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'In a near future where it never stops raining, a young adolescent runs wild. With only the cantankerous Gammy and a band of terrified and broken villagers for company, this story explores coming of age when society - and all its cues - has been washed away. For the few survivors, questions of identity, nature, love, and fear are explored through the eyes of a child, against a backdrop of encroaching water. In a near future where it never stops raining, a young adolescent runs wild. With only the cantankerous Gammy and a band of broken villagers for company, this story explores coming of age when society - and all its cues - has been washed away. In a near future where it never stops raining, a young adolescent runs wild. With only the cantankerous Gammy and a band of terrified and broken villagers for company, this story explores coming of age when society - and all its cues - has been washed away. For the few survivors, questions of identity, nature, love, and fear are explored through the eyes of a child, against a backdrop of encroaching water.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Polycrisis : Coming of Age in a Collapsing World
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 457 2023; (p. 30-31)
— Review of Eta Draconis 2023 single work novel ; The Comforting Weight of Water 2023 single work novel'At a time when the world strains under the pressure of multiple crises, it stands to reason that coming of age might no longer hold the same literary value it once did. This ‘polycrisis’ encompasses not only the convergence of myriad catastrophic events – climate change, war, Covid-19, the resurgence of fascism, etc. – but also the failure of metanarratives or belief systems to mitigate against these. Amid all this unprecedentedness, the rise of an anti-Bildungsroman sentiment hardly surprises. In different ways, both Brendan Ritchie’s Eta Draconis and Roanna McClelland’s The Comforting Weight of Water attend to the central question: how does one come of age in a collapsing world? It’s a line of enquiry that just so happens to reflect Franco Moretti’s critique of the Bildungsroman genre in The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European culture (1987), articulating how the novel of youth upholds the myth of Western modernity and progress.'(Introduction)
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Roanna McClelland The Comforting Weight of Water
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 24-30 June 2023;
— Review of The Comforting Weight of Water 2023 single work novel'First came global heating, when people suffered in a world consumed by fire. Then, in a dramatic climatic reversal, rain began to fall from a saturated atmosphere: downpours that ceased for just long enough each day to reveal a pale disc of sun. Animals drowned and streams became rivers that ran in endless spate. In a matter of years, modern civilisation was inundated, reduced to a scattered, shantytown version of itself.' (Introduction)
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Love, Loss and the End of the World : Three Australian Debut Novels Seduce and Stumble
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 8 June 2023;
— Review of Thirst for Salt 2023 single work novel ; The Comforting Weight of Water 2023 single work novel ; My Father the Whale 2023 single work novel
-
Love, Loss and the End of the World : Three Australian Debut Novels Seduce and Stumble
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 8 June 2023;
— Review of Thirst for Salt 2023 single work novel ; The Comforting Weight of Water 2023 single work novel ; My Father the Whale 2023 single work novel -
Roanna McClelland The Comforting Weight of Water
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 24-30 June 2023;
— Review of The Comforting Weight of Water 2023 single work novel'First came global heating, when people suffered in a world consumed by fire. Then, in a dramatic climatic reversal, rain began to fall from a saturated atmosphere: downpours that ceased for just long enough each day to reveal a pale disc of sun. Animals drowned and streams became rivers that ran in endless spate. In a matter of years, modern civilisation was inundated, reduced to a scattered, shantytown version of itself.' (Introduction)
-
Polycrisis : Coming of Age in a Collapsing World
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 457 2023; (p. 30-31)
— Review of Eta Draconis 2023 single work novel ; The Comforting Weight of Water 2023 single work novel'At a time when the world strains under the pressure of multiple crises, it stands to reason that coming of age might no longer hold the same literary value it once did. This ‘polycrisis’ encompasses not only the convergence of myriad catastrophic events – climate change, war, Covid-19, the resurgence of fascism, etc. – but also the failure of metanarratives or belief systems to mitigate against these. Amid all this unprecedentedness, the rise of an anti-Bildungsroman sentiment hardly surprises. In different ways, both Brendan Ritchie’s Eta Draconis and Roanna McClelland’s The Comforting Weight of Water attend to the central question: how does one come of age in a collapsing world? It’s a line of enquiry that just so happens to reflect Franco Moretti’s critique of the Bildungsroman genre in The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European culture (1987), articulating how the novel of youth upholds the myth of Western modernity and progress.'(Introduction)