READING HUMAN-NATURE RELATIONSHIPS IN TIM LEBBON`S COLDBROOK
READING HUMAN-NATURE RELATIONSHIPS IN TIM LEBBON`S COLDBROOK

Summary/Abstract: The British dark fantasy writer, Tim Lebbon, fleshes out human and non-human relationships and the challenges of the Anthropocene in his fictions. Even though his novels have been looked at from various perspectives, Coldbrook (2012) has been generally understudied. Deploying Donna J. Haraway’s conceptualization of the Anthropocene and Terrapolis, we look at human-nature relations on Earth and the alternate world of Gaia in the novel. We argue that the human-nature association on Earth is informed by the conflict between scientists and priests, which has resulted in the destruction of Earth in Coldbrook. However, the human-nature relationship on Gaia embodies a Terrapolis, where life prevails and binaristic constructions become meaningless. The study’s findings suggest that characters’ responses to the differences and mysteries they meet in Gaia is based on an outlook to life in which otherness is not recognized. Rather, it is deciphered based on a manmade hierarchical classificatory paradigm. However, in the Terrapolis world of Gaia, such hierarchal thinking shatters in a receptive outlook that embraces multispecies flourishing, harmonious beauty of nature, and mysterious differences. Gaia is represented as the only hope for a harmonious relationship between humans and nature where humans can find a refuge.

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