The Ecodystopian Impulse in ‘Pump Six’

During a 2011 interview with James Long, Bacigalupi discusses the genre coding of his work claiming:

Except that she had her head in the oven. And the whole kitchen smelled like gas. And she had a lighter with a blue flame six inches high that she was waving around inside the oven like it was a Tickle Monkey Revival concert. (Appendix D: 1-9)

There then follows a section of heated dialogue as the characters argue over Maggie’s attempts to search for a gas leak using a lighter, during which the reader is presented with fleeting world-building elements that collectively illustrate a world in a state of collapse and disrepair. In addition to learning that Alverez and Maggie are having difficulties conceiving, the reader is also introduced to a polluted vision of New York:

[PASSAGE REMOVED FOR COPYRIGHT. FOR FULL REFERENCE SEE, BACIGALUPI, [2008] 2010: p. 209, ll. 99-105]

In terms of my own reading, the disturbing vision of a refracted New York was evident from the first sentence, with the material action process ‘the city’s sky was turning from a yellow dawn smog to a gray-blue morning smog’ posing an unappealing comparison of the city’s skyline. The varying colours of ‘smog’, alongside the ‘black clouds of exhaust’ fumes and the summer ‘heat’ combine to indicate a sense of high pollution and intense weather conditions that present a negatively exaggerated image of New York. As the narrative progresses, additional world-building elements serve to further cement this estranging vision, such as the apparent lack of everyday products such as ‘batteries’ and ‘bacon’ and the temperamental utility supplies that imply a shift in the efficiency of the consumer market.

The exact time frame of the narrative is initially unclear (‘summer’ being the only date marker provided throughout the majority of the discourse), although the text-world is populated with world-builders that are non-existent in the discourse-world and are scientifically advanced beyond current levels of development. Although such world-building elements may seem familiar, and are, on occasion, close to actual world-products, they arguably combine with the text’s estranging setting to present a world that is evidently of the future. The majority of these world-builders are food related such as ‘NiftyFreeze’ produce (Appendix D: 21), products that are shaken to heat, packaging that dissolves when eaten, and fizzy drinks such as ‘Sweatshine’ or ‘Blue Vitality’ (Appendix D: 583). Such products help to identify the text-world as being temporally distinct from the world of the reader and add to the estranging quality of the narrative. In a wider discussion of representations of food in science fiction, particularly in post-apocalyptic films, Retzinger (2008: 370) argues that ‘familiar foods serve as an anchor in an altered world (evoking both nostalgia and parody), whereas unfamiliar food may become one of the clearest measures of how far we have journeyed from the present’ for as he continues ‘strange foods help emphasise the strangeness of the future’ (Retzinger, 2008: 377). Products within ‘Pump Six’ certainly distance the reader from the text-world and establish early on that the world depicted although familiar is not quite their own.

The spatial location of the narrative – New York – is specified in the passage below during Alverez’s walk to work. Idealistically viewed as the height of modern life, New York, it can be argued, would not be immediately associated with the scenes of urban and environmental decay outlined in the following description.

Distorted representations of ‘real-world’ cities are common in dystopian literature, film and other media, as seen in the decaying London of The Girl with all the Gifts (Carrie, 2014) and The Drowned World (Ballard, [1962] 2006), a war-ridden Sheffield in Threads (Jackson, 1984), Los Angeles in Elysium (Blomkamp, 2013) and Blade Runner (Scott, 1982), and the numerous global locations of World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War (Forster, 2006). As Suvin (1979) argues, science fiction and its offshoots should aim to make the familiar seem unfamiliar (as outlined in Chapter 2) and presenting refracted visions of recognisable spatial locations is clearly an established method for inviting an estranged response. When discussing the representation of dystopian cities on film, Milner (2004: 267) suggests that in examples of urban dystopia ‘the architecture of the dystopian cityscape functions as a wider synecdoche for the wider catastrophe that has overcome their respective populations […] the city is the dystopian novum, the shape of the prior catastrophe encoded deep within its social and architectural forms’ (emphasis in original). Although Milner (2004) is applying his statement to the representation of dystopian cities on film and within Metropolis (Lang, 1927), Blade Runner (Scott, 1982) and Dark City (Proyas, 1998) in particular, his argument can be applied here as well. New York is the primary novum of ‘Pump Six’ as the narrative hinges on the degeneration of the city and the effect of its decay on the human species. It is interesting to note therefore that what is striking about this dystopian world is not the new heights of progression seen in many texts within this genre but the fear of degeneration and the ensuing collapse when development stops. The vision of the future Bacigalupi creates is one of decline, both in terms of the physical city and conclusively in the mental states of the inhabitants of a contaminated New York.

