The Lamentations of Zeno
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A literary fiction about climate disaster and a scientist imploding on a journey to the Antarctic
Zeno Hintermeier is a scientist working as a travel guide on an Antarctic cruise ship, encouraging the wealthy to marvel at the least explored continent and to open their eyes to its rapid degradation. It is a troubling turn in the life of an idealistic glaciologist. Now in his early sixties, Zeno bewails the loss of his beloved glaciers, the disintegration of his marriage, and the foundering of his increasingly irrelevant career. Troubled in conscience and goaded by the smug complacency of the passengers in his charge, he starts to plan a desperate gesture that will send a wake-up call to an overheating world.
The Lamentations of Zeno is an extraordinary evocation of the fragile and majestic wonders to be found at a far corner of the globe, written by a novelist who is a renowned travel writer. Poignant and playful, the novel recalls the experimentation of high-modernist fiction without compromising a limpid sense of place or the pace of its narrative. It is a portrait of a man in extremis, a haunting and at times irreverent tale that approaches the greatest challenge of our age—perhaps of our entire history as a species—from an impassioned human angle.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The stark desolation of Antarctica provides the backdrop for this novel about lost love, death, and endurance. In the wake of a traumatic breakup with his wife, geologist Zeno turns to lecturing aboard a cruise ship that carries tourists to Antarctica. He relishes the opportunity to talk about ice with paying customers rather than students. On board with the other lecturers, Zeno develops his own dangerous liaisons and comes to terms with his haunting despondency. The loss of his lover parallels the death of the glaciers he knows so intimately. "The lie of eternal love attunes us to the lie of eternal life," he tells us. The first-person narration is punctuated by strange passages of stream-of-consciousness musings that add up to their own parallel narrative. The slow-motion destruction of the fragile environment and the consequences of climate change also figure prominently throughout the story one that builds to a stunning conclusion on the high seas. Trojanow harnesses his lyrical skill and wows the reader when he focuses on describing Zeno's exploration of the seemingly monochromatic yet thrilling landscape. The book is a sophisticated drama about a scientist's love for a continent that eludes his slippery hold.
