Living in Endtimes: Countersentimental Domesticity in the Age of Uncertainty

The clashing crises of today’s world are often lived in a state of impasse, trying to figure out how to respond and to adapt. The article argues that fiction can capture these contradictory affective atmospheres and to help the readers reflect on the crisis of the future. Specifically, the article will focus on domesticity, as a site in which acts of interpersonal care help readers not only imagine but also live with the end of the world. The article will use the theoretical apparatus built on the work of Lauren Berlant to read two novels that negotiate domesticity in the context of crisis ordinariness. Jenny Offill’s Weather (2020) builds a meditation on the climate crisis, Clare Pollard’s Delphi (2022) on the COVID-19 pandemic. In both cases, the novels allow the readers to experience stasis, but also the countersentimental interpersonal connection that makes the endtimes liveable.