In August 2016, a park ranger stumbled upon 323 dead wild tundra reindeer in Norway’s remote Hardangervidda plateau. They had been killed in a freak lightning event. But instead of removing the carcasses, the park decided to leave them where they were, allowing nature to take its course – and scientists to study this island of decomposition and how it might change the arctic tundra ecosystem.
Over the years scientists observed the bloated, fly-infested bodies turn into dry skeletons. The latest paper, published by the Royal Society in June, looked at the creation of a “landscape of fear”, as top predators such as wolverines, golden eagles and arctic foxes took advantage of the carrion.
“The landscape of fear framework has provided a better understanding of animal decisions in relation to food and safety trade-offs, predator–prey relationships and how communities are structured across trophic levels,” it concluded.
I lost my sense of smell for maybe five or six days in May. Ostensibly, it was a symptom of contracting COVID-19, though I wasn’t tested, as I wasn’t terribly sick beyond a fever and fatigue. This total blackout of smell was unlike anything I’d ever experienced; it took only twelve hours to set in. I confirmed it by running my fingers through the herbs I have growing in small pots, then lifting my hands to my face and smelling. I do this fairly often, proud I can keep these aromatics alive in the grimy circumstances of a Brooklyn windowsill. When I did so, I realized I couldn’t smell a single herb—not my lemon thyme, oregano, not the sage nor dill, usually so distinct and sweet. The moment cut me. I thought: to live without being able to smell things that grow?
A day later, I underlined the loss by opening a bottle of Skerlj’s Malvasia. It’s a favorite wine of mine from Friuli, usually tropical, splashy, and brusque with acidity. I couldn’t sense any of the big florals, citrus, and saline aromas I have more or less memorized on this wine. It was disorienting. I didn’t drink more than an ounce, as the fruit on the palate also flattened entirely. I found myself thinking for days about what it would be like if this were permanent loss, if herbs or coffee disappeared from my life—if wine did.
Charlie Kaufman's Antkind is a novel only Charlie Kaufman could have written. I'm aware of how vague that sentence is, but I assure you it fits the novel perfectly. Antkind is strange, disjointed, and obsessive. It's also a wildly imaginative narrative in which Kaufman mentions himself several times, discusses his own work, and claims no one has made a "real" movie about New York. You could call it a brilliant piece of metafiction or a marvel of postmodern storytelling and you'd be right — but you could also call it bloated or a flashy, eloquent mess and you'd also be right. Ah, subjectivity.
If art can’t reclaim maimed pasts, erase pointless ones, or promise better futures, a writer who keeps us listening to her alienated female narrators, intrigued by their fates, has managed a feat.
Romalyn Ante is a nurse who came to the UK from the Philippines when she was 16 and is now based in Wolverhampton. This collection, her captivating debut, gives insight into her life: the everyday labour of working for the NHS – with its emergencies – offset by memories of the country she misses (the antiemetic of the title being a drug used to treat sickness and nausea). The opening poem, Half-Empty, begins with a quotation from Prince Philip: “The Philippines must be half empty - you’re all here running the NHS.”
His remark, balanced between compliment and insult, throws down a gauntlet (or a hospital glove). Ante is more playful than angry but in this moving, witty and agile book, there is more than one full-hearted poem of prince-shaming potential.
Where should we find consolation,
dwelling in the north? Amid the stunted
desperate plant life clinging