According to Bloomberg Business, in a recent episode of the Zero podcast, host Akshat Rathi sat down