In addition to presenting scenes of urban decay, the text focuses on the breakdown of technology and mechanical infrastructure. The representation of future technology is a common trope in dystopian fiction ranging from imagined gadgets to machines and cyborgs. Techno-world-builders help to distance the reader from the text-world and add strangeness to the narrative. In most narratives, depictions of future technology project negative associations with disaster (e.g. The Machine Stops (Fowler, [1909] 2011), The People of Sparks (Du Prau, 2004), The Diamond of Darkhold (Du Prau, 2008)), societal control (see Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell, [1949] 2013), The Time Machine (Wells, 1895), ‘Harrison Bergeron’ (Vonnegut, [1961] 1994a)) and a decreased sense of humanity and/or the posthuman (e.g. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Dick, [1968] 2002), Never Let Me Go (Ishiguro, 2005)). For Beauchamp (1986: 54), technology in dystopia represents the realisation of a societal fear within the discourse-world. Throughout his analysis he addresses the role of technology as being either ‘an instrument’ used by a totalitarian state to enforce a particular word-view or conversely as ‘an autonomous force’ that shapes and defines a particular world. The latter option is perhaps the most applicable to ‘Pump Six’, as the decline in the sewage works shapes the progression of the narrative and triggers the shift in Alverez’s perspective.

The role of technology is of primary concern within the text-world as Alverez attempts to correct malfunctions in the sewage works and the wider society struggles with the breakdown in manufacturing and distribution services. As the characters note throughout the text, factories seem to be closed, gas and electricity are temperamental and the sewage pipes are continually breaking down. The decline of technological power is a common trope amongst Bacigalupi’s collective works for as put forward by Hageman (2012: 287) ‘Bacigalupi’s narrative is nearly as devoid of computers and other digital mediating technologies as it is rife with the tangible despoliation of the biophysical world’.

The presentation of water-borne disease, for example, is present from the opening of the narrative as Alverez muses on the skin condition of Maggie’s friend Nora who has unadvisedly been swimming in open water and caught an infectious rash and boils as a result:

[PASSAGE REMOVED FOR COPYRIGHT. FOR FULL REFERENCE SEE, BACIGALUPI, [2008] 2010: p. 221, ll. 483-489]

It is interesting to note the deictic markers at the start of this passage as they suggest a certain proximity between the reader and the text-world with the proximal deictic demonstrative ‘here’ alongside the generalised use of the second person which although specifically referring to the narrator implies a shared sense of understanding and schema between the narrator and narratee of the process of water cleaning. Alverez also makes subtle negative judgments about the superstitions and homeopathic remedies employed by his friends to prevent infection such as the use of ‘Kali-Mary pendants’ and ‘Super Clean smileys’. The use of the boulomaic modal verb ‘hope’, in ‘hope for the best’, is suggestive of Alverez’s cynicism regarding his friends’ cognitive mental processes especially when followed by the thorough material action processes describing Alverez’s own hygiene practices, as he states ‘I only drink bottled water’ and ‘shower with a filter head’. The added aside comment at the end, ‘No pus rashes, though’, acknowledges the success of such choices as the use of the negative suggests that the alternate ‘to have pus rashes’ would be true if such practices were replaced with alternate, ineffective solutions.

