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“Prophet Malthus Surveyed a Dustbowl”: David Mitchell, Neo-Malthusianism, and the World-Ecology in Crisis

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The Global Novel and Capitalism in Crisis

Part of the book series: New Comparisons in World Literature ((NCWL))

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Abstract

This chapter examines a transition in David Mitchell’s global novels, from the deterritorialised “cosmopolitanism” of Mitchell’s Ghostwritten (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2004) , towards the allegorical significance of financier style Anchorites in The Bone Clocks (2014) . It argues that these works attempt to imagine totality through networked narrative forms, producing a pessimistic environmental imaginary concerned with the catastrophic consequences of consumption, extraction, and energy scarcity. The chapter examines the “capitalist realist ” modality of these novels, and how they produce a competitive and predacious account of humankind, with Mitchell’s short story “The Siphoners ” (2011) and its account of an energy scarce far-future linking Cloud Atlas and the final section on The Bone Clocks.

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  1. University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Treasa De Loughry

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De Loughry, T. (2020). “Prophet Malthus Surveyed a Dustbowl”: David Mitchell, Neo-Malthusianism, and the World-Ecology in Crisis. In: The Global Novel and Capitalism in Crisis. New Comparisons in World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39325-0_4

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