I was waiting for the new novel by Stephen Markley, the author of Ohio. He’s very talented, an amazing young author. I highly recommend Ohio to everybody. It can be read as a companion novel to Demon Copperhead, although it’s not aa good.
Finally, Markley’s new novel came out. I downloaded a sample and, God, it’s so woke, it’s almost like a parody of wokeness. The novel belongs to the genre known as climate porn and aims to get people scared of the global warming.
“We are all going to die because evil capitalism destroyed the planet!”
But that message falls flat because there’s something much scarier in the book. It’s the possibility that we are all going to keep on living in a world of unbearable wokeness where small children lecture each other about ‘gender essentialism’ and lovers exchange strings of ‘anti-racist’ slogans in bed because it’s more enjoyable to verbally fellate Ibram Kendi than to make love to each other.
If you read the article I linked yesterday about the woke youth leader Keisha turning a summer school seminar into a cult, this novel is written by somebody who sounds like the graduate of that cult and Keisha’s beat student.
I wouldn’t even mention any of this if it weren’t for one thing. Markley is very talented. His is a unique literary gift that arises once in a generation. With everything I mentioned above, the writing is still painfully enjoyable.
I’ve waited for a Stephen Markley for twenty years, and finally he’s here but he’s been perverted by wokeness. He’s still a great writer. Not great as in “good” but great as in “outstandingly talented.”
Clarissa's Blog 
What you are saying is very important, especially for teachers of literature, especially for these times.
It’s critical for students, indeed for everyone, to understand that artistic talent and moral being are and must remain distinct. We judge people on the basis of their actions, we judge artists on the basis of their merit: Céline is a great writer, in spite of being a rabid anti-semite and Nazi sympathiser, for which we condemn him morally but which does not diminish the value of his work.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wish more people were capable of seeing this. It’s a sign of a very primitive intelligence not to be able to separate the artist and the artist’s work from each other. Learning to do it is a very underexplored and cheap venue of personal growth. More people should try it instead of pouting at the complexity of the world.
LikeLike
I’ve gotten maybe 1/3 of the way through The Deluge, not sure I’ll finish it though. The woke talking points bother me less than they bother you, but there just isn’t much behind it. At least his debut novel was funny, although it’s also languishing half-unfinished on my ebook reader
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I decided not to read, after all. I’m still hoping the author will find a way to change course. So much talent going to waste, it’s sad.
LikeLike
I don’t know, I think Ohio was a one-off. “Steal this book” isn’t woke, but it’s also not on fire the way Ohio was… if anything, The Deluge is better. It has its moments, its turns of phrase, but somehow he’s managed to write the most boring eco-thriller known to man. And as a science fiction fan, I’ve read some pretty wooden eco-thrillers nobody would ever mistake for art, but I’ve managed to finish them, you know?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t read anything by him besides Ohio. And you are absolutely right, one can definitely do something great in the climate apocalypse genre. One can do something great in any genre and with any system of beliefs. But the characters and the story need to come alive. And here it’s just not happening.
LikeLike
You’re not missing much 🙂 Oh, and it’s Publish this book, not Steal this book, sorry, a bit careless today
LikeLiked by 1 person