Weather is a strange, disturbing, and important book.
Offill uses fragments of prose—typically a few lines or half a page—to present
a small group of characters in New York City who experience dread, unhealthy
behaviors, and many difficult choices. The fragments jump from topic to topic
and points of view, suggesting chaos in the characters, in much of modern life,
and even in the structure of this novel. “Weather” suggests “whether”: whether
humans can survive not only from one day to the next but also in the long term
that includes the climate crisis threatening our earth.
The cast of characters is small and carefully arranged. Lizzie (our main focus)
is married to Ben; they have a son Eli. Lizzie’s brother Henry is married to
Catherine, and they have a baby girl, Iris; Ben and Lizzie have problematic
mothers. A genogram of these and other related characters looks like the cast
of a Restoration comedy, full of harmony and good will, but in Weather
conflicts swirl and grow chaotically. Catherine divorces Henry. Ben suddenly
goes on a three-week trip. Widespread complications include street drugs,
alcohol, diet abnormalities, sleep deprivation. There are also mental problems
such as confusion, hallucination, loneliness, delusions, and panic, as well as
economic difficulties. Only Catherine has a career path, but, at the end of the
book, she appears to be “tilting into the abyss too” (p. 179), according to
Lizzie.
While some fragments describe thoughts and actions of the characters, others
present a giant whirlpool of cultural, environmental, and historical topics,
including doomsday preppers, Rapturists, and the end of civilization, also gun
rights, multicultural frictions, popular religion, a need for a strongman to
govern, noticeably sick people and loss of medical services. Other topics touched
on include hate literature, mob rule, suicide, torture, as well as references
to Fukushima, the Holocaust, and 9/11. Many of these worry our characters;
others are simply mentioned as “the surround” for all people around the world.
Our characters have fantasies of hope but usually feel panic, dread,
loneliness, guilt, or despair. Sylvia (Lizzie’s former professor and sometime
boss) is an academic who appears to understand climate change and the need to
warn people, but she gives up, saying “there’s no hope” (p. 133).
The first 127 pages swirl around the characters with little progression of
story. The next section (4) accelerates the craziness among them all. The last
two sections seem more “stable,” but with no actual resolutions. Lizzie says “I
will die early and ignobly” (p. 187). In the very last pages, she takes the boy
Eli (the only normal major character) to a playground. Later she kneels by her
bed and prays for “Mercy” (p. 197). Following the last page, we see
only a one-line URL: www.obligatorynoteofhope.com.
Is this part of the novel? Do we click on it?
