George Saunders on Writing About Climate Change, AI, and Empathy

The Novel 'Vigil' and Climate Change

• 💡 George Saunders' new novel, 'Vigil,' explores guilt through the lens of a dying oil executive haunted by a ghost from 1976.
• 🎯 Saunders chose to place climate change at the heart of the novel, seeing it as the most important issue for the world.
• 🔑 The novel delves into the mindset of those who deny climate change, questioning how much they know and when they knew it.
• ✍️ Saunders conducted research for the novel but put it away to avoid the book becoming a "book report," aiming for informed invention.

The Writer's Perspective on Empathy and Denial

• 🧠 Saunders believes fiction writers can inhabit any character by trusting their "internal person generator," rather than needing to interview subjects.
• 🎭 He views the writer-reader relationship as a playful "parlor game" where both parties agree to engage with invented scenarios.
• 🌍 While acknowledging Amitav Ghosh's critique of literature ignoring climate change, Saunders believes the literary world has improved but faces challenges in form.
• 🚫 He suggests that a novel about climate change might not explicitly feature the topic but rather explore related themes like denial mindset or corporate hegemony.

Challenges in Narrating Climate Change and Guilt

• ⏳ The gradual and disseminated nature of climate change makes it difficult to capture in a narrative compared to more immediate disasters.
• 🎭 Saunders likens writing a novel to designing a roller coaster, aiming to evoke an experience and make readers feel more alive, rather than to teach or preach.
• ❓ He grapples with the question of whether there's a limit to empathy, particularly when narrating the inner lives of individuals who have committed terrible acts.

AI, Literature, and Critical Thinking

• 📉 Saunders is skeptical of AI in writing, fearing it could lower standards and diminish human creativity and involvement.
• 💡 He believes that dedicated readers of dense, carefully crafted literature have a more profound influence than mass consumption of fleeting media.
• 🧠 The decline in reading complex texts is linked to a decrease in critical thinking and empathy, a significant problem in the current media landscape.
• 🗣️ Saunders advocates for embracing uncertainty and resisting the pressure to constantly opine, suggesting that a reserved stance can improve integrity and action.

Writing Exercises and Climate Storytelling

• ✍️ A fun writing exercise involves writing a 200-word story using only 50 unique words within 15 minutes, which can bypass anxieties and foster creativity.
• 🤝 Saunders emphasizes the importance of particularity in storytelling, grounding narratives in the cost to actual people.
• 🗣️ He notes that oil executives he's interviewed generally do not deny climate change, attributing this to the influence of shareholders and the need to understand reality for financial success.
• ❓ The exploration of denial involves understanding the phased approach people take as they move closer to admitting difficult truths.