Convictions

Convictions Bryan Shawn Wang (bio) I've always had trouble picking favorites, or even just deciding between the lesser of two evils. A middle child, I instinctively try to make peace, find a third way rather than choose sides. can obscure issue with academic language pretend scientist's discomfort claims certainty. The data do not appear, at this time, wholly refute hypothesis; further study is likely warranted. tell myself there's virtue in discerning shades gray, grace recognizing saint and sinner each us. And yet think Monty Python's telling Arthur's quest for Holy Grail, king his knights crossing Bridge Death, bridge keeper asking Sir Galahad simple question: "What your favourite colour?" To which replies, "Red. No, yellow!"—and cast into Gorge Eternal Peril.1 For weakness convictions, perhaps. laugh because it's funny, also unsettlingly true. me, as reader, my favorite novel seems unlike writers choosing favorites among their works. (When asked about it, often seem respond that parent child.) Nevertheless, if on pain death, end earthly existence we know must, nominate last read: Lydia Millet's Children's Bible2—not only its literary artistic merits (though claiming authority judge such things unsettles me), but believe right story time. When was released May 2020, after COVID-19 first interrupted business usual, unaware it. At starved fiction (also optimism, pleasure, hope) frantically tried learn how teach students through squares screens, incorporate new virus lesson plans while avoiding it life, gradually apprehending implications disease surreal state we'd entered. preoccupied, so ignored, first, those voices declared pandemic an opportunity, enjoining us waste good crisis, seemingly tone-deaf cries called coupling environmental action our response public health emergency. They argued COVID exposed deeper structural vulnerabilities stemming from globalization; razing habitats [End Page 156] across every continent; blind rejection science, any all expertise authority, basic fact; failure imagine better lives, lives lived ourselves. Eventually, began realize there sense what they were saying. consider bats, civets, pangolins victims vehicles. came appreciate links poverty overpopulation, obesity McMansions, planet being robbed ravaged. see that, moral arc universe continued bend toward justice,3 punishment would be meted upon read Bible winter, nine months pandemic, found seemed clever humorous tender soon turned terrifying heartbreaking, climate change narrative both absurd hyper-realistic, proclaiming could no longer deny. Families gather summer vacation lakeside mansion, series superstorms hits region, languor leisure give disruption gives dystopia. Reading like reading parable, tale truths complex, wickedly so,4 axioms constructing irrefutable argument, pieces assembled mosaic depicting shared, desperate future. present-day, decidedly non-fictional viral outbreak (yes, glances pestilence, too) has produced anguish suffering duration degree hadn't witnessed before near half-century earth, plague our...