The novel Weather by Jenny Offill, explores the very complicated idea of modern anxieties, climate change, and political uncertainty. primarily establishing  a tone that weaves humor with dread, this lays a foundation setting up a world where personal and global/environmental anxieties and uncertainties join together in a reflection of our lives in a time that feels like there’s an inconspicuous countdown. Lizzie, a librarian, is a rather keen observer of the world around her. Her life is filled with small yet significant details of the people she encounters and her daily routines. Offill uses sectional, flow of thought paragraphs that give a glimpse in to her mind, as it jumps from her brother’s struggles with addiction to her responsibility to care for Eli, and her marriage to Ben. This fragmented structure arguably reflects Lizzie’s fractured focus and the sense of unease that remains present in the novel.  Lizzie’s former mentor, Sylvia, runs a podcast focused on “doom” and the end of civilization, and Lizzie helps answer listeners’ emails, exposing her to people’s questions, fears, and anxieties. This work serves as nothing short of a factor of unease that channels very real fears about climate change and societal deconstruction directly into Lizzie’s mind, which furthers her sense of dread.These emails, filled with apocalyptic almost unhinged Rhetoric, are unsettling for Lizzie, who struggles with her own anxieties about the future. As the chapter progresses, Lizzie’s role in the podcast and the exposure to these questions make her come face to face with her own sense of responsibility toward a world that seems to just be becoming more and more unstable and unreliable. She wants to be able to have that care for whats arounds her but is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the issues she has become increasingly over aware of.

The choice in balancing heavy hitting themes with a sense of humor is an interesting one. Lizzie’s voice is drenched with irony, specifically when she’s faced with situations that highlight the craziness of modern anxieties. This, to me, is a take on how humor in the midst of chaos, is a common human experience and that people can laugh at their own fears and problems  even as they feel the weight of them despite how serious. For instance, when Lizzie mentions the strange emails she receives for Sylvia’s podcast, she notes how people tend to fixate on the bizarre aspects of impending collapse, what to stockpile, how to get ready for survival,  as if these actions might cushion  them from the atrocity of what they fear. This ‘dark’ humor is almost  a coping mechanism for Lizzie and a perspective on the ways people attempt to rationalize the irrational or deal with situations that feel fully beyond their control.  Lizzie humorous approach from the start paints her as an  extremely relatable character, she embodies an  everyday person of sorts caught between their personal issues and a world seemingly on the verge of disaster. Which is much like our world today, with the uncertainty of the future, questions on democracy and other related things.  Her inner monologue reveals a struggle that many people can recognize, the desire to care deeply for a world in crisis while managing the challenges of day to day life. The pressures Lizzie faces from her relationships to her brother’s struggles and her unpaid work for the doom-filled podcast, all make her a character who just feels as though she is obligated to carry the weight of the world and its issues even though her own life is under the threat of unraveling. Lizzie resonates because she doesn’t have the answers. She isnt an activist, she isn’t a genius, she isn’t a hero, instead, she is just a person. A person doing her best to cope with the very complex realities of life.