Nostalgic Narrative and Affective Climate SF in George Turner's The Sea and Summer

Abstract

This paper explores how George Turner's The Sea and Summer utilizes nostalgic narrative to develop an affective attachment to the climate disaster and instigates, in its narrative, meaningful change. Through a consideration of Svetlana Boym's reflective nostalgia, the affective response the novel activates, and the affect created by Gothic tropes, I suggest that this combination produces an exemplary response. The narrative presents a frame story set in a distant future after the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet, and the bulk of the prescient climate sf novel is presented as a novelistic rendering of this pre-apocalyptic scenario. This combination allows the reader to consider the temporal scale, producing a medium scale, which allows the reader to grasp the complexity of the problem without being overwhelmed by its vastness. I argue that rather than exorcising our fears, such literary narratives can make the realities of climate change more present to contemporary readers.