Consider the structure of the story. How do the alternating chapters and points of view affect your interpretation of each character? Does one point of view seem to stand out from the others? How do you think that your interpretation of the story would be different if the story was told only from the point of view of a single character? International Cinema". Time. September 20, 1963. Archived from the original on January 17, 2008 . Retrieved April 24, 2011. At this point, we do not only need more narratives that include and centre climate change, but narratives that are more likely to inspire, guide, and support a just response to climate change in the years and decades to come.” (Schneider-Mayerson, 2020, p. 357)

In chapter 16, Angel tells Lucy about a specific ritual of the tamarisk hunters. Why do you think that he chooses to share this story with Lucy? Why do the hunters share water when they meet each other at the Colorado? How does this ritual correspond to the relationship between the characters in The Water Knife? What do you think this reveals about the storyteller, Angel? Does the story seem to elicit the response that Angel was hoping for from Lucy?When rumours of a game-changing water source surface, Las Vegas dispatches elite water knife Angel Velasquez to Phoenix to investigate. There, he discovers hardened journalist Lucy Monroe, who holds the secret to the water source Angel seeks. But Angel isn’t the only one hunting for water, Lucy is no pushover, and the death of a despised water knife is a small price to pay in return for the life-giving flow of a river. The book is based on Bacigalupi's short story, The Tamarisk Hunters, and revolves around the effects of climate change in the near future. The water supply has been drastically reduced and control of the supply has been taken over by corrupt business magnates. Angel Velasquez is the main protagonist and is a spy/assassin, known as a “water knife" – his job is to sabotage the water supply of his employer’s competitors. He encounters many conflicts on his journey and meets the mysterious journalist Lucy Monroe and refugee Maria Villarosa along the way. Examine the treatment of the theme of allegiance within the story. How does allegiance seem to be defined within this novel? To what do the characters show allegiance? Do the characters remain steadfast in their allegiance or do their allegiances shift throughout? If they shift, what seems to motivate these changes?

Sarah was schooling away her Dallas drawl, scraping away Texas talk and Texas dirt scrubbing and scraping as hard as her pale white skin could take the burn.” (p. 39)Lucy Monroe is a Pulitzer winning journalist who has stayed in Phoenix longer than she intended to, making a dangerous living reporting on the water wars. She can't seem to abandon the chaos that surrounds her, hoping for that one big story. She knows far more about Phoenix's water secrets than she admits. Tobar, Héctor (28 May 2015). "Imagining a thirsty future in Paolo Bacigalupi's 'The Water Knife' ". The Washington Post . Retrieved 19 July 2015. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in drought-ravaged Phoenix, Angel is sent to investigate. There he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with no love for Vegas and every reason to hate Angel, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas refugee who survives by her wits and street smarts in a city that despises everything she represents. Admussen, N. (2016, May-June). Six Proposals for the Reform of Literature in the Era of Climate Change. Retrieved July 23, 2022, from criticalflame.org: http://criticalflame.org/six-proposals-for-the-reform-of-literature-in-the-age-of-climate-change/ On the other hand, we found that the Hobbesian violence of The Water Knife is potentially counterproductive. Authors and critics might hope that portraying a dystopic cautionary future will scare readers into engaging in progressive politics today, but it might not work out that way.

The book is set in a dystopian world where climate change has led to a decline in the access to clean water. The story follows protagonist, Angel Velasquez, a “water knife”, whose job is to tamper with the water supply of other competitors. He is sent on a job by his boss, Catherine Case, the “Queen of the Colorado,” to destroy Arizona’s water supply so that her own water supply company can prosper. A similar theme is seen in Oereskes and Conways The Collapse of Western Civilisation: A view from the Future, (Oreskes & Conway, 2014) with a future historian from the new Chinese Hegemony writing an essay about how the west crumbled under its own contradictions and mismanagement. In Twenty-Five to Life (2021) R.W.W.Greene envisages a USA portioned by debt with an Western seaboard wholly owned by China. These implicit appeals to proud American nationalism, by portraying a potential fall from world dominance may touch a nerve in some reader’s minds in ways which more planetwide issues do not. Knife in the Water was released on VHS in 1996, [22] and on DVD in 2003 by The Criterion Collection. [23] Related works [ edit ] The film was nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is Polanski's only Polish-language feature to date. Knife in the Water has garnered acclaim from film critics since its release, and is one of Polanski's best-reviewed works. American filmmaker Martin Scorsese recognized the film as one of the masterpieces of Polish cinema and in 2013 he selected it for screening alongside films such as Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds and Innocent Sorcerers in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema festival of Polish films. [9] Plot [ edit ] How does The Water Knifecompare to Bacigalupi’s previous novels? What common themes are evident among the works? Are they treated similarly in each work? What do the characters have in common? Do any universal views or themes begin to emerge? About this Author

