Booker and ‘The End of Everything’: When the world unravels but refuses to say why

In 1925, T S Eliot penned a line that would become an enduring metaphor for the world's end: "Not with a bang but a whimper." Over a century later, British author M John Harrison took that idea and reimagined it in his Booker Prize-winning novel, "The End of Everything." The novel is celebrated for its "shimmering and oblique" qualities, and it marks a historic moment as Harrison, at 81 years old, becomes the oldest and first science-fiction writer to win the prestigious award.

Harrison, who has long resisted categorizing his work, has played a significant role in shaping what is now known as the New Weird genre. This speculative writing style embraces ambiguity, estrangement, and the unstable nature of reality. "The End of Everything" is set in a near future under the shadow of an inexplicable catastrophe. The story unfolds in a world inhabited by enigmatic, shape-shifting entities known as the iGhetti.

Harrison deviates from traditional dystopian conventions, opting instead for mordant humor and an unsettling sense of ordinariness. This approach allows the reader to experience the unraveling of the world in an intimate, almost domestic way, making it feel like both an end and not quite an end. At the award ceremony, Harrison's acceptance speech reflected a different kind of weirdness: "I really didn’t expect to be up here this evening.

You talk glibly about your life being changed, but it’s weird when it happens. I feel like a proper writer at last, totally lacking in confidence."