The Water Knife

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This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by removing promotional content and inappropriate external links, and by adding encyclopedic content written from a neutral point of view. ( November 2023) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Where abstruse science and journalistic integrity struggles to find the simple clear messaging that will shift minds and attitudes, climate change fiction has more freedom to engage readers at the emotional level. As Bacigalupi observes, In chapter 13, Angel thinks about his first meeting with Lucy: “He’d known her. And she’d known him, too” (141). realizes. Why does Angel think that he and Lucy know each other even though they had never met previously? What does he believe they share in common? Would you say that he is correct? Why or why not?

The Water Knife is an noir-tinged, apocalyptic vision of the near-future: What will the world be like, and how will we live in it? Bacigalupi already seems to live there. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down.”—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble The film was nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and is Polanski's only Polish-language feature to date. Knife in the Water has garnered acclaim from film critics since its release, and is one of Polanski's best-reviewed works. American filmmaker Martin Scorsese recognized the film as one of the masterpieces of Polish cinema and in 2013 he selected it for screening alongside films such as Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds and Innocent Sorcerers in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema festival of Polish films. [9] Plot [ edit ] Bacigalupi plays on a grand scale, but he does so with a keen eye for detail, from the designer dust masks worn by the rich to the "construction printers" used on an industrial scale — like giant 3-D printers — for the building of SNWA's super-resorts. His big triumph, though, is never forgetting that The Water Knife is a thriller at its pounding heart. Even amid reams of deeply researched information about the economy, geology, history and politics of water rights and usage in the U.S., he keeps the plot taut and the dialogue slashing. Angel finds Julio at a safe house as he is torturing Lucy, trying to get information out of her as to the location of the senior water rights. Julio has been double-crossing Case and looking to sell the senior water rights on his own to the highest bidder. Angel is forced to kill Julio in a shootout, but not before Angel is shot and injured. Examine the treatment of the theme of allegiance within the story. How does allegiance seem to be defined within this novel? To what do the characters show allegiance? Do the characters remain steadfast in their allegiance or do their allegiances shift throughout? If they shift, what seems to motivate these changes?In chapter 16, Angel tells Lucy about a specific ritual of the tamarisk hunters. Why do you think that he chooses to share this story with Lucy? Why do the hunters share water when they meet each other at the Colorado? How does this ritual correspond to the relationship between the characters in The Water Knife? What do you think this reveals about the storyteller, Angel? Does the story seem to elicit the response that Angel was hoping for from Lucy? Bacigalupi recognises the difficulty of generating narratives about climate change that might appeal to the sceptical rather than preach to the choir. An intense thriller and a deeply insightful vision of the coming century, laid out in all its pain and glory. It’s a water knife indeed, right to the heart.”—Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Aurora

Angel enjoys the television show Undaunted. Why does he seem to like this particular show? Does his view of the show change after he discusses it with Lucy? Why or why not? What might this suggest about the influence of arts and media, and the way that we approach these forms of entertainment? Would you say that the television show is propaganda? Why or why not? Are any other forms of propaganda evident in the story? How can something be recognized as propaganda?

You’re always conscious of wanting to tell a good, ripping story, and I think that has to drive everything else. It dictates how much room you have at any given time to spend on explication. You have to serve your reader’s interest.” (Brown, 2015)

What is the Stanford prison experiment? According to Angel, what determines how people act? Lucy asks if people are “anything on their own, inherently” (283) and if they can be better than what they grew up with. How does Angel answer this question? Do you agree with him? What does the novel ultimately seem to suggest? Bacigalupi is aware of the difficulties traditional analytical reportage faces with the climate crisis, having observed of environmental news stories Angel Velasquez was born in Mexico and fled the country with his father after gang members murdered his mother and sister. After being released from prison by Catherine Case, Angel now works for her as her most trusted "water knife"; a hired henchman, assassin and spy who sneaks into the water boards of Nevada's rival states, California and Arizona, sabotaging and destroying their water supplies. A toothless Britney Spears, believe it or not, is the least chilling thing about The Water Knife — although "chilling" might be the wrong word for Bacigalupi's speculative vision of Arizona. Hit by "Big Daddy Drought," a perpetual catastrophe that has become the horrifying new normal, the Grand Canyon State is the new American dust bowl — or sand bowl, if you will — where refugees crowd the ghettos of suburban Phoenix and rapacious "coyotes" smuggle people not from Mexico to the U.S., as they do now, but from Arizona to California.

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Just can’t figure out how rich people always come out good, and poor people always get nothing” (p. 92) Esoteric stuff. Articles that are drier than desert, when you’re digging through travel schedules and cash transfers…Nobody reads stories about paperwork the way they look at pictures in the blood rags, right? (p. 168) Pfeiffer, Lee. "Knife in the Water". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 17 July 2021.