The Nerves and Their Endings

by Jessica Gaitán Johannesson

The body as a measuring tool for planetary harm. A nervous system under increasing stress.

In this urgent collection that moves from the personal to the political and back again, writer, activist, and migrant Jessica Gaitán Johannesson explores how we respond to crises.

She draws parallels between an eating disorder and environmental neurosis, examines the perils of an activist movement built on non-parenthood, dissects the privilege of how we talk about hope, and more.

The synapses that spark between these essays connect essential narratives of response and responsibility, community and choice, belonging and bodies. They carry vital signals.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Feminism, Philosophy, Short Stories, Environment

192 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2022

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Nerves and Their Endings: essays on crisis and response is a powerful and original collection. I decided to read it because the idea of drawing parallels between an eating disorder and fear of climate change intrigued me. The essays cover a great deal more ground, although climate change is a thread running through them all. Colonialism, feminism, activism, nationalism, and mental illness are all examined with nuance. I really liked Johannesson's measured and thoughtful writing style. A lot has been said about climate change, obviously, yet I found her writing distinctive and refreshing. While the essays draw heavily on her own experiences, she uses her life to make wider points rather than writing in a purely autobiographical register. 'Out of the tunnel', which considers the airline industry at a time of climate breakdown, makes perceptive points regarding identity:

Do we simply do this, when we are afraid? And many of us are so very afraid. Does our field of vision, and feeling, immediately shrink until we have only attention for the danger with our name on it? Until we can only interpret the scenario through a narrow lens?

In a moment of crisis, such a theory of human behaviour lies close to hand. It becomes easy to think of it as simply what happens to us, to revert to finite definitions of 'human nature'. What is then ignored is the vested interest present in this version of what humans are. Someone stands to gain from you identifying with your job only, and not with the rest of your humanity, which may challenge the very premise of that job. Courting single-identity lives, striving for inclusion in single tribes, benefits capitalism because a limited self is easy to control in the service of unlimited growth and accumulation of power. As the pandemic is making abundantly clear, it's an immense privilege to be able to take that crucial breath, to have the time and a moment's peace, the access to enough stories, to take thorough stock. When it comes to big life choices, few people get that chance, they are too busy surviving. This plays into the hands of the few, the powerful, and those who'd want us afraid. It's easier to crush a single issue movement than a movement of endlessly entangled threads, as multifaceted as we are ourselves.

I also found Johannesson's fear of flying in that essay very relatable. Like her, I enjoyed it before I understood the environmental consequences. Now it scares me. Another particularly strong essay conducts an autopsy on the Birth Strike movement, which was concerned with the decision not to have children. I vaguely remember seeing something about it in the media a few years back. Johannesson's analysis of the challenges and contradictions within such an ostensibly single-issue organisation develops the point made in the quote above. She also examines her own ambivalence about deciding to not to have children and to start a public conversation about it:

Birth Strike was a way of siding with other life forms. All of these people claimed the space as their own, but they were never in it on their own. I never intended to be part of this argument, but my, or anyone else's, intention was only ever one part of it - one side of a meeting place. The mistake, really, Blythe thinks, was imagining we could control how a story is received, and it's a humbling thing to learn. "It's naive," she says, "to think that you can chuck your voice into a melting pot and expect it to be echoed back at you," to assume you can control other people's responses.

There is a lot to consider in this essay; I found myself agreeing with several contradictory perspectives to some extent. I've never had to go through the soul-searching that Johannesson recounts as, conveniently from an environmental perspective, I've never wanted to have children. To my mind, the highlight of the book is the final essay, 'On whether or not to throw in whose towel: a personal encyclopaedia of hope':

Hope as an Assumption: It's not that I have no idea what people mean by it anymore. It's more that everyone seems to mean something different. Sometimes, they mean different things at different times. The effect on its surroundings, every time the word is used, varies. It falls on variously shaped ears and with varying intentions, yet the word 'hope' is accepted, thrown about, as if it was one, consolidated notion. It's not that I've lost it, but that the word appears to have fallen into a vat of boiling water, lost its skin. It's so utterly everywhere, that it is nowhere to be found.

A familiar sentiment, yet one not often described. Contrast this with:

Hope is What Hope Does: Eco-philosopher Joanna Macy differentiates between active hope and passive hope. Passive hope, she argues, depends upon 'external agencies', whereas active hope 'is about becoming active participants in bringing about what we hope for'. I am drawn to this, not only because it acknowledges that hope is a hydra with many heads, but because it points to how hope does things. As well as what you're hoping for, and what that hope feels like, there is also the effect that our narratives of hope have on others, and the responsibility this brings with it. When a middle-class person in Scotland says that there is no hope with regards to the climate crisis, what does that do? When someone with the means to retreat to higher ground gives up, instead of continuing to work for change, what power is being withdrawn and who is being abandoned?