The detail with which Alverez goes on to describe the various pollutants within the water-supply was particularly salient in my own reading of the story and added a sense of authenticity and believability to Bacigalupi’s futuristic vision of my projected discourse-world in 2120, especially as many of the chemicals listed are familiar in my discourse-world environment. During an interaction at the sewage works regarding the reliability of gimmick solutions such as the Kali-Mary stickers discussed above Alverez enthusiastically warns his co-worker:

[PASSAGE REMOVED FOR COPYRIGHT. FOR FULL REFERENCE SEE, BACIGALUPI, [2008] 2010: p. 219, ll. 415-418]

Alverez’s speech opens with the imperative ‘believe me’ which is used epistemically to indicate to his friend the knowledge he is sharing with certainty. There then follows a comparative statement, ‘there’s a lot worse things than shit’, which acts as a prime for a list of toxic chemicals that can be found in the water that the pumps are supposed to clean. This list is undermined, however, with the epistemic use of ‘supposed to’, signalling that this is far from the case.

The list itself is particularly interesting as each chemical described is commonly used (or has recently been banned) from manufacturing and agricultural practice in my discourse-world. PCBs, for example, were commonly found in the air, water and soil post-1977 as a bi-product of manufacturing and can still enter the atmosphere today from poorly maintained waste sites or electrical spills (from transformer fluids for instance). Heptachlor was a common household and agricultural pesticide banned in 1988, which is still being found in the environment across the USA, and Bisphenol A is a chemical still widely used in the production of plastic and other resins. The recorded effects of the above chemicals are also clearly mapped onto ‘Pump Six’ with PCBs causing severe rashes, acne and irritation, as well as producing abnormalities during pregnancy; heptachlors links to cancer and decreased fertility and certain phalates (notably diethylhexyl pthalate (DEHP)) being directly linked to reproductive abnormalities in male newborns.

The scientific accuracy of Bacigalupi’s world, therefore, increased my sense of immersion in the narrative, making the future described appear particularly believable. This seems to be a shared response amongst LibraryThing readers who equally view Bacigalupi’s creations as being ‘too believable’ (Tatiana_G, 2011: n.p.), ‘convincing’ (kvfan, 2015: n.p.), ‘plausible’ (MLBowers, 2013: n.p.) and ‘frighteningly real’ (apomonis, 2016: n.p.). In the section that follows, I examine these responses in further detail, investigating how readers express their emotional responses to Bacigalupi’s narratives and the plausible futures posed throughout Pump Six and Other Stories.
6.3 Reading the Future: Online Readers and ‘Pump Six’
Across the thirty-two online reader reviews, analysed in support of this chapter (see Section 4.2.1), there is a discernable trend in readers’ accounts of reading experience that concerns the believability of Bacigalupi’s future worlds. These responses usually draw some form of cross-world mapping between the discourse-world of a particular reader and the text-worlds presented across Bacigalupi’s collection, as exemplified by the reactions of the following reader:
Wow, this is a really compelling and disturbing collection of stories. Though the stories are not that long, some of these will never leave me. As with any good science fiction, they are based in some plausible future reality. Even though some of the scenes are very disturbing, one is still left feeling as though we are on some version of that path now. (MLBowers, 2013: n.p.)
The opening apostrophe, ‘wow’, provides the first insight into this reader’s emotional response to Pump Six and Other Stories. It is Bacigalupi’s convincing portrayal of future possibilities that prompts such a response in this reader, exemplified by his or her evaluation of the collection as being ‘really compelling’. Additionally, each of the worlds depicted across the book are perceived as representing a ‘plausible future reality’ that, in refracting present-day concerns, promotes a sense that ‘we are on some version of that path now’. This reader also notes an emotional connection with the collection, perhaps as a result of such cross-world mappings, commenting on the text’s emotional resonance (Stockwell, 2009) and memorability – ‘some of these will never leave me’ – and repeating that certain scenes and, indeed the collection as a whole, is ‘disturbing’.

