James Howard Kunstler: World Made by Hand

February 9, 2011 by David
Filed under Fiction, WritersCast

World Made by Hand – 978-0802144010 – paperback – Grove Press – $14.95 (e-book edition available)

The Witch of Hebron: a World Made by Hand novel – 978-0802119612 – hardcover – Atlantic Monthly Press – $24.00 (e-book edition available)

This is an unusual podcast for me as it covers two books, World Made by Hand and the next in what looks to be at least a trilogy for author Kunstler, The Witch of Hebron. I had heard of, but never read any of Jim Kunstler’s books before these two, which I read much the way I read science fiction and fantasy novels when I was young, voraciously, entering and imaginatively inhabiting the world the author has created, joyfully, and always wanting more.

These two books are set in a fictional town in a real region of upstate New York, near the Hudson River, several hours north of Albany, in a period that Kunstler has dubbed The Long Emergency. That is the title of his most recent and best-selling work of nonfiction, a book I subsequently read and now believe is one of the most important books of our time.

In The Long Emergency, Kunstler describes why our current civilization is inevitably going to collapse. This is by no means a joyful prediction, but as his novels illustrate, the world ahead as we might imagine it, is not completely grim or devoid of joy and earthly human pleasure either. It is a post-fossil fuel world, and therefore much, much larger – humans do not travel thousands of miles in a day any longer. Governments have, for the most part, collapsed along with the great powerful corporations that have come to dominate our landscape. There is effectively no interstate commerce. Agriculture based on human and animal power is the dominant feature of daily life for most people.

There is a rise in human suffering, but a massive decline in human population, and during the period in which these novels are set, relatively soon after the collapse of modern civilization, there is a great deal of rediscovery of the tools and methods on which human life was built over the many centuries preceding the 21st. There are still many who remember how things were, and their beings are marked by what they knew, and lost, and now, as they are relearning how to live, by rediscovery of a different set of values. The younger generations know nothing directly of the world we now take for granted. Their lives have always been slower than ours, more physically challenging, and much more about adaptation to one’s direct physical environment. In addition to the daily necessities, it is personal relationships, family, community and local culture that this world revolves around. It is a world made by hand, and sometimes much rougher and more painful for being so, but there is a palpable sense of redemption and concern for what is good and right that underlies the world that Kunstler has imagined, that gives meaning to the struggles his characters must face throughout these two books.

Kunstler is a terrific writer and storyteller. These are fully imagined characters living in a plausible future. I can’t wait to read the next book in the series, and since it won’t be published for some time, I have been reading Kunstler’s older novels (most of which are sadly, out of print). When we talked, I had not read The Long Emergency, so our conversation is focused solely on the two novels which followed it. I’d recommend to anyone who has not read these books to start with the fiction as I did, and then go back to the nonfiction. It’s important for us to have an understanding of where we are headed, and I think it helps us to face the difficulties ahead if we can imagine ourselves into a better place, just as Jim Kunstler has done with A World Made by Hand and The Witch of Hebron.

Do visit Jim’s website, which continuously presents valuable information about where we are and what we can do about it. Make sure you take a side trip to the mini-site for these novels, which is a beautifully put together experience in and of itself. A great author biography here. We had a fantastic wide-ranging conversation about the novels, the world they are set in, and how these characters and their stories illustrate the future Kunstler has so beautifully imagined and portrayed.