Moby-Dick Meets the Day After Tomorrow

Eco-Disaster and Salvation in Craig Russell's Fragment

Authors

  • John T. Ikeda Franklin Pittsburg State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62704/edr10403

Abstract

Craig Russell's 2016 eco-thriller Fragment is a cautionary tale with nautical overtones.
Like Herman Melville's classic 19th-century American allegory Moby-Dick, the 214-page novel is encyclopedic in its presentation of scientific knowledge; unlike Moby-Dick, it is Wikipedic in its exposition of the potential effects of the ignorance of this knowledge. Though alarmist in its message, and matter-of-factly Naturalistic in its depiction of the deaths of tens of thousands of creatures both human and other, the book is ultimately Romantic as it presents Nature in simple language composed to improve society.

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Author Biography

  • John T. Ikeda Franklin, Pittsburg State University

    John Franklin (BA Rice; MA Miami of Ohio; PhD Florida; Texas Teacher's Certificate) began his career at Jones High School in Houston. During that time, he combined his love for literature with a love of travel, spending twelve-week summers in Britain with a backpack or a bicycle visiting the settings of the fiction, drama and poetry he taught: London for Dickens; Scotland for Macbeth; Canterbury for Chaucer; and, the Lake District for Wordsworth. One Fourth of July he ventured further abroad, discovering himself atop the Acropolis in Athens, thinking, Here I am at the birthplace of democracy on the birthday of the greatest democracy that ever existed. He has spent his life since then appreciating and sharing his good fortune. John Franklin is an Associate Professor of English, a Supervising Professor of English Education and the Director of the English Education Internship Program at Pittsburg State University in Southeast Kansas where he teaches Literature for Middle and Secondary Schools. He can be reached at jfranklin@pittstate.edu.

Kansas English v.101, cover image

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Published

2020-06-29

Issue

Vol. 101 (2020)

Section

Book Reviews