Interestingly, the following LibraryThing reader makes similar text-word-discourse-world connections and posits an almost parallel conclusion to MLBowers that the stories in this collection are ‘disturbing’ – an evaluation that occurs seventeen times across the thirty-two reviews:

The experience of conceptualising such consequences and the future worlds in which they are realised also resulted in a range of physical responses being reported by multiple LibraryThing readers. For example, apomonis (2016: n.p.) comments that ‘some of the stories will leave you breathless due to their believable dystopian landscapes’ and Knicke (2011: n.p.) reports feeling ‘worn down and depressed by the array of possible horrible futures on display’. Each of these reviews expresses some form of bodily reaction to the narratives indicative of a heightened emotional response. Indeed, many readers comment that the narratives frightened them, with five readers tagging the collection as Horror fiction. The following two reviews present the most explicit emotional accounts of the experience of reading Pump Six and Other Stories:

The subject matter was pretty dark. This is not a book you should read if you aren’t in the mood for a heavy dose of bleak and disturbing. However, this book is very inspiring: at the end of finishing various stories I was inspired to go hug my cat, to go look for some fresh fruit and vegetables in my fridge, and to run to the nearest sink, wash my hands, and take several gulps of good, clean water. (YouKneeK, 2015: n.p.) (emphasis in original)

The second example, taken from YouKneek (2015), goes one step further than these last reviews, detailing the actualised physical responses of this particular reader. He or she notes several material action processes they felt inspired to enact after completing various stories, such as hug a pet (presumably in response to ‘The People of the Sand and the Slag’ in which a dog is eaten alive); consume fresh fruits and vegetables (a possible response to the consequences of crop modification in ‘The Calorie Man’); and drink clean, accessible water (potentially triggered by ‘The Tamarisk Hunter’ and ‘Pump Six’). These actions reflect a felt emotional response and a reportedly affecting reading experience.

Interestingly, YouKneeK also issues a warning to other readers to not read the book if they ‘aren’t in the mood for a heavy dose of bleak and disturbing’. Yet the ‘darkness’ (fourteen instances) or ‘bleakness’ (five instances) of the collection are frequently presented as positive qualities as readers make links between the inherent negativity of Bacigalupi’s worlds and the ethical and emotional integrity of the collection. The responses of StephenBarkley support this assertion and return my analysis to the specific text-worlds of ‘Pump Six’:
The title story was perhaps the best of the lot. If you’re concerned at all about societal tendencies towards distraction and hedonism, “Pump Six” explores how far down that road we could go as a society, wrapped up in a compelling mystery story. Pump Six is a disturbing but important collection of stories that describe a world left to its selfish devices—apocalypticism without the hope (StephenBarkley, 2014: n.p.)
After acknowledging a personal preference for ‘Pump Six’ which, for this reader, was the ‘best’ story in the collection, StephenBarkley issues a recommendation for future readers, embedded within a conditional clause. As outlined in Chapter 4, conditional recommendations are typical of reader reviews and tend to typify the ‘kind’ of reader who will enjoy the text being discussed, as perceived by the reviewer. Such a reader is conceptualised as sharing particular interests, in this case an understanding of and anxiety for ‘social tendencies towards distraction and hedonism’. These qualities are flagged as key themes in ‘Pump Six’, qualities that are then mapped on to the discourse-world of the reader as the text is reported to ‘[explore] how far down that road we could go as a society’. StephenBarkley’s review therefore emphasises the ethical didacticism of these texts, which in presenting ‘apocalypticism without the hope’ invite the reader to readdress real-world concerns.

To return to the process of ethical positioning, then, (discussed in 6.2) it is the authenticity of such world-building elements which accentuate Bacigalupi’s ethical message and highlight the socio-cultural links between the text-world and the reader’s own experiential environment. As Stockwell (2009: 161) argues, the ethical message of a text, ‘must be recovered, in any reading that could be considered prototypical’. It would be unexpected (although possible) for a reader to conceptualise Bacigalupi’s world as a bright possible future in which they would happily live. Instead, the world invites more negative responses that given its didactic undertone encourages critical discourse-world action and social-change. Arguably, it is the presentation of the devolved ‘trog’ species in ‘Pump Six’ that prompts such negative responses and, as the second key dystopian nova for this text emphasises the possible consequences of environmental decay.