Jonathan Miles’s Eradication: A Fable is the story of Adi, a former jazz musician turned schoolteacher, reeling from the tragedy of his young son’s death. Unable to escape grief’s grip, and attempting to recover from his wife’s decision to leave him, Adi decides to pursue a strange job opportunity. He accepts an assignment to spend five weeks alone on the tiny, isolated Pacific Island of Santa Flora. His mission: to right the ecological imbalance caused by the goats that have overpopulated the island. However, as the environment, natural elements, and wild landscape test Adi’s morality and ethics, Adi finds that the true threat to Santa Flora may not be the goats at all. The job’s rigors challenge his mental, physical, and psychological stamina, and as he relives his son’s death and the events that followed, he undergoes a transformation he never could have imagined.
Written as an introspective meditation, Eradication: A Fable is a jarring examination of one man’s reckoning with the world, love, grief, and, ultimately, himself. His "social isolato" is reminiscent of classic characters like Moby Dick’s Ishmael. The isolated island’s setting will remind readers of books like Lord of the Flies. In some ways, Eradication reads like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe because of its exploration of the humans-versus-nature ethos. More significantly, as Adi confronts the real consequences of human conquest and human incursion on fragile environments, Eradication resonates clearly with contemporary novels such as Daniela Catrileo’s stunning novel Chilco.
Eradication is morally and ethically necessary, especially as climate change and human greed continue to ravage the globe. Miles has truly contributed a beautifully eerie and hauntingly thought-provoking work to the contemporary literary canon.
No comments:
Post a Comment