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Paolo Giordano: Tasmania (Tasmania)

Publishing history

I must admit that one of the reasons I chose to read this book was because of the title, as I very much enjoyed visiting Tasmania a few years ago. However this book is not about Tasmania, being set mainly in Rome, Paris and one or two other non-Australian cities, though Tasmania does play a small role. Our hero/narrator is clearly based on the author though, in fact, he is only named once and that is well into the book. He is, of course, called Paolo. Also, later in the book, the narrator uses his initials – PG.

Paolo studied particle physics (like Giordano). He studied with his friend Giulio who is now based in Paris (though barely speaks French). Paolo, like Giordano, is a science journalists. He has various interests but two key ones are climate change and terrorism and we get a lot of discussion of both. You will learn a lot about both topics, particularly climate change, reading this book.

Both Paolo and Giulio have personal problems. Paolo is married to Lorenza, who is a few years older than him. She has a son from a previous marriage, Eugenio. However Paolo and Lorenza have been trying to have a child and have not succeeded, despite the usual medical interventions. This has, not surprisingly , put a certain amount of stress on their marriage. Giulio has a son, Adriano, but he is is divorced from the boy’s mother, Cobalt (her father was a chemist and named his children after chemical elements). Giulio’s relationship with Adriano is occasionally fraught but his relationship with Cobalt, who has remarried, is disastrous. They fight over custody of Adriano and Paolo is dragged into it, having to testify that Giulio is a good father, complicated by the fact Paolo lives in Rome and Giulio, Adriano and Cobalt live in Paris.

The book opens in Paris where Paolo is attending the United Nations conference on the climate emergency, not least to get away from Lorenza as they are not getting on. At that time, my own little personal catastrophe loomed much larger in my mind than did its planetary counterpart, the steady accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the retreating glaciers and rising sea levels. Not only do we have the conference, it is just after the terrorist attacks in Paris and Paris is in lockdown.This is the first but by no means the last terrorist attack he narrowly avoids/hears about and which leads him to discussion of the issue of terrorism. However on climate change, where he is reporting for an Italian newspaper, he can find nothing to say. The speeches and reports were bland, unoriginal and simply repeated what had been said many time before. That’s the hidden issue with the climate emergency: the atrocious boredom of it all.

Giulio introduces him to Jacopo Novelli,a well-respected Italian scientist based in Paris who is studying clouds and how they are changing because of climate change and how they indicate climate change. He interestingly opens his conversation with Paolo by saying Giulio tells me that you want to talk about the end of the world. Like everybody else these days, for that matter. Though, for starters, we should be clear that we’re not necessarily talking about the end of the world. Maybe more like the end of human civilization. He goes on to warn Paolo that though global warming and terrorism are a concern, there are many more threats: Drought, the poisoning of our water tables, pandemics . . . And then he said it! He said those exact words, right then and there! . . . the revolt of artificial intelligence. As well, of course, as other threats that seem to have gone out of fashion lately. Such as our good old friend nuclear winter. Giulio gives him a copy of Jared Diamond’s Collapse to put him in the picture.

It goes on. He and Giulio watch videos of beheadings. He gets into the issue of invasive species. However he wants to write a book and chooses as his subject the atom bomb, so we learn a lot about it, including the details of the two dropped on Japan. His descriptions of how the local Japanese reacted to the bombs is superb and it is interesting to learn that neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki were the original prime targets.

Terror attacks are continuing. It was really very sad as to what was going on throughout the world with terror. No, not his words but Donald Trump’s.

While both various friendships and marriages seem to be failing, we move onto another topical subject, namely sexism in academia. Novelli wants to come back to Italy and there is an opening in Genoa, his home town. In his view he is certain to get the job. It goes to a younger and less experienced woman. Novelli does not take it well, not at all well. Paolo gets somewhat caught up in the whole saga.

And Tasmania? Paolo asks Novelli where he would move for survival purposes. His response? Tasmania. It’s far enough south to escape any excessive temperatures. It has considerable freshwater reserves, it has a democratic government, and there are no predators of humans. It’s not too small, but it’s still an island, so it’s easier to defend. And believe me, people are going to have to defend themselves.

Much of this book is about how te world is going to hell with climate change, terrorism and a host of other horrors. Paolo’s father, himself a scientist, has a few more to throw in such as: the average length of the male member has shrunk by almost an inch in just the past sixty years.. (Don’t worry. I have checked,. It is not true.)

While following the horrors around us, we are following the lives of a few key characters, Paolo in particular, of course, but also a few others. They have marital and other family problems, problems in their careers, problems with friendships, which break up, all mirroring the greater problems facing the world. Interestingly, Paolo seems at his happiest when visiting Japan, the A-bomb sites in particular.

This really is an excellent novel, merging personal issues with worldwide issues. Do worldwide horrors affect us as individuals? I think the answer is definitely yes for many of us and while Giordano does not try to make a formal causal link between our mental wellbeing and world problems, it is clear that, for him, they go hand in hand.

First published in 2022 by Einaudi
First English translation in 2024 by Other Press
Translated by Antony Shugaar