Ticking Mind Teacher Notes
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© 2010
Things We Didn’t See Coming – Study Notes
Setting:
The novel begins on New Year’s Even, 1999. The protagonist’s father is paranoid about Y2K – the glitch in the internal date and time mechanism of computers that some predicted would result in chaos when the clock struck midnight. The protagonist’s father sees the Y2K bug as “symbolic, symbolic of a system that’s hopelessly short-­‐sighted.”
Chaos does strike in the novel. While it is never made clear whether Y2K was a contributing factor to apocalyptic events in the novel, Steven Amsterdam presents a future world where many of our fears of apocalyptic scenarios have come true: “This is an era of violence. Border clashes, the Mlu, the weather, and all the migrations they caused – none of it has fostered anything like camaraderie. Friends turning friends in, families dumping their sick…” Over the various sections of the novel we witness the following apocalyptic settings:
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Social and government apocalypse – it is clear that there has been riots, the government has changed, and people have been organized into different areas – urban and rural -­‐ separated by barricades. People need identity passes to move between barricades. The government records information on everyone’s identity.
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Environmental apocalypse – Water has dried up in many of the sections and vegetation has disappeared from some parts of the land. The air has become unclean. In chapter 3, there is too much water – it is constantly raining and everything is wet and rotting.
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Health apocalypse – A virus has spread in Chapter 4 which is responsible for killing many people. Otherwise in the other chapters the environment contributes to the poor health of people, leaving the protagonist, for example, riddled with cancer by the end of the novel. All of these apocalyptic scenarios are ones that our society has thought about and does fear. The protagonist’s father says in Chapter 1: “What we know now is that we didn’t think enough. We didn’t worry about the right things.” But we do worry about all the apocalyptic scenarios that are presented in the novel – but one question Steven Amsterdam is asking is with whether these concerns about the events are the “right things” to be worrying about. Because what is interesting about the setting is that Amsterdam never makes clear the exact nature of each apocalyptic scenario – what causes it, how it could have been prevented, where it Things We Didn’t See Coming – Study Notes1
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has spread around the world, how speciMically it has impacted on people. He never even makes clear what country the novel is set in. These details are deliberately left out in order not to distract us – in order to put our attention on the “now” and how the protagonist responds to each complication in each section of the novel and how this reaction tells us something about how we might collectively respond to whatever apocalypse could beset the world.
Narrative:
Chapter 1 – What we know now: In the opening chapter we are introduced to the protagonist, his mother Cate and his father Otis. It is New Year’s Eve and Otis is paranoid about the Y2K crisis. He has packed up the family car with survival items and is taking them out into the countryside to stay with Cate’s parents on their farm. It is clear that Cate is tired of Otis’ paraonoia: “If you’d just get something like a plan back into your life you wouldn’t be so paranoid and scattered, and things would work again.” Out at the farm, Otis goes into an adjacent forest alone. The protagonist follows him to a spot in the woods, saying, “this is probably the safest place in the world.” Together they see in the New Year. Chapter 2 – The theft that got me here:
This section takes us forward a number of years. A crisis in government and social organization has occurred – “the Mirst barricade, when the distribution stopped, and suddenly what was in the kitchen was all we had.” Society has been split into urban and rural with a barricade between. In the urban area food is very short. The protagonist is now in his late teens. He is living with his grandparents, helping his grandfather support his catatonic grandmother. He has been convicted of theft already. The complication in this chapter occurs when the protagonist’s grandmother wakes one morning as her “old self.” She wants to go out into the rural area for a day visit and they all do. Out in the rural area she directs the protagonist to steal food and a larger car for them, before telling him that she and his grandfather intend on spending the rest of their life in the rural area. The next day she wakes up catatonic again. During a break in the drive back to the city, the protagonist’s grandfather feeds both himself and the grandmother a cocktail of drugs that kills them. Chapter 3 – Dry land:
There is constant rain. The protagonist works for Land Management. His job is to make people evacuate from areas that will be Mlooded. His world view has become more cynical – “Some guys who come out on these gigs are full of compassion…but all I see is people being washed away by life and I think the respectful thing to do is treat them efMiciently”. Since people are desperate and afraid they often don’t want to move, and this job can be confrontational or just sad. In this chapter he comes across a drunken mother and her daughter living alone in a rotting house. The mother is initially hostile but he ends up sleeping with her and feels that he has successfully and peacefully persuaded her to move on. The next day he discovers she has stolen his gun. She shoots him and tells him to leave her and her daughter alone. Chapter 4 – Cakewalk:
This is the Mirst in a series of chapters that deal with the protagonist’s relationship with Margo. In this chapter we Mind out that the protagonist is 26 and that he and Margo are camping in the mountains. A deadly virus is infecting people in the area and Margo and the protagonist are trying to keep themselves isolated and uninfected. Margo routinely leaves the protagonist, going off hiking on her own for days. When she does this in this chapter, an infected person turns up to the protagonist’s camp. When Margo returns, she says she can take the protagonist to an abandoned camp site she has discovered which will be safer. When they get there, it is not abandoned at all.
