Juice

Which book’s world would be the absolute worst to live in?

The worst fictional world I can imagine is the one Tim Winton describes in his novel Juice. Winton imagines a future in which climate change has made much of the world almost uninhabitable. Extreme heat makes being outdoors dangerous. People shelter underground for much of the year, travel at night and struggle to find the resources they need to survive.

For someone like me who loves being outdoors, it is a horrifying prospect. I walk every day. I love exploring the bush, watching the seasons change and discovering new places. I cannot imagine living in a world where stepping outside into the sunshine might cost me my life.

But what makes Juice particularly frightening is not how difficult this world is to imagine. It is how easy it is to recognise.

Unlike many dystopian novels, Winton’s world has not been destroyed by an alien invasion, nuclear war or some inexplicable catastrophe. It is the consequence of human activity. People have inherited a devastated planet because previous generations failed to take seriously what they were doing to it. People like us.

That is what makes the novel so uncomfortable. The world Winton describes is fictional, but the processes that could bring it about are already underway. We are creating the conditions for the kind of future he imagines.

And we cannot plead ignorance. We know what is happening to the climate. We know the consequences of continuing along our present path. We have the scientific evidence, the technology and the resources to make different choices. What we have lacked is the collective determination to act.

Of course, Winton’s imagined future is not inevitable. There is still room for change, and therefore for hope. But Juice raises a question that I find difficult to escape. What will future generations think of us if they inherit a world like the one Winton describes? Will they wonder why, when we knew what was happening, we didn’t do more to prevent it? The most frightening thing about Juice is that Winton isn’t simply asking us to imagine a terrible future. He is asking us to take responsibility for the future we are creating

Which book’s world would be the absolute worst to live in?

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