This specific point encouraged me to reflect again upon the endings of climate change novels. The most recent one I read, The High House, is excellent yet essentially abandons hope even for wealthy, temperate Britain. The questions Johannesson asks about hope have a lot of relevance to recent fiction and non-fiction on climate change, as well as to daily life. A third, particularly powerful facet of hope:

Hope as Specificity: With this in mind, whenever I am tempted to say that it's too late to respond, I force myself to be specific. Don't be lazy, I think. If you're going to give up, then at least tell me what you're giving up on. Too late for what? Is it too late to save millions of lives by halting fossil-fuel extraction now and averting the very worst effects of global heating? Is it too late to open our borders to people needing new homes, and taking responsibility for our countries' part in setting off destruction? Is it too late for land reforms? Local food security? Or do I mean that it's too late for me, personally, rather than someone else? Am I OK with that?

Specificity challenges easy answers and asks of me to step up. Staying in the space between denial and nihilism, to have that kind of hope, demands courage, because both extremes are easy, and neither hold the uncertainty of survival, of life.

This book was my first exposure to Johannesson's writing and I was impressed. I'll seek out her work in future and intend to watch this video of her recent Book Fringe event next.

[Katrina Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this hard work to read but utterly brilliant. She discusses and lays bare so many topics of importance and personal interest. I can't remember the last time I looked up so often from a book to think about it.

- A window into environmental activism, the uncertain and changeful fear for the environment.
- -Personal exploration of belonging and connection to the places where Jessica was born, lived and has family.
-Got to mention the moose migration cult following.
-The nature of hope. Ownership and acceptance of living in a woman's body.
-The guilt of privilege (and choice).
-The racism and historical colonialism that fuels environmental collapse/change.

[Zeynep İnan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could grab a coffee and chat with Jessica. Very human, very intimate experience and a very beautiful book. I underlined and bookmarked so many pages to return to again.

[Olenka Pankevych · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book would be best described as a "trail of intellectual struggles of one person" (well, one person and some of the other "characters" of her life - her mother, partner, friend, and a few co-activists). Neither the book itself, nor the chapters in it have a definitive ending, since this reads like (and probably actually is) just a few snippets into the huge mental gymnastics going on in the author's mind for the past many years.

Despite the climate collapse being the central crisis of this novel (and, well, it is something troubling my mind too), many of the ideas resonated with the experience of another crisis (namely, a war). As a reader, I got to unpack so many things about my experiences, the things I know and believe in. I think the author did a great job portraying the "difficult" thoughts and topics: choosing (or not) to have children in the face of a decaying climate, defining hope for oneself, witnessing the physical illness of a loved one, being an activist for a sometimes misunderstood cause... And it is quite soothing to envision a very considerate individual behind these pages, one that really tries to get to the bottom of things, to be aware of her own privileges, to empathise with others.

*I also highly recommend keeping a notepad nearby at all times while reading this book, since there are so many great references to scholarly and creative works of other fascinating people - many of them do deserve a follow-up Google search!

[Jemima Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

cried, became a member of the green party, will be returning to this with my pencil soon !!

[Alex George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cool! Really vibed with some of the essays here, particularly the ones about dual-nationality in the face of the climate crisis. Maybe I'm just a fiend for Colombia content.

Didnt always fuck with the writing style. I feel like I'm seeing this somewhat quirky millennial tone more n more and, like hyperpop, it's starting to get a little old.

Decent collection tho! Accessible! Current! Good moments of vulnerability. Some really original angles being explored here.

[Aram Diao · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first came across this book in Scotland, when visiting the most inspiring bookshop I've ever step foot in, "The Lighthouse". I spoke to the book keeper, a lovely person, that even at closure time, advised me and spent time choosing books for me. My request was that in this very difficult time for the world, I needed books that took social and environmental issues seriously, without loosing hope for resistance.

I received some of the best recommendations, and this collection of essays was one of them, Jessica being a friend and collaborator of The Lighthouse.

It took me a while to read this book. Every essay discussed a different topic, and for every topic I had to take time to reflect, research and sit in discomfort or with my emotions.

I don't believe it's a style of writing for everyone, but if you're an immigrant that cares for the environment, this book is definitely for you. Jessica writes in a very relatable, empathetic and self-questioning way. She discusses topics with such respect and from a point of you that, as personal as it is, can touch many.

I really recommend this, especially if you're searching for hope, within or outside of yourself.

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful and methodical series of essays discussing climate change and how it's ravaged--and is currently ravaging--the world and our persona llives. Johannesson is clearly a talented writer, down to the word choice. Perhaps it is this, or perhaps it's her passion, that makes this book so poignant. In discussing climate change as climate change, as a personal issue, as a racial issue, as systemic, as everything and everyone all at once, her book is simultaneously a plea and a call to action.

[Isadora · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could relate so much to Jessica’s writing. So deep, political, complex, poetic, instigating, hopeful. Certainly a great new reference and inspiration to my (creative) writings and studies on climate justice.

[kt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I found this collection of essays to be quite moving and well written, but the one that really stood out was ‘birth strike’. I cried in the bath on the phone talking about this chapter afterwords for a while. I wasn’t expecting to be so affected by Johannesson’s decision not to have children due to the climate crisis (and interrelated issues), but it made me consider so many new factors and emotions, especially as someone who doesn’t really want children. It was like being punched in the face by how climate change and late capitalism affects our bodily autonomy. That chapter bumped this read from 3 to 4 stars

[briella · Rating 4 out of 5]

somebody talk to me about synaptic clefts, and this book.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and thought provoking. A very present book.

[Roxerg · Rating 4 out of 5]

ironically, I picked this up to escape a book about climate change as it was bumming me out too much. It felt like a gentler easing into the topic.

I feel the author succeeded in connecting the "nerves" between the personal and the global. Often these instances were not directly tied to climate, and did feel like tangents, but by no means were they unwelcome.

The author tapped into familiar climate anxiety, the panic that envelops you when you comprehend with your soul the implications of rising temperatures and collapsing ecosystems. There weren't really solutions presented for it, but it was nice to just meditate over these feelings. One tragically funny example of this being written about:

"The same week, I snap at a co-worker for using the phrase 'in mode mundane matters' when I mention the hell that is materialising, because how could anything be more of the world than the end of it? She is referring to restocking Sellotape. We're in dire need of it in the office"

Similarly how the nation of Sweden was weirdly mesmerized by the Elk migration livestream, I was weirdly captivated by the chapters covering people watching the said channel during the COVID lockdown.

Another incredible part of the book was about migration, home, and belonging. This is where the interconnected nerves of the world were most apparent. The chapters naturally moved from the personal topics of belonging and the size of the world shrinking through travel (I especially enjoyed the idea of non-places, and the counterarugment against it), to immigration policy, racism, imperialism.

(Talking about the Home Office) "The Name itself seems to say: if you belong here, you will be safe. We are the ones who decide if you do."

Seemingly, I appreciated the parts that did not outright mention the climate catastrophe the most. It might be my reason for picking up the book had a role to play in this.


"What grief isn't personal, anyway? It all happens in the same brain."

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The optician gave me a look / as if to say, what do you know about the nerves?” Jessica Gaitán Johannesson’s essay collection The Nerves and Their Endings: Essays on Crisis and Response, comprised of nine essays and several poems interspersed amongst them, is a wide-ranging exploration of the climate crisis, intersecting with a variety of personal matters, all in service of considering the way we feel and respond to extremity on levels both micro and macro. The opening essay, ‘‘What Have I Done?’ and Other Illusions of Control’, explores a relation between climate crises and eating disorders via “toxic systems”; “how difficult it is to inhabit yourself fully and to accept your reach in space”; and how it “amounts to howls into cramped spaces. The climate crisis has moved inside, and with it the blame. Out of all directions we could be moving in, this is not the most useful.” There are essays on travel vs place; naturalisation into Britishness, (heart) transplants, contentment; (“What does it take to be accepted as whole?”; “a rejection of nation as geography”); climate change in Colombia; birth strikes. Then there’s ‘Mixed Signals: Five Moments of Un-Belonging’, effective in its maddening unfolding, and ‘Out of the Tunnel’, on aviation and what is “humanly possible”, and a powerful, formally creative final essay on hope. I enjoyed her deployment of bodily metaphors to understand ecology, and vice versa, and I value her rejecting the notion of equal complicity in climate change: “by remaining unspecific when it comes to agency, ‘we’ erases the power, the hidden slow violence, that was always at the root of the crisis.”

[Jenny O’Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those books which I will never have the right words to explain how much I enjoyed it and how significant I found it. 5/5

I am such a massive fan of her style of writing, it reminded me so much of Chris Kraus, both in style and narration. Whether that is an appropriate comparison I am not qualified to say.

The book is written in such a perfectly concise manner, that makes it so easy to simply consume, if I had the time I could’ve read this in a day. I really enjoyed the balance of humour woven in, even in serious scenarios e.g. “‘I want to know what you mixed with me would look like,’ I say. ‘We could just use face-merge software.’”

There is a level of comfort in this book, comfort that someone else is worried about these things and equally has incredibly irrational thoughts related to them. I’ve realised finding solace and comfort in authors is so important to me when I am reading work and if I feel too disconnected I can’t let myself get absorbed into the work as much as I would want to. I am so unbelievably glad I read this.

‘my wanting for others, between sexual and platonic, regardless of gender, is another way in which I have always been in-between.’

‘It could be that simple, that a part of me is homesick. I don’t think it is that simple, or that homesickness ever is.’

‘I love you for what you love, not where you began.’

‘In reality, inequality informs who gets a choice over their own body; patriarchy, racism, and heteronormativity inform that inequality.’

‘bridging the gap between my feelings and the affect they have out there.’

‘my non negotiable worry for your wellbeing, my anxiety in trying to foresee and to reduce your pain.’

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn’t heard of this book before picking it up in a Berlin bookshop back in Winter. I’m usually a picky reader, with needing the book to have at least 4 stars on Goodreads and lots of reviews, but something told me I needed to get this book.

The writing was beautiful, the structure of the essays even smoother. The way the author articulated different climate issues and the metaphors used to emphasize them, made me feel heard and seen. It was a cathartic experience seeing what felt like my own my thoughts and opinions on paper. Especially the author’s thoughts on birth in a burning world. She has now given me a way to better articulate my opinion, which I think is the greatest gift from a book.

I’ve been burnt out when it comes to climate activism since 2020, but this book has lit a new spark in me and I’m curious to see what comes of it.

[lizard · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 but rounded to a 3 cus i dont wna be mean.
this collection of essays was actually really interesting in its content and gave me lots to chew on in regards to the environmental crisis, hope, grief, and responsibility. however the writing style was sometimes flimsy, at other times very jarring for me and i just couldnt stomach the identity politics and self-victimisation here (as a fellow biracial, i have limited patience for wailing about mixed heritage). the way the author tackles issues of structural power also felt a little juvenile sometimes. im sad to say i cringed everytime the author used the word brown... im sorry !!!!! reading this and watching my reactions made me feel like one of those horrible anti-woke people even tho i am proudly part of the woke generation! viva la wokeism! so yeah mixed feelings on a whole.

[Aida Amirul · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite collection of essays I've ever read-- from a very smart, thoughtful, sensitive human being. A gem I will be gifting to everyone in my life that I love.

Feeling so full and enriched from the author's intimate storytelling and exploration of the world, its and its crises through the lens of their complex identities. I learned so much from their deep dives into the nuances of how the world is responding to the climate crisis, particularly, the nuances of flights and birth strikes.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a personal neuroses about the state of the climate the author’s feelings and dissections of it. The writing style was a little hard to engage with as it changed from personal story telling, to poems, to activism. One of the most profound things I gained from this personal collection though is the idea of “Birth Strike” and how people are choosing not to have children in the first place to save them from the climate crisis.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up to 4. A very interesting read, and definitely wins the award for best book title I’ve seen this year. It did feel a little disjointed in parts, with comings and goings and coming backs to various topics seemingly out of the blue; I expected a little more structure from a book of essays. Nonetheless, an insightful and original read.

[Natasha Duffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting read that brings global crisis into the body. For such a short read it really covers a wide range of ideas that have a lot of depth to them. The main focus is the climate crisis through which all other issues are seen. At times the books reads almost like a memoir, which adds a lot of personal context and authority to the themes discussed.

[if i may · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don’t usually like books of essays, but i found this one really interesting coming out of the pandemic. we’re no longer oblivious to what others were doing at the same time as you, now we can see, experience, and grow our own understanding of the situation we’re in

[Madison Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Nerves and Their Endings is masterful. With a syrupy, lyrical prose, Gaitán Johanesson strips the body of its armour, hollows it out, and reveals what its machinery tells us about ourselves, how we love, how we hope to be.

[Alex Ventisei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Striking collection of essays, I really enjoyed some of the more personal ones. Sections on birth strike were interesting but I couldn’t really find a way to agree with the author on what the movement was about.

[Clara Lenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most truthful commentaries on modern times that integrates a wonderfully real metaphor of the nervous system to highlight the fragile connection between the state of the world and the state of individual minds.

[Sarah Hand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book of what I would describe as short essays on issues ranging from climate collapse, immigration and belonging, coronavirus pandemic and the international response, and moose migration in Sweden. It was beautiful to read and I feel like I learnt a lot about different issues from it. The author is from Ecuador and Columbia, with a Swedish mother. In her adult life, she has lived in Bath and now lives in Edinburgh. So felt like we had covered some similar turf!

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I’ve read this year

[kulisap · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25🌟

the first essay felt so personal.
the rest are very interesting reads.
overall, introspective and insightful.

rtc

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A mixed bag, with some essays more powerful and effective than others.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

She’s introspective and well put together . Wish I could talk to the author personally about a couple of things