Full text loading...
-
The Forest at the End of the Pier
- Source: Short Fiction in Theory & Practice, Volume 14, Issue The Short Story and Ecology, Apr 2024, p. 69 - 80
-
- 30 Jun 2023
- 10 Jan 2024
- 28 Oct 2024
Abstract
‘TreeLand’, a neglected pier attraction in northern England, has become home to some of the country’s last remaining trees. On a day trip with her children, Ama’s encounter with the verdant forest prompts her to question the stories she has always been told about trees being a threat. In this alternate near future, technological solutionism, the drive for development and resistance to lifestyle change has enabled the spread of carbon capture technology and the demonization and widespread replacement of real trees. The roots of this fictional societal response are shown to go back through generations and are perhaps not as far removed from today’s England – where ancient woodlands are under threat and plastic lawns proliferate – as we might want to believe. The accompanying poetics, ‘Some notes on losing trees’, explores how stories can shape our understanding of, and interactions with, the natural world. The author reflects on how their imaginative world in childhood was forested through fiction when many native woodlands and trees had already been destroyed. Together, the story and poetics, invite consideration of how we respond as individuals, and as a society, when loss of nature is raw and immediate, when it is remote in time or space, or when it is just another part of the barely noticed everyday.