She observes the death of grass, trees, fish, the extinction of different species of birds, the fiasco of the world’s food crops, and the harrowing emotional and psychological disorder of those suffering from gravity sickness. The Earth’s rotation has slowed and continues to slow, and its influence on the lives of all the characters is transparent
By Megha Bajaj
The Age of Miracles is the first novel by American writer Karen Thompson Walker. Published in June 2012, the book arrived in India last year. It’s her debut novel which deals with the fictional phenomenon of slowing, in which one day of earth begins to stretch out and takes longer and longer to complete. Interestingly, the protagonist, Julia, an 11-year-old girl, can be seen grappling with her family, her friends, and a drastically changed life in a world that continues to change.
Julia’s world turns upside down when she awakens one day and discovers that something has happened to the earth’s rotation. The days and nights are getting longer; gravity is severely affected; the birds, the sea-tide, human behaviour, relationships, classroom room atmosphere and cosmic rhythms are thrown into serious disturbances in a world that is filled with loss.
A sense of despair and isolation stalks the landscape. There are some who become convinced that doom’s day is near.
Julia undergoes a journey of self-discovery. She faces surprising developments within herself and her world.
The transition phase of her development begins when her friend, Hannah, shifts due to religious reasons, and the sudden shift in the rotation of the earth. This leaves Julia alone. Solitary and withdrawn, she is unprotected at the school bus stop and becomes a target of bullies.
The conspicuous fact of her journey of self-discovery resonates throughout the novel, whenever she comes across a complex situation. Her mother’s is suffering; she is going through a strange and persistent sickness. It causes her to pass out one day while driving.
A pedestrian is killed. Julia is horrified when she hears her father lie to her mother and tell her that the pedestrian has survived. When she realizes how her mother has found solace after this lie, she decided to keep the secret to herself.
She shares a deep bond of friendship with her classmate, Seth, with whom she shares piano lessons. She reveals to him the secret of her father’s affair with their piano teacher in the neighbourhood. Seth encourages her to confront her father about what is happening. After that, she fears that her father will not return home to them, but is pleasantly surprised when he comes back.
However, she is crushed again when Seth is diagnosed with gravity sickness and he and his father move to Mexico. After one short e-mail message from him, she never hears from him again. Some years later, even though she is now aware that the Earth is dying, Julia still hopes vaguely that Seth will come back to her.
There are many things that Walker does intelligently in this novel. The melancholic representation of a future Earth, inching slowly towards its inevitable end, is appalling, but enjoyable. The consequences of such a slowing effect are contrived beautifully and executed through Julia’s narrative.
She observes the death of grass, trees, fish, the extinction of different species of birds, the fiasco of the world’s food crops, and the harrowing physical, emotional and psychological disorder of those suffering from gravity sickness. The Earth’s rotation has slowed and continues to slow, and its influence on the lives of all the characters is transparent.
The Age of Miracles is not a young-adult novel. It is written for an adult audience, but told through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl. The story is narrated retrospectively by an older Julie, who recalls the day that changed the trajectory of her life — forever.
Her future voice often feels inauthentic and heavy, as she frustratingly foreshadows events and shapes the narrative to reflect her future beliefs and expectations. The voice shifts unpredictably, between a world-weary narrator and an innocent child, making the transition forced. As the novel progresses, ‘the Slowing’ worsens as it evokes tediousness and boredom.
The writing is lyrical and lucid. The author has a keen eye; the description of everyday existence and its meticulous details add up to create a complete portrait of life in a small southern California town with permanent change.
Lastly, I would like to say that it’s a delicate, disturbing and emotionally sophisticated novel. Karen Thompson Walker paints a breathtaking portrait of people finding ways to carry on in a world which is rapidly transforming, a phenomena which they just can’t understand.
The novel is highly recommended. It offers a glimpse into the life of a school girl and how she handles the complexity of relationships and difficult situations in her surroundings. If you relish the genre of coming of age. Just go for it. Happy Reading.
EXCERPTS
The slowing, we soon came to understand, had altered gravity. Afterward, the earth held a little more sway. Bodies in motion were slightly less likely to remain in motion.We were all of us and everything, a little more susceptible to the pull of the ground, and maybe it was this shift in physics that had sent that bird straight into the flat glass of our windowpane…
But among the artifacts that will never be found — among the objects that will disintergrate long before anyone from elsewhere arrives — is a certain path of sidewalk on a California street, where, once, on a dark afternoon in summer, waning end of the year of the slowing, two kids knelt down to get on the cold ground. We dipped our fingers in the wet cement, and we wrote the truest, simplest things we knew — our names, the date, and these words: We were there.
Megha Bajaj is Sub-Editor, Digital Forensics Research and Analytics Center (DFRAC), a fact-finding media organization based in Delhi.