"Fracturing" is a natural gas extraction method in which the drill bit is first drilled vertically downwards, hit to a certain extent, and then opened horizontally, so that the liquid carrying the natural gas is extracted from the ground.
In the late decade of the first decade of the twenty-first century, shale gas technology emerged in the United States, which brought economic benefits while containing problems. The American journalist Eliza Grieswold wrote "The Bottom of Fracking" over the course of seven years, telling the story of an Appalachian family on the brink of collapse caused by environmental damage caused by shale gas exploitation, showing the eternal contradiction between energy development and environmental protection, and revealing the plight of the American people at the bottom of the country in the gap between capital and government.
The pulitzer prize, the highest honor in journalism, is an outstanding documentary work that critics call "a valuable and disturbing book."
At the beginning of this year, "The Bottom of Fracking" was introduced by the new classic culture. On February 18, historian Luo Xin, sociologist Yan Fei and Founder liu Suri of All Saints Book Park, three guests from different fields gathered at The Page One Wudaokou store in Beijing to interpret this Pulitzer Prize masterpiece.
"The Bottom of Fracking" new book sharing meeting site
Write about the vulnerable and listen to the voices of the few
The Appalachian region of the southern United States, one of the famous rust belts, was once popular in logging and coal mining in the early years. Despite its abundance of natural resources, the dividends of resource extraction have gone into the pockets of big business, so many have struggled with poverty and have long been discriminated against.
About a decade ago, fracturing technology set off a "gas boom" here, and a large amount of money poured into Appalachia. The book's protagonist, Stacey, is a single mother who works hard to raise two children. To get a better life, she leased the land to a gas company. Soon, a drilling site was built nearby. However, the good times did not last long, and the animals of Stacy's family began to die, and mysterious diseases began to afflict her children. She sought help from the gas company, but the company's representative insisted that everything was normal.
In desperation, Stacey began suing the gas company and the environmental protection department. Stacey hired lawyers, the Smiths, to investigate whether there was contamination in the water and air. The Smiths crawled through a multitude of documents, stripped away the cocoon, and finally found hidden evidence. Despite the objections of vested interests, Stacey and Smith stubbornly sued in court and exposed the destruction of the land on which they had lived for centuries.
In the process of struggling with the oil and gas industry, Stacey and her children not only lost their land, but also spent a lot of time in their lives. They are the kind of people who are forced to give their lives for America's energy cause.
The New Yorker is a veteran contributor to the book, which took seven years to write
The author of the book, Eliza Grieswold, is a journalist and poet. As a veteran contributor to The New Yorker, she cares deeply about the fate of the world's underprivileged people and has been stationed in impoverished areas of Asia and Africa, such as war-torn Afghanistan. She translated the collection of Afghan folk poetry, I Am the World's Beggar: Contemporary Afghan Short Snake Poems, which won PEN America's Poetry Translation Award.
This time, she shifted her focus to poor families above the Marcellus shale in the Appalachian region of the southern United States. To write the book, the author followed the case for seven years, consulting a large number of legal documents, historical documents, engineering documents, medical reports, academic papers; visiting every important person in the book and listening to their stories. The author's attitude is rigorous, the whole book is informative, the content is interlocked, and the beginning and end echoes, which is exemplary.
George Parker, author of The Age of Sinking, spoke highly of it: "Eliza Grieswold's The Bottom of Fracking exposes the terrible price people pay behind fracking mining, but it's much more than that. This is a morally complex and well-written story... It's about families, it's about the resources that we all use. It tries to tell us what binds a community to a country and then divides it. The author's dedication and keen compassion shine on every page. ”
Pulitzer's award-winning works were highly recommended by Luo Xin, Yan Fei and Liu Suri
"The Bottom of Fracking" attracted attention after publication, Amazon, Goodreads rave reviews, by the BBC, The New York Times, The Times, The Washington Post and other more than 20 media recommended, selected by GQ "50 Best Literary Journalism Books of the 21st Century", won the highest honor pulitzer non-fiction award in the press. The book has also been praised by many well-known writers in the field of non-fiction in the United States.
At the event, historian Luo Xin, Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology of Tsinghua University Yan Fei, and Founder of All Saints Book Park Liu Suri had a heated discussion. The three guests made a meticulous analysis of the puns in the title.
Historian Luo Xin
Historian Luo Xin paid special attention to the background of the author, Eliza Grieswold. Born into an Episcopal family, Griswold graduated from Princeton University and belongs to the true upper class in the United States. And it's unimaginable that she spent seven years and a great deal of energy writing about the underprivileged.
Luo Xin said of Griswold's people who have sacrificed for prosperity: "These people have paid a great price, because they pay this price so that we can easily charge our computers and charge our mobile phones. The cheapness of electricity in cities is largely related to the sacrifices made in these areas. Luo Xin said of the significance of the book's writing: "The author reports on a very small number of these people. Because even in the same mining area, the vast majority of people are even welcome to mining, they get benefits in mining, a lot of people get very generously paid, they are very happy. Only a few people were harmed. How to treat the few who are hurt is the most valuable thing about this book. ”
Yan Fei, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Tsinghua University
Yan Fei, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Tsinghua University, affirmed the book's documentary value: "In the author's seven-year-long record and writing process, the United States has undergone changes from the Obama era to the Trump era, which is really a microcosm of American society." ”
Yan Fei described the collapse of the American dream in the Trump era: "The crumbling infrastructure of the post-industrial era is the hallmark of our time, and the glory of that time has now become desolate, reflecting the collapse of the material world and the collapse of social order, and even Batman has no way to save these people who are sinking or the American dream is shattering." The protagonist of the story, Stacey, feels that with his kindness and unremitting efforts, he will be able to succeed in the end. She used to think she was different from her father's, but now Stacy, like her father, had no way to go up.
"After Trump took office, a group of people like Stacey who previously felt they could work hard to achieve the American Dream found themselves very far away from the American Dream, which led to a deep division in the United States. As described in this book, underneath the deeply divided American society, we can see that the ideals between people and people have also gone against the grain. ”
Liu Suri, founder of All Saints Book Park
Liu Suri, founder of All Saints Book Park, praised after reading the book: "This book is a very good book, better than the "Sinking Age". "He confessed that he had reached a calm age, but he was still deeply moved by the book." To tell the story of what happened, it is not earth-shattering. But it is such a story that makes us understand American society, like dissecting a sparrow. ”
In analysing the root causes of the tragedy, he pointed out that while condemning the oppression of capital, we should not forget the marginalization and persistent poverty of the towns of Harmony and Prosperity for two hundred years. The problems encountered by the two towns are not only happening in the United States, but also in all corners of the world. "The Bottom of Fracking is a very common story since the beginning of modernization. In the process of entering the modern era, between the prosperity brought about by development and the cost behind this prosperity, which should we choose? Although prosperity costs us part of the price, we will inevitably have to move towards this prosperity. ”
Guests and readers took a group photo at the event
Speaking about the main theme of the book, Liu Suri said: "The author's admiration is very close to the position of the protagonist of the book, Stacey, which is her presentation of the dilemma of development and cost - to modernize prosperity and affluence, or to live idyllically (most likely means poverty)? I think that's the key to understanding this book. ”
Nandu reporter Huang Qian