Page 65 - James Rodger Fleming - Fixing the sky

different angles, are relevant to later chapters. Standard histories often privilege
the heroic genre. Warriors, statesmen, scientists, and lone inventors rise to face
the unknown or to meet unprecedented challenges. This is particularly true in
much of the history of science—but not in this book. The FIDo fog-clearing
story (chapter 4) is about as close to the heroic genre as it gets.
In the fictional accounts presented here, George Griffith’s Great Weather Syn-
dicate fits the heroic mold, with Arthur Arkwright ending up as a managed hero.
Less ruly are the heroic socialists who oppose the Air Trust. Tragedy dominates
The Wreck of the South Pole, The Evacuation of England, and the short story “The
Rain-Maker.” Mark Twain’s American Claimant is pure comedy, as is the geoen-
gineering Western The Eighth Wonder. So, too, are the stories of Jeremy the rain
bat in Jingling in the Wind and Porky the Rain-Maker, while N. Richard Nash’s
Rainmaker is a self-described romantic comedy. The Sky King episode is largely
unclassifiable, but on balance it is indeed an adventure-farce.
The tragicomedic hybrid genre is also prevalent in this literature, from the Bal-
timore Gun Club’s failed attempt to tip the Earth’s axis for profit in Jules Verne’s
The Purchase of the North Pole to PAX and his Lavender Ray in The Man Who
Rocked the Earth, and Kurt Vonnegut’s Felix Hoenikker and the practitioners of
the absurd human-centered philosophy of Bokononism in Cat’s Cradle. Even
Donald Duck, as “Master Rain Maker,” strikes out in anger and slinks away in
shame to avoid blame. There are ample opportunities in this type of analysis to
reward additional scholars with literary interests—if we can only break out of our
narrative ruts. There are no classical heroes here. It is the tragicomic—the voices
of Verne, Vonnegut, and even Donald Duck—that seems to come closest to the
actual tone of most of the checkered history of weather and climate control.

48 | StorieS of Control