Chapter 5 – Uses for vinegar:
The protagonist is 30. He and Margo have split up and the protagonist is working in a government crisis centre distributing cash grants to people to “start over.” Margo turns up queuing for a grant in his line at the start of the chapter. She is with Shane, the man she left the protagonist for. The protagonist rebuffs her, but Margo returns later telling him that she wants to leave Shane. She has a plan for she and the protagonist to falsify their identities so they can go away together. The protagonist agrees to the plan, but afterwards has a crisis of conMidence – not knowing whether Margo’s plan is to actually just use him and stay with Shane. In the end Margo keeps to her word.
Chapter 6 – The forest for the trees:
The protagonist is now 33. He and Margo are still together and living with Juliet, a rich politician. Margo and the protagonist are in a “union” a formal partnership recognized by the government. In order to have a union recognized, a couple sign a contract declaring “intent to proceed as responsible – though not necessarily monogamous – partners for 18 months.” A revision to the union contract now means that there can be a third party in a union. The protagonist would like to ensure he and Margo’s security by having Juliet enter into their union. He and Margo conspire to get Juliet to do this, but to think it is her own idea. However, Juliet has her own ideas. This chapter ends with Juliet giving Margo and the protagonist a ‘gift’ for their next union – she takes them into a forest in protective Mire gear and sets Mire to it.
Chapter 7 – Predisposed: The protagonist is now 36. He is living in a community compound where he is the security expert. His job is not only to keep the community secure, but to also be a role model and carer for Jeph – the sole teenager in the community. Jeph is precocious and irritates the protagonist. Jeph has also ran an “assay” on the protagonist – an illegal background check. The protagonist makes a deal with Jeph. In return for not revealing to the community elders that Jeph has broken Things We Didn’t See Coming – Study Notes3
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the law, Jeph will give the protagonist the money he needs to go to a medical clinic and Mix up his health conditions. As part of the deal, the protagonist will also take Jeph with him outside the compound (which they aren’t allowed to do without the permission of the elders) to the city for one day to do this. After they have visited the clinic in the city, Jeph begins to suggest that he may not want to return to the compound for a number of days or at all. The protagonist decides to literally bail from the situation, jumping out from the car they are traveling in to leave Jeph on his own. Chapter 8 – The proEit motive:
A new government is forming. They have invited the public to submit proposals “for a fundable project.” The protagonist is chosen to give further details about his project at an interview. The protagonist feels that this is an opportunity to turn a corner in his life – “I am broke as I have been in my life, but I decided when I came here that I’m too old for theft. This was my once chance to get back onto the good side of the ledger.” As it turns out, the interview is not an opportunity for him to talk about the further details of his proposal, but a test of his discretion, honesty and resourcefulness. At the end of the chapter the protagonist is still naïve. He still believes this position is about co-­‐ordinating a project. An ofMicial says to him: “You still don’t know what you’ve joined up for, do you?”
Chapter 9 – Best medicine:
The protagonist is now 40. He is running adventure tours for the terminally ill – something he feels is better than the job he secured at the end of the previous chapter – “a salaried embezzler for the state.” The protagonist is sick himself in this chapter – he is covered in cancers. He decides, as part of a tour, to take his tourists to visit his father as an authentic shaman. His return to his father is a return home. We Mind out in the chapter that “Sometime before the Barricades started, Dad bought ten acres in the mountains and started to build his outpost, with safe water, safe air and a monumentally secure garden.” The protagonist lived here for a while with his mother, but at the age of 15 decides to return to the city with his mother to “tough it out.” But on this return to his father, “I suddenly realize that it’s better here with him than anywhere I’ve been.”
