AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
about the effects of climate change at the beginning of the story:
But on New Year’ s Eve the year Anna turned ten, no snow had
fallen either on the mountain plateau or on the lowlands. Jack
Frost had long held the countryside in his icy grip but, apart
from the odd small drift, the mountains were untouched by snow.
Even the high mountain terrain lay bare beneath the open sky,
stripped of its winter cloak (Gaarder, 2016, p. 7). In addition, the
author initially outlines the topic of animal migration to human
dwellings: The absence of snow had not been the only talking
point that Christmas. Over the holidays, reindeer had been
spotted down by the farms, and people joked that Father
Christmas might have left behind a couple on his rooftop travels.
Anna had sensed that there was something scary, something
alarming about this. Reindeer had never strayed down to the
villages before. Anna had seen pictures in the newspaper of
farmers trying to feed a poor, frightened creature: Wild
Reindeer in Mountain Villages the caption had read (Gaarder,
2016, p. 7-8). The main character – Anna – perceived the beauty
of nature by the lake: Under a thin membrane of ice she saw
moss and lichen, crowberries and black bearberries with
crimson leaves. It was as though she had moved into a more
precious, a more refined, world (Gaarder, 2016, p. 8). But then,
there is a sharp contrast. When Anna sees dead mice on the
ground, she is shocked: Soon, though, she spotted a dead mouse
… and another. Under a dwarf birch she found a dead lemming.
By now Anna understood, and she no longer felt as though she
was on an adventure (Gaarder, 2016, p. 8-9).
Despite the fact that the story is taking place in Norway, the
problem of warm winters is not uncommon in other European
countries. The teacher can also draw attention to this
phenomenon of global warming through some parts of the text.
In the following pages, the story is postponed by six years, two
days before Anna´s sixteenth birthday, when she received a new
smartphone, but she also received an ancient ring with a ruby
inherited from her aunt Sunnive. The reader finds out that the
main protagonist is in the first year of high school, and about her
lush imagination from an early age: Ever since she was small,
Anna had been told she had a lively imagination. If she was
asked what she was thinking, she would reel off endless stories,
and no one had thought this was anything other than a good
thing. But that spring, Anna had begun to believe some of the
stories. She had a feeling that they were being sent to her,
perhaps from another time, or even another reality (Gaarder,
2016, p. 12-13). Anna had several sessions with a psychologist,
who recommended that she should be examined by a psychiatrist
in Oslo, who then played a key role in the story. In a session
with Anna a psychiatrist Benjamin noticed her unusual
behaviour, extraordinary talent and tendency to invent stories.
Anna didn´t hide her curiosity and asked him a few questions:
What about the doctor? Did he ever come up with strange
stories? Did he also have dreams where he was a different
person? Had his dreams ever come true? (Gaarder, 2016, p. 14-
15).
Although Anna is an extraordinary girl, Benjamin considers her
healthy – her curiosity and the number of curious questions
about everything that surrounds her make her special. The reader
may notice the young girl´s courage in asking questions,
conversations can lead him to think more deeply about some
topics. In the form of a dialogue, Anna talks to a psychiatrist: ‘I
think I got that,’ he said. ‘You may have such an active
imagination that it seems to overflow. You can´t believe that you
made it all up yourself. But imagination is a quality everyone
possesses, to a greater or lesser extent. Everyone has their own
dream world. Not everyone, however, can remember what they
dreamed the night before. This is where you appear to have a
rare gift (Gaarder, 2016, p. 15). Anna replied: ‘But I still get a
feeling that the dreams come to me from another world. Or from
another time’ (Gaarder, 2016, p. 15). This part gradually outlines
the solution of the themes of time, reality or fiction. The story
contains some real information about the year 2012: To Anna’s
surprise, the psychiatrist didn’t miss a beat. ‘I think today there’
s about forty per cent more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
than there was before we seriously started burning oil, coal and
gas, cutting down forests and farming intensively. It’s more than
600,000 years since the CO2 level was so high, and the problem
is man-made’ (Gaarder, 2016, p. 18).
