what is thu he yells

talcan all my lif of thy grandfather and anglisc gods and thy great sweord what thu has nefer efen swung and talcan of our folc and ingengas and feohtan agan all from outside and now they is cuman thu is sittan here on thy arse talcan scit about barns

—The Wake, by Paul Kingsnorth

It’s funny—The Wake was written in 2013, and I started reading it in 2025, and what with one DOGE and another making me try to figure out how it could have been a Trump novel, it’s taken me this long to realize it’s a climate novel. Buccmaster of Holland, poastre and slacctyvyste.

I mean this is probably reductive, there are lots of awful collective action problems in the world right now and many of them are more similar to the Norman conquest than climate change is. But Kingsnorth’s background would put a thumb on the scale of climate as a theme.

Currently reading: The Wake, by Paul Kingsnorth.