Characters:
The protagonist:
In Chapter 7 Jeph has an assay run on the protagonist which gives us a psychological proMile of him: “Tendency towards risk-­‐taking/impatience/dishonesty when stressed; formative years yielded strong desire/ability to trust, make attachments…
optimism sub-­‐normal, conMlicts with strong survival instinct; isolationist; dysthymic tendencies expected to increase with age…”
Some of the assay’s analysis of the protagonist’s character has been revealed to us in the preceding 6 chapters. His survival instinct is certainly strong. “I’ve got to think defensively too,” he says in the Mirst chapter as he is inMluenced by the paranoia of his father. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 emphasize how the protagonist can put his own needs front and centre. His response to his grandparent’s death at the end of Chapter 2 is measured: “Here’s what I’ll do: Mirst, Mind a decent play to bury them…Then? I’ll keep going, as far as the money takes me.” In Chapter 3 he shows us that he’s not out to do anyone any favours: “The guys born out here want to build a big ark to save everyone, while I keep one clear eye on my escape route and the other eye on what I’ll need to grab before I go.”
The assay on the protagonist also tells us that his “formative years yielded strong desire/ability to trust.” This is a key motivator for the protagonist throughout the novel. The more uncertain the times, the more you need to trust someone. The most signiMicant relationship the protagonist has in the novel is with Margo, someone he desperately wants to trust: “I want to trust her completely…” The need for trust, in turn, is motivated by the need for security. Theft for the protagonist does not come from greed, but the need to be simply secure enough to survive – “Every now and then I enjoyed surviving, even if it meant being a thief.”
The assay further states that the protagonist’s optimism is “sub-­‐normal,” though it further states that this conMlicts with his survival instinct. Hopelessness is a symptom of dysthymia which is a form of depression – its other symptoms being lack of concentration, difMiculty making decisions, poor self esteem and irritability. While the protagonist can certainly be cynical in his approach to looking out for himself – “I’m only taking care of myself” – there never does seem to be anything hopeless about his world view, though his crisis of trust in Margo in Chapter 5, midway through the novel, is to an extent a crisis of hope. The assay’s tagging of the protagonist as “isolationist” can also be questioned. He is never alone in any of the chapters – he never wants to be alone. There is in fact a better nature to the protagonist which he wants to act on. The survival instinct can bring out the worst in people – desperate times makes us do desperate things. As the protagonist says about this apocalyptic era there were, “Friends turning friends in, families dumping their sick…” But the protagonist wants to be better than this. Certainly there is a strong sense that he does not admire manipulative people, such as Margo who “exploited” their union “to expand our world,” or Jeph who seeks to use the assay to “control” the protagonist, or Karuna whose charade in their interview makes him “furious.” When, in chapter 8, the protagonist submits a proposal for a funded project, it is because, “This was my one chance to get back onto the good side of the ledger.”
Margo:
Margo’s way of surviving this apocalyptic world is different to the protagonist. She is more likely to exploit situations. The protagonist recalls that earlier in her life she met a fellow thief, went on a crime spree with him and then turned him in Things We Didn’t See Coming – Study Notes5
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for the reward (“her past doesn’t make trusting her any easier,” says the protagonist in Chapter 4) She is also more likely to take risks, such as moving to the abandoned camp in Chapter 4, faking identity cards in Chapter 5 and propositioning Juliet in Chapter 6. Lastly she is less likely to be monogamous (she has affairs in both Chapters 5 & 6) and more likely to want to spend time alone – “I like quiet sometimes,” she says in Chapter 4, justifying why she spends days away on her own from the protagonist. Ultimately Margo is a “real survivor” – “a dozen times we would have died but Margo saved us. She knows all the nuts and berries. And how to Mind your way by the stars. And the value of everything.” She is completely self reliant, which means she survives alone. “She makes me feel safe,” the protagonist says in Chapter 4, “I like to think I make her feel that same, but I’m reconciled to the fact that she feels plenty safe on her own.” Themes:
Survival:
“This is an era of violence. Border clashes, the Mlu, the weather, and all the migrations they caused – none of it has fostered anything like camaraderie. Friends turning friends in, families dumping their sick…” The setting for Things We Didn’t See Coming creates a context where the survival instinct becomes imperative to daily life. Each chapter of the novel Minds the protagonist experiencing a different set of circumstances where himself and others around him try to cope in different ways from feeling hopeless, to exploiting the situation, to being loyal, thinking only of yourself through to Minding joy.
Security & Trust:
Security and trust are one of the primary motivators for the protagonist throughout the novel. The longest relationship he has with a character in the novel is with Margo, and this is because she is a “real survivor” and someone who makes him feel “safe.” The novel begins with the protagonist’s father Minding refuge from the New Year’s celebrations in a clearing in a forest. “This is probably the safest place in the world,” the protagonist remembers himself as saying. In the end he returns to this place – not physically – but in the emotional security he has in being with his father, the concluding paragraph of the novel echoing his words as a child in Chapter 1 that “I’ll take care of you when you get old”: “I suddenly realize that it’s better here with him than anywhere I’ve been. I could live like this. I want to tell him what I know now, that I’m going to stay and take care of him.”
