story, intersected with him talking about his beginnings at the Co-Op and the shopping he’s doing). He narrates within the narration of Noor herself narrating the story of her Lebanese dad not being her biological father and the shock and after effects of that. This was confusing as I read it because one, Lerner doesn’t put quotation marks around either what he’s saying or Noor, so everything becomes this one great disjointed and at the same time jointed mess. 

It’s a pretty interesting book and I wonder what will happen next. Will he get together with Alex? That kinda lingers in the back of my mind right now. 

SIMPLE BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Griffiths, Gareth. “Silenced Worlds: Language and Experience in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Kunapipi, vol. 34, no. 2, 2012, pp. 105–112.

Pilia, Nicola. “Dwelling, Dispossession, and ‘Slow Violence’ in the Time of Climate Change.” Il Tolomeo (Online), vol. 22, no. 1, 2020, https://doi.org/10.30687/Tol/2499-5975/2020/22/024.

Prabhu, Gayathri. “Retelling Nature: Realism and the Postcolonial-Environmental Imaginary in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Transnational Literature, vol. 7, no. 2, 2015, p. 1–.

Prabhu, Gayathri. “Retelling Nature: Realism and the Postcolonial-Environmental Imaginary in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Transnational Literature, vol. 7, no. 2, 2015, p. 13–.

Prasad, Murari. “Interfacing Diaspora with Ecological Humanities in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Asiatic, vol. 14, no. 1, 2020, pp. 273–85.

Rath, Arnapurna, and Milind Malshe. “Chronotopes of ‘Places’ and ‘Non-Places’: Ecopoetics of Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide.” Asiatic, vol. 4, no. 2, 2010, pp. 14–33.

Tomsky, Terri. “Amitav Ghosh’s Anxious Witnessing and the Ethics of Action in The Hungry Tide.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 44, no. 1, 2009, pp. 53–65, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021989408101651.

To compile this simple bibliography, I used Onesearch, google scholar, and Gale Literature databases. To maximize the relevance of search results, I played around with keywords. For instance, when I directly entered ‘memory’, as a keyword, I got little to no relevant articles. To combat this, I entered the names of the characters, Nirmal and Kanai, time, patterns, physical history, social history, repetition, silent feedback, loops, etc. To further categorize my sources, I skimmed through abstracts to rectify that the interaction with the novel remained relevant. I tried different routes and approaches to target the different elements in the formation of memories and their necessary intervention and relay information. In changing courses a few times, I managed to balance different forms of memory, but also the literary, historical, and physical elements to it. 

While reading 10:04 many themes recur throughout the chapters. One of them is time, the description of time is tossed around constantly. Lerner repeatedly talks about the present but also time travel as well. He describes his thought in the future tense and we can see this in the novel. For example, in chapter III the narrator imagines a dialogue between him and his future child with Alex. “Wasn’t the tube cold? I heard in Alex’s cousin’s voice. You’d have to ask her. Why didn’t you two just make love? Because that would have been bizarre.” (92) Lerner does this to allow readers to examine events from the future tense and catches our attention. The concept of time traveling is appealing because in reality it can not be changed however, in writing this idea is possible. The narrator’s favorite film Back to the Future which involves time travel is also mentioned multiple times and is also connected to the title of the novel. The method of storytelling that Lerner uses involves the past, present, and future. In the third chapter, a woman who helps out at the Park Slope Food Coop tells a story about how she learned that she is not half-Lebanese. These tales connect to the concept of time because the world is being altered and even with something so small it could change everything or barely anything. “I still believe all the things that I believed; it hasn’t changed my sense of any of the causes. But my right to care about the cases, my right to have this name and speak the language and cook the food and sing the songs and be part of the struggles or whatever—all of that has changed..”(105). Noor feels that she no longer has the right to be associated with Lebanese culture, her name, the language, and her nonbiological father’s family. And the quote in the story “Everything will be as it is now, just a little different.” really captures Noor’s story. 

The theme of time is also intertwined with reality. The author knows that multiple timelines are overlapping and how they come to play. “…discovering you are not identical with yourself even in the most disturbing and painful way still contains the glimmer, however, refracted, of the world to come, where everything is the same but a little different because the past will be citable in all of its moments, including those that from our present happened but never occurred.” The narrator believes that the future is altered because of the multiple possibilities that could’ve occurred but never did. This connects to the movie mentioned in the novel Back to the Future when the character alters their past and it erased his future when his hand started to disappear. Realizing the truth about your past like Noor or trying to change the past like Marty makes something feel slightly different but also the same. 

This concept of time travel is also often seen on television. For example in Family Guy, this is concept is explored. In one episode Brian wanted to find a tennis ball that he buried years ago so Stewie decided to tag along and time-travel back to that moment to find it. However, the timeline is messed up when Brian told his past self about 9/11. The domino reaction could happen when one little change alters everything else. In this case, when they return to the present the U.S is in a post-apocalyptic state. Nothing worked to change the timeline back to the original state until Stewie went back to prevent them from time-traveling in the first place. It seems that altering the future always changes the outcome of the present. 

     Throughout the reading, there are several different themes that stand out. One of the most prominent themes shown in the book as I have stated before is the use of time. It is seen in almost every part of the novel, including part four of 10:04. When the narrator arrives at his new residence, time seems to have a linear path. The narrator describes a routine he has, and seems to be disturbed easily by any outside factors. This includes the construction workers, who put a stop to his rhythm. This is also highly explored in the narrator’s response to Judd’s work, as well as the location of the work. Viewing the works of Judd, the narrator feels that the temporality combines, interferes, and dissolves. It is a strong moment, in which the present time takes a backseat to the exploration of time as being something more than linear. As we keep reading, time begins to sound less like the time us readers live in, and more of an interpretation the narrator has chosen to speak on.

     Another topic I have noticed within the story is the concept of family and the family dynamics. This is explored as early as part 1 in the novel, with the banter between the narrator and Alex. In this conversation, Alex jokes about getting a sperm donation from the narrator, an instance of family. Here we learn Alex has wanted kids, and as we keep reading we can come to a conclusion that the narrator wasn’t too turned off by the idea either. He cooks for the homeless person, and ponders on how strange it is that he is cooking for a stranger. He ultimately concludes that he wouldn’t mind cooking for kids. Later, in part four he takes on a caring figure for the young intern. He acts like a father keeping his kid company after a bad nightmare, talking to the intern who begged him to not leave his side. It is a vulnerable moment, where he shows kindness and consideration though he wishes to go home. Eventually, when the intern falls asleep, the narrator gives him a small kiss on the forehead, treating him like a young child. The idea of family and the narrator’s tendency to comfort others shine in this moment. It makes me believe that he is lonely, and in that loneliness he searches for something to hold onto. One of these things could be a family of his own.

     How does time Inter wine with the idea of family? It’s something I have asked myself as I read the novel, and wonder where the story will take these repetitive themes.