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As a fiction writer, you actually have an opportunity to go at the same ideas, but you can make them engaging… the reader gets to live viscerally in that world… in the skin of a climate refugee.” (Urry, 2015) In chapter 18, Michael Ratan compares Maria to Catherine Case. What does he say that they have in common? Do you feel that this is a fair comparison to make? Why or why not? Does it affect or alter your perception of Case’s character or any of the other characters? An intense thriller and a deeply insightful vision of the coming century, laid out in all its pain and glory. It’s a water knife indeed, right to the heart.”—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Aurora The way fiction, as exemplified in The Water Knife, aims to instil empathy for less than a handful of key characters can mean the form neglects other emotions and wider foci. Ada Palmer and Jo Walton described it as The Protagonist Problem (Palmer & Walton, 2021) the way the narrative success or failure rests on the shoulders of a few key individuals. This is a feature also of the great men approach to the teaching of history, and indeed educational policy in the UK where the notion of hero school leaders who can be parachuted into any school ignores the massive contribution made by layers of staff and specific contexts within their successful schools. As Palmer and Walton note, Angel and Lucy make it to another Las Vegas safe house. Angel places a call to Las Vegas pretending to be helpless and in need of extraction. Angel and Lucy relocate to another building and watch as a helicopter blows up the safe house with two missile strikes. After the smoke clears, Angel and Lucy ambush the men searching for Angel’s body in the rubble. Angel discovers that Case is working with California to secure the water rights from Angel, whom she believes is withholding them from her. Angel attempts to convince Case that he never double-crossed her and that he will bring her the water rights.

All three at different times are victims of brutal malicious violence such that Bacigalupi keeps the reader in a constant state of agitation as to how they can possibly survive their respective predicaments. There is the central mystery of what Lucy’s friend died for and who killed him, but as the body count rises and different players and factions enter the fray, it is less a whodunnit mystery, and more a what is about to be done, who by and to whom thriller. She is an award-winning journalist who is disillusioned by corporate greed that is turning Phoenix, Arizona into a wasteland. She delves into the convoluted world of water rivalry and understands the lawless networks that run the water supply. Her world intertwines with Angel and Maria as she pursues the same legal documents they wish to possess for their own agendas. Maria Villarosa For someone who either thinks that global warming is a farce or who doesn’t like political writing generally, or thinks that cli-fi indicates political agenda writing, and therefore didacticism, and therefore stupidity, you’re in a different space. (Urry, 2015) Much of the story takes place in a dying version of Phoenix. The Water Knife of the title is an operative of the Southern Nevada Water Authority (i.e. Las Vegas) named Angel. His job is both to serve legal papers denying water rights to Las Vegas' competitors and to bring violence down on those refusing to comply. In Angel's world, water is life and each state understands that legal actions are the least of the tools at their disposal. The book opens with Las Vegas protecting its own water supply via a thin legal disguise and the destruction of a neighboring city's water treatment plant.a b c Eveld, Edward M. (June 26, 2015). "In 'The Water Knife,' extreme drought creates a dystopian America". The Kansas City Star . Retrieved October 19, 2020. In chapter 2, readers are introduced to Lucy Monroe, a prize-winning journalist. Why does Lucy devote herself to reporting? What books has she written and how are the two books different from each other? What does this tell us about her character and how she has changed as a person throughout her career? Would you say that she is a good journalist? Why or why not? How is journalism presented as a whole throughout the novel? Is it seen as a noble profession? Does the novel ultimately seem to indicate what the primary role of a journalist should be?