Disconnection:
There is a tension in the novel between the need or instinct for isolation and the need for both the emotional nourishment and survival strength that comes with being with others. The protagonist’s father’s response to his fear of the apocalypse in Chapter 1 is to Mind refuge in an isolated part of the forest. Earlier in the chapter he has said that “the world is large and complicated, with too many parts relying on other parts and they all octopus out.” After the crisis, he “bought ten acres in the mountains and started to build his outpost, with safe water, safe air and a monumentally secure garden.” But needing to feel connected is important. Margo, as a character, represents a product of isolationism – she cannot form trusting relationships. In this “era of violence” there is no “camaraderie.” Characters like Margo survive by looking out only for themselves. This was the protagonist’s attitude at the start of the apocalypse when he says about the mother and daughter he meets in Chapter 3: “I wonder what it’s going to take to make them give up on each other, turn them into survivors. “ By the end of the novel though he has made a return and a re-­‐connection with his father. We do need others to survive.
Techniques:
Narrative structure:
There are nine chapters to this novel, each chapter leaps forward between 3-­‐5 years in the life of the narrator. In each chapter the protagonist is presented with a complication with surviving the apocalyptic events of this novel. There are clear links between some of the chapters. The Mirst and second both deal with the protagonist’s family. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 are all linked by Margo. Chapter 9 is a return to the protagonist’s father from Chapter 1, and there is a clear reference in the beginning of Chapter 9 to his contempt for the job he secured at the end of Chapter 8. Where these links are apparent, it emphasizes what has continually motivated or been of signiMicance to the character. However, there is also a feeling of disconnection between the chapters. While it is possible to piece together links between most of them, there are many things that are not made clear and this story can read sometimes like 9 individual vignettes in the life of the narrator. The unwillingness of the narrative to paint a linear story for us with full details of a central character’s journey helps the novel build its atmosphere of the disjointedness that came after the apocalyptic events and the everyday reality of survival. It also means that the reader’s focus is drawn to the individual complications that face the narrator in each chapter and how he responds to these complications regardless of what has come before.
The anonymous narrator:
The narrator is never named in Things We Didn’t See Coming. This marks a kind of detachment from the audience, an unwillingness to reveal everything about himself. Many things are deliberately left unclear in the novel. After all, the title of the book tells us that it is about what we don’t know. The narrator, his life, his experiences, his feelings and his motivations are never fully revealed to us.
Quotes:
He says this is a special new year and we’re taking special measures. P. 7
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I’m trying to Migure out why Dad packed all the kitchen knives. P. 7
He’s got that look that means I shouldn’t bother him…p. 8
Cate stares at him like she’s watching a dog digging a hole that’s way too deep. P. 8
…She’s counting on me to be the only sane person tonight…p. 8
Dad, talking like she’s not there, tells me that the world is large and complicated, with too many parts relying on other parts and they all octopus out. P. 9
If you’d just get something like a plan back into your life you wouldn’t be so paranoid and scattered, and things would work again. P. 10
I don’t want you to learn one thing from tonight. Not about how to conduct yourself during times of stress, not about how to respect other people, not about how to manage your own insane worries…p. 12
Nobody’s better off by themselves when they’re scared like he is. P. 16
I wonder if sometimes she prefers just being with them and not having Dad and me around. Maybe it’s simpler and reminds her of being little again. P. 17
People will Minally realize that they’ve been expecting too much from a fragile system. P. 19
I’ve got to think defensively too. P. 20
This whole thing is symbolic, symbolic of a system that’s hopelessly short-­‐
sighted, a system that twenty, thirty years ago couldn’t imagine a time when we might be starting a new century. P. 21
What we know now is that we didn’t think enough. We didn’t worry about the right things. P. 22
Clearly you’re resourceful. P. 26
…even a thug such as I wouldn’t do that. P. 27
I had grand and noble responsibilities to all but I still had to deal with pesky individuals. P. 32
They’d let us die of thirst inside the city, but they keep this tobacco so bright it practically hurts your eyes. P. 34
…they know its stolen. I’m the disappointment they’re stuck with. P. 37
I’m thinking that we’re all thinking about the Mirst barricade, when the distribution stopped, and suddenly what was in the kitchen was all we had. P. 37
