Are We Bleeding Into the Future?

The beginning of Memory of Water is filled with many ambiguities. It is unclear what time in the future the novel takes place or how society came to be in its current condition. Noria, the protagonist also makes references to the past-world, but is not specific to how far back in the past she is talking about. There are references to the oil wars, but there is no mention to when or how it was caused. The novel doesn’t mention how tea ceremonies came to be or why it is so significant. Moreover, there is no mention of why women are not encouraged to become tea masters.

The only thing that is clear is that the dystopian world that Noria lives in is much different from the world that we live in. Water is an extremely scarce resource that is rationed by the government. Winter or any other cold weather is non-existent. There also seems to be a contrast in the technology that people use. I initially thought that Noria lived a simplistic way of life because of water rationing, the use of seagrass bowls, and plastic water skins. However, this futuristic society has access to progressive pieces of technology like message pods, solar panels and helicycles (the helicycles sound really cool by the way).

Noria clearly has a strong interest in the past-world. She and her friend Sanja spend their time scavenging through plastic graveyards in order to find relics of the past. Noria also wonders if the condition of the present world had anything to do with the people of the past. On page 26 she says, “Did the present-world, the world that is, ever bleed into theirs, the world that was? I imagine one of them standing  by the river…, and something that has not yet been is bleeding into her thoughts… I would like to think that she turns around and… does one thing differently that day because of what she has imagined… Yet I see another…, who turns away and doesn’t do anything differently…” This quote really stuck out to me because it is a reflection of the world we live in now. There are those who have made an effort to change their habits for the sake of the planet. But there are also those who still stick to their ways even if the world is crashing down around them.