Seite - 41 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 05/02
Bild der Seite - 41 -
Text der Seite - 41 -
its moral message,34 I believe that the trilogy is very ambiguous as to its moral
stance. The aesthetic simulation of possible future worlds merely provides op-
portunities for reflection for the reader rather than a fixed moral universe or
even simple solutions for the ecological crisis at hand. Instead, The MaddAddam
Trilogy lays bare the mechanics of world construction through storytelling and
discourse and portrays its moral consequences. For example, for Crake and the
God’s Gardeners the apocalypse clearly represents something positive. From
a post-anthropocentric or eco-centric point of view, it is difficult to totally op-
pose the take that “nature”35 and its non-human creatures would be better off
without the kind of human civilisation represented in the novels’ pre-apocalyptic
world. This idea is reinforced through the extensive portrayal of the God’s Gar-
deners and their means of narrative worldmaking in The Year of the Flood.
The God’s Gardeners’ belief system is based on a post-anthropocentrism in
which animals and other non-human creatures have souls and rights to life simi-
lar to those of human beings. They express this value system in hymns titled “Oh
Let Me Not Be Proud”, “Oh Sing We Now the Holy Weeds” or “We Praise the
Tiny Perfect Moles”, and sermons held by their leader, Adam One, on their feast
days, such as “The Feast of Adam and All Primates”, in which he discusses the
close kinship between humans and “the other Animals” as well as the moral ob-
ligations that follow from that.36 Instead of justifying eco-centrism scientifically
or “rationally” only, Adam One connects the Gardeners’ values and lifestyle to
God and God’s creation: “By covering such barren rooftops with greenery we
are doing our small part in the redemption of God’s Creation from the decay
and sterility that lies around us, and feeding ourselves with its unpolluted food
into the bargain. Some would term our efforts futile, but if all were to follow
our example, what a change would be wrought on our beloved Planet!”37 Many
of Adam One’s sermons incorporate scientific findings, yet he clearly points out
that the purely scientific paradigm (as represented by Crake) is foolish in its de-
nial of metaphysics and spirituality: “God is pure Spirit; so how can anyone rea-
son that the failure to measure the Immeasurable proves its non-existence?”38
In the Gardeners’ world, the stories that Adam One tells in his sermons, the
songs, and the rhymes all connect a spiritual and religious belief system to a
certain mode of material living and especially of interacting with the natural
environment in a sustainable manner, for example through community-based
rooftop gardening as a form of non-capitalist production. Even though the
34 Bouson 2004, 140–1; Tate 2017, 66.
35 The framing of all that is non-human, or not human-made as “nature” is problematic from
certain eco-critical perspectives, like Timothy Morton’s Ecology without Nature.
36 Atwood 2010, 63.
37 Atwood 2010, 13.
38 Atwood 2010, 62.
Just Popular Entertainment or Longing for a Posthuman Eden? |
41www.jrfm.eu
2019, 5/2, 31–50
JRFM
Journal Religion Film Media, Band 05/02
- Titel
- JRFM
- Untertitel
- Journal Religion Film Media
- Band
- 05/02
- Autoren
- Christian Wessely
- Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
- Herausgeber
- Uni-Graz
- Verlag
- SchĂĽren Verlag GmbH
- Ort
- Graz
- Datum
- 2019
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Abmessungen
- 14.8 x 21.0 cm
- Seiten
- 219
- Kategorien
- Zeitschriften JRFM