I wish I was a more aggressive thief, but I’m only an opportunistic one…p. 38
But you’re not Christian. P. 41
I can talk the talk if I need to. Look: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. P. 41
This chicklet turns out to be extra righteous about the pioneering spirit…p. 42
Here’s what I’ll do: Mirst, Mind a decent play to bury them…Then? I’ll keep going, as far as the money takes me. P. 44
Some guys who come out on these gigs are full of compassion…but all I see is people being washed away by life and I think the respectful thing to do is treat them efMiciently…p. 47
Most of the people out here were respectful churchgoers at one time….p. 50
Always made it seem that the weather and people and all of us were more connected. It’s the silence…that seems much meaner to me. P. 52
The guys born out here want to build a big ark to save everyone, while I keep one clear eye on my escape route and the other eye on what I’ll need to grab before I go. P. 53
She doesn’t seem to get that I’m her only choice. P. 53
It isn’t often that it has happened we’ve each been so bent on survival that we both walked away empty-­‐handed. P. 53
She’s exactly the kind of romantic that’s got no instinct to make it. P. 54
It’s not a heartless plan; it saves one of them…p. 56
Jenna looks down at her mother the way a ship looks down at its anchor. P. 57
I don’t over emphasize the truth. P. 59
There have been a lot of times with this job when I’ve seen people holding onto things that didn’t make sense…p. 59
…when push comes to shove most people Migure out how to travel light. P. 60
I wonder what it’s going to take to make them give up on each other, turn them into survivors. P. 63
She says it’s because I don’t like confrontations. P. 69
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…it switches something off in me…p. 75
Just listening to him tell me what I was going to steal felt like a deal with Satan. P. 78
It’s all about now…p. 79
There’s no need to wait for any more signs to be my best self, no need for there to be a bargain…p. 79
But its mattered every time and I need to know the details. If we’re going forward, I’ve got to know who she is…p. 80
I want to trust her completely…p. 80
If you lose everything once, running becomes part of you and you’re always looking back. P. 91
I’m scared. I’m scared. P. 92
I only ever signed up for the money. P. 95
There has to be a reason for this to be happening…p. 97
Still, it feels like we are always on our best behaviour…we’re better intentioned – when it will be noticed. P. 107
What I’m getting at is that every relationship is casual for Juliet. P. 108
Our eager laughs might let up, and we could settle in and feel secure for a little while. P. 108
You think you’re worrying about the right thing and the you’re sideswiped. P. 109
Simple security. Wouldn’t it be nice to know where we’re going to be next year? P. 110
I opted for it to protect – I thought – my heart, but Margo exploited it to expand our world. P. 112
He thinks he’s dreamt it all up and we’re going through the steps, but he’s going to get the biggest surprise…p. 118
I no longer want anything at all. P. 120
Do you ever wonder if your whole safety trip isn’t more manifestation of a brain condition than a meaningful skill? P. 125
So you accept that we’re just here, just helpless? P. 126
Tendency towards risk-­‐taking/impatience/dishonesty when stressed; formative years yielded strong desire/ability to trust, make attachments…optimism sub-­‐
normal, conMlicts with strong survival instinct; isolationist; dysthymic tendencies expected to increase with age…p. 129
If I need to leave, I’m actually limited by certain factors…p. 132
The truth comes out anyway. P. 132
He did it for control and it worked. P. 134
I’ve forgotten how to cope. P. 139
This is an era of violence…none of it fostered anything like camaraderie. P. 142. It was an apocalyptic choice. I’m not so morally resurrected that I mean it was a choice with apocalyptic consequences; I mean it was a good choice for the apocalypse. P. 145
I’m sure whatever you got up to…would qualify you as…resourceful? P. 146
All I want is an hour alone in that storeroom…and I’d be set. P. 148
All our live are big dark disasters. P. 149
Every now and then I enjoyed surviving, even if it meant being a thief. P. 152
I am broke as I have been in my life, but I decided when I came here that I’m too old for theft. This was my one chance to get back onto the good side of the ledger. P. 154
I’m only taking care of myself. P. 155
Compassion wins. P. 158
You still don’t know what you’ve joined up for, do you? P. 159
I enjoy working with this segment, a hell of a lot more that being a salaried embezzler for the state. P. 162. Sometime before the Barricades started, Dad bought ten acres in the mountains and started to build his outpost, with safe water, safe air and a monumentally secure garden. P. 166
All I know is I’m looking up into this green that’s looking back at me, this green that I’ve heard about my whole life because I have it too. P. 173
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I suddenly realize that it’s better here with him than anywhere I’ve been. P. 174