Apocalyptic end of the world appears to be haunting Maggie Gee’s fiction. In her The Burning Book (1983), it is the nuclear catastrophe. In The Flood, she uses the Biblical prophecy of the flood destroying the whole world. As she herself says, The Flood was the first book she wrote after the September 11 destruction of the World Trade Center in the USA. In Independent (2005), Palmer Judith has quoted Maggie Gee saying, “The Flood was the first book I’d written since September 11, and there was this feeling of fragility, that London could be destroyed.” The Flood is apparently Gee’s response to the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001.
Apocalypse in the Biblical terms is the total destruction of the world that has invited the wrath of God by its sinfulness. It is the purging of the earth, as God says in Genesis (6.17). But everything does not die. Noah and the family, along with a group of representative animals, survive the flood that submerges the whole world. Gee’s apocalyptic flood appears to restrict itself to the satellite city allied to the empire of Hesperica (alluding to America). Even Gee’s fear of destruction, as quoted above, is restricted to London, not the whole world. It is also, not necessarily, the wrath of God. The flood in the novel is explained in terms of the movement of galaxies. It could be the result of the asteroids and comets shooting eccentrically through the space disturbing the balance in the galactic movement. It is not, therefore, apocalypse in the biblical sense of the word.
Though Gee has dealt with catastrophic end of the world in her fiction such as The Burning Book and The White Family and also in The Flood, it is not the end in the biblical sense of the word. All the Hespericans have landed in a beautiful garden above the flooded city. In the “After” section of the novel, all the people, along with the dead ones years ago, are reunited peacefully and happily, in the paradise-like world above the flooded city. This paradise-like place has a name-plate, Kew Gardens, London. The garden is associated with life, not with death or destruction. This theme of continuation of life is suggested in the fictional character of Herold, who has been preoccupied with writing a book for a number of years.
The Satirical Presentation of the City State
The real point of Gee’s novel is satirical presentation of the corrupt, war-mongering city state, whose high-middle-class population is self-seeking, pleasure-loving people, engaged in its own pretentious life, unmindful of life beyond its own boundaries. The war waged by Mr. Bliss, the President, is not at its door-step. This is a veiled reference to the American politics of sending soldiers to countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. The old people in the city are against this jingoistic politics of Mr. Bliss who “set hawks to reduce the pigeons.” The pigeons are obviously peace-loving people, opposed to the war-mongering politics of Mr. Bliss, the President.
The novel really begins at the end, that is after the floods have destroyed the city, and all the people have landed up on the green lawns, a beautiful garden, above the flooded city. The narrator talks to us from this vantage point to tell us what happened before. This world “Before” is really the point Gee wants to make. The city, in fact, is divided into two parts. There is the poor north-east section of the city, where there are refugee centres and people living in canvas tents. It is in this north-east part of the city that Father Bruno finds his followers for his One Way mission. But the rich people and the elite class of the society are unaffected by Bruno’s prophesies.
Mr. Bliss and the Politics of War
The city state is headed by the dictator-like Mr. Bliss, who appears to be obsessed by war. This reminds us of Orwell’s The Brave New World, or his Animal Farm in which the sheep go bleating at the behest of the pigs, “war is peace.” Hesperica is shown to be politically and culturally a dominant force. Mr. Bliss makes stereotypical statements in his speech saying, “History is in the making,” and his assistants clap and whistle to support him. His speech is full of stock phrases that the politicians use such as “having deep conviction,” “decisive moments,” and “necessary resolve.” This is a caricature of the political leader, who is engaged in the politics of war that is really not justifiable.
Satire on the Publishing Industry
The publishing company in the novel, titled significantly as “Headstone,” is a trenchant satire on the literary publication houses. It really became the “grave” of literature when the archive in the basement was flooded. The editorial director says, “It is a mistake to think that our job is about looking for genius.” The name, Headstone, satirically symbolizes the grave of literature, its demise.
Socio-Cultural Life and Class Divide
The socio-cultural life presented by Gee is the life of the elite city-dwellers. The narrator tells us of the contrast between the poor south and east of the city, where children come home to cold houses, and the life of the rich teenagers who could eat “mountains of ice-cold cheese cake, sample the juices, the smoothies, the thickies, plunder the chocolates, catch up with their e-mails.” In general, the protest politics in the fashionable world of the high-middle-class is shown to be rather shallow and perfunctory.
The social set-up of this metropolitan city shows all the ills of contemporary western society. There have been mixed marriages, colour prejudice, and the social set-up appears to be the replica of that in America.
The Gala Celebrations
The Gala Celebrations at the Tower is a massive event sponsored by the city’s government. The citizens of the city are oppressed by floods, erratic buses, and accidents, but on the eve of the Gala celebrations, everything changes. This is typical of all government agencies everywhere — they are interested more in creating a show and diverting attention from real problems.
Apocalypse with a Difference
Maggie Gee satirizes the western society for its racism, religious fundamentalism, imperial jingoistic politics, political oppression, the divide between the rich and the poor, the fear of terrorism. She also satirizes people’s wanton destruction of the environment and even the publishing business. The cause of the flood is suggested to be the happenings in the galaxy rather than the wrath of God. It is an apocalypse with a difference because there is no judgment, or it is withheld.
The author is the God presiding over this fictional world. And she is not the Biblical God judging and meting out punishments to humanity. She is a kindly forgiving God offering a blissful new world to humanity, making them forget their sins, uniting them with their loved ones. In one sense, Gee’s apocalypse is more about survival than total destruction. Gee’s The Flood, therefore, is “an apocalypse without an apocalypse” in the words of Derrida. The message of the novel “living on” is explicitly stated by Harold, who says, “In my book, I say that no one ever dies. Good moments, like this one, go on forever. It’s just that our bodies leave them behind. Our minds don’t have to.”
Works Cited
- Abrams, M.H. “Apocalypse: Theme and Variation.” C.S. Patrides and Joseph Wittreich, ed. The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature: Patterns, Antecedents, and Repercussions. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984. pp. 342-368.
- Gee, Maggie. The Flood. London: Saqi Books, 2004.
- Hoggard, Liz. “Damp if you do…” The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2004.
- Hickling, Alfred. “Water, water everywhere.” The Guardian, Saturday 28 February 2004.
- Dillon, Sarah. “Imagining Apocalypse: Maggie Gee’s The Flood.” Contemporary Literature, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Fall, 2007), pp. 374-397.
- Gow, Melanie. “Maggie Gee — The Book Swap Interview.” http://www.beatmagazine.co.uk/maggie-gee-the-book-swap-interview