Are the oil billionaires going to hell?
George Saunders' latest novel puts fossil fuels in their much-needed context
You know one thing you rarely heard about in the good old U.S.A. anymore? Monsieur Frog? A young fellow dying of appendicitis. At twenty-eight. Like Grandpa’s brother had. Because a road got washed out. And the horse-drawn cart couldn’t make it through. Imagine you go back in time and drop that young guy into the backseat of a big old SUV, fly him over a perfect four-lane to some gleaming modern hospital, save his life…
Dying in the back of a horse cart stuck in the mid? Or zinging toward help, air-con blasting?
Anyone with a lick of sense would choose the latter.
We had.
The world had.
Herein lies the tension in this simultaneously funny and grave novel: the world is undoubtedly the better for its discovery of fossil fuels. But what now?
On his deathbed, oil tycoon K. J. Boone is visited by a series of angels or ghosts — former living humans who have not yet passed into a further realm — and must grapple with his legacy. Was rising out of poverty and bringing oil to the people enough to leave him in good standing on Earth? Or will his decades-long manipulation of truth and science be what defines him?
Although the moralising is a little overcooked in parts, and the style, though fascinating, can be a little tiring to read (this is my first Saunders novel so I have no baseline for this), on the whole, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking book, exploring complicated dichotomies of good and bad, life and legacy, and ultimately, destiny and free will.
I can’t imagine anyone on the denial side of the climate debate will bother picking up this book, let alone enjoy it, but I think it will be an important read, especially for younger people who may lack the context to grasp just how transformational these ‘dirty’ energy sources were — and not all that long ago.
The book asks of its protagonist, and others: Who could he have been if not himself? Given what we are born with and what we are exposed to, do we really have much choice as to how we behave, how we turn out? We can apply this question of free will beyond the individual. Given who humanity was when the power of fossil fuels were discovered, what else could we have done but exactly what we did?
Fossil fuels and the technological and scientific breakthroughs they enabled changed the world hundreds of times over. Many of us today would not be alive without them. But the truth is rarely pure and never simple. Fossil fuels solved many problems and created others. It’s time to bid them goodbye.