Odds Against Tomorrow follows the story of a young postgraduate quantitative analyst named Mitchell Zukor. After a natural disaster levels the city of Seattle, firms are now concerned with disaster-induced losses, implying that huge natural disasters are to become the norm in the future. Zukor's job is essentially to forecast disasters and predict the fiscal damage companies will have to endure.It seems like this book is presenting a parallel reality where huge natural disasters are commonplace events, causing severe damage to even first world countries like the United States and requiring people to plan their lives and businesses around them. The author might be arguing that this could very well be the future we're headed towards if we allow climate change to continue along its projected course. I'm curious where Odds Against Tomorrow will go with this idea, and if it can serve as an effective warning to readers.
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My book finally came in this Friday so I've had a chance to read through it.
Odds Against Tomorrow is not a particularly difficult read. Its writing style reminded me of a lot of young-adult novels that are commonly read by High Schoolers these days, such as The Kite Runner, the Divergent series, etc. After the wordy, dense, heavily philosophical work of classic American literature that was Walden, this book was a nice, almost relaxing change of pace (despite its intense narrative). It's one of those books that you don't have to think very hard about while reading it.
Nathaniel Rich is really good at describing things. The New York Times describes him as a "first-class noticer," which shows in his writing style. Although at times his writing seems a little bit obvious (I guess that's how I'll describe it), he does well setting up characters and establishing their personalities and their actions in order for them to best fill their role in the novel.
When it comes to climate change, Rich honestly doesn't seem that concerned with the issue. While environmental disasters are one of the main plot points of the book, Rich sort of glosses over how unnatural it is for such huge disasters to hit so hard and so frequently, and makes no mention of humanity's role in creating them. To me, it seems that Odds Against Tomorrow is an accidental climate change novel. Although it seems like Rich's purpose was not to create a compelling narrative that concerns the topic of climate change, you can still examine this book as a realistic portrayal of how modern American society might react to large scale, climate change-induced natural disasters.
The setting of Odds Against Tomorrow could could easily be mistaken for an alternate 2016 where the only difference is that climate change has been accelerated, and major natural disasters are already hitting the continental U.S. It's noted that there's a deadly heat wave happening in New York in the first part of this novel, hinting that temperatures are already rising far beyond normal levels. Although this book is fiction, it's easy to imagine this kind of thing happening today. Odds Against Tomorrow is just hypothesizing how America would look if we were already at 4 degrees.
It sounds interesting so I am looking forward to when you actually get to comment on how you like the book. I do really enjoy these climate changes books though, puts everything into perspective.
ReplyDeleteI am half way done reading it, so I am eager to talk with you about it, too!
ReplyDeleteI am interested in hearing more! This novel seems very thrilling. I wonder if it will be a suspenseful book or a slow read? You will have to update your post as you get further along.
ReplyDeleteI just finished the novel. The main event is an enormous flooding of New York with all of the disastrous consequences. In that sense it puts climate change center stage.
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