Title: “Things We Didn’t See Coming”, Steven Amsterdam, Sleepers Publishing Pty Ltd, Melbourne, 2009
Description: Nine stories set in alternative scenarios of the future, with continuity offered by same narrator as he moves though life and changing landscapes.
Themes: climate change, technological advancement, societal shifts, food shortages, medical treatments, pandemics, cities. See Amsterdam’s comments on writing it here.
Story Date: 2000 – 2040 (inferred)
Sample Review:
Emma Young, Sydney Morning Herald – Review, 10-12 April 2009
(Source: Things We Didn’t See Coming Reviews)
The Melbourne writer isn’t new to the business of words and the beauty of the novel asserts his refined talent. Things We Didn’t See Coming is Amsterdam’s original contribution to the literature looking at the possible consequences of an apocalyptic rupture on Earth. The allure for the author seems to be the regeneration of what it means to be human and the exploration of what of humanity can survive when so little is left. Such an endeavour requires a nuanced understanding of social and emotional imperatives, which is by all means present in Amsterdam’s voice.
The novel elegantly links nine stories. They are plotted chronologically, jumping across years, through the outlook of one character whose real name we never learn. That he is lovingly referred to as “Bean” in the first story then as “2215” much later reflects the state of the changing world in which he is seen.
The narration begins on the eve of the millennium. A small boy empathises with his father’s pre-emptive hoarding of tinned tuna. When next we see the child, years later, he’s forged a path as a petty thief and the social landscape of “the nation” has collapsed in unison with the environment. A paternal outfit called Central administers society; barricades separate the urban centres from the Christian inhabitants of the rural lands and food is the possession of a threatened few.
The succeeding stories follow the not-quite-triumphant survival of the determined protagonist and the people with whom he becomes entwined, particularly the woman he loves. Pestilence, violence, hatred, religion and the spurious priority of the common good all prevail and threaten to distort the purpose of those who remain.
As the survivors endure the physical conditions, it becomes a battle to understand what becomes of love, family, community and the individual will when even good people have to do wrong to go on living.
The forefathers to Amsterdam’s novel are the rarefied likes of Cormac Mccarthy’s The Road. Dire as many of the developments are in Things We Didn’t See Coming, the restrained beauty of the storytelling provides an uplifting balance to the content.
Filed under: fiction , cities, climate change, fiction, food, health & medicine, pandemics, social change, technology