The author raises several concerns about climate change in the
dialogues: ´I mean, I’ m afraid of climate change. I’ m afraid
that we’re risking our climate and environment without a second
thought for future generations’ (Gaarder, 2016, p. 17). The
philosophical context is the conversation of doctor Benjamin and
Anna about the basic problems of human being: ´Sometimes I
ask myself whether we live in a culture that intentionally
represses fundamental truths. Do you understand what I mean
by that?’ ‘I think so. We try to forget unpleasant things’
(Gaarder, 2016, p. 18). I agree with you, Anna. It wouldn’t
surprise me if less than one per cent of the population can
explain what the carbon balance is’ (Gaarder, 2016, p. 20).
Finally, Benjamin indirectly supported Anna for the activity:
Perhaps you and Jonas should set up a pressure group in your
village. That would be the best course of action. As a
psychiatrist I know it’s not healthy to become consumed by your
worries. So, if I may give you a piece of advice it would be: go
for it. Make something happen’ (Gaarder, 2016, p. 22).
Another storyline stretches through the story, in which time
moves to the date of December 12, 2082 and a character named
Nova appears here. She lives in the same house as Anna, but the
environment has changed. In the room where Anna used to
sleep, there is an apparatus in which the currently extinct species
appear. Nova is angry and furious, she is thinking: The most
significant cause of this mass extinction is global warming. It got
out of hand decades ago. Only a hundred years earlier, this
planet was outstandingly beautiful. In the course of this century
it has lost its charm. The world will never be as it was (Gaarder,
2016, p. 27).
Elements of sci-fi are complemented by the way Nova looks at
the camera at the Siberian tundra, bubbling and boiling
(Gaarder, 2016, p. 28) or Nana comes into the garden carrying
a big tray. She has made a casserole. Nova knows the food is
synthetic. She is sick of all this synthetic food even though she is
told it contains all the nutrients she needs (Gaarder, 2016, p. 82)
or She walks to the crossroads where there was a petrol station
in the olden days. Now it is a kind of staging post (Gaarder,
2016, p. 51). The author captures the consequences of reckless
human action: Oil had run out. Almost all the fossil fuels had
been used up. The rainforests had been burned down and the
peat marshes had rotted. There was so much CO2 in the air and
in the sea. Our planet´s resources had been destroyed and
people were starving (Gaarder, 2016, p. 108). Sometimes it may
seem to the reader that the predictions are exaggerated, but it is
possible to assume that this is the author´s intention to underline
the situation: This was sick. What right did mankind have to
destroy other forms of life? (Gaarder, 2016, p. 68). Many
warnings are extreme: Nature had been destroyed. Civilisation
had almost broken down and the world´s population was so
much smaller than it is today (Gaarder, 2016, p. 109), however,
some scenarios may give the reader the impression of reality, for
example in 2082 Nova flies in space with a friend: Both of them
have seen photos from the Apollo mission more than hundred
years ago. The globe is unrecognisable now. It is much more
obscured by clouds and storms. This tallies with their experience
on the ground (Gaarder, 2016, p. 154).
Nova, as representative of future generations, is dissatisfied with
the state of the environment in which she lives: Some of nature
remains, but only the crumbs from the rich man´s table. What
she sees is wonderful, but she will not be fobbed off by it. She
has the right to live in nature which is intact. Not holey, like
a Swiss cheese (Gaarder, 2016, p. 28-29). She looks at old
articles written in 2012 (first published in 2013), which highlight
the possible loss of natural resources, such as gas and oil, the
extinction of animal species and the loss of biodiversity. She
notes that there were several warnings. As she browses on the
Internet, text written in the form of a letter appears on the
monitor. She finds out that the letter is addressed to her, Nova,
and it was written by her grandmother Anna fifty years ago.
Nova wonders how her grandmother could have known she
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