Sun / Air

The sun beats down – and as it does, forests burn, whole swathes of land turn arid, and elsewhere the sea level rises and rivers burst their banks and cause huge floods. The sun laughs – and as it does, the air too rejoices that it will soon be able to breathe again at last, freed from all the filth it has been burdened with. For a long time, human beings thought they could rule the air just as they did earth, fire and water; they thought they could exploit the air indefinitely and at will. This was fatal hubris. Because now, with cheerful serenity and implacable force, nature is hitting back, taking revenge for what it has been subjected to ever since the dawn of humanity – although this description, by anthropomorphising nature, actually fails all over again. Because nature, as becomes clear, is the radical ‹Other›, the Unfamiliar, the Not-Understood.

Without even mentioning the phrase ‹climate change›, Elfriede Jelinek – first in a monologue written from the perspective of the sun, then in a polyphonic discourse about the air – tries to instill order in the elements, ‹if it’s the last thing I do›. Inevitably this attempt ends in chaos, and she finds herself literally at the limits of her language. This language ‹naturally› also demarcates the limits of our thinking, and is barely able to conceive of the potential end of the world – although it can conceive of the impending end of the ‹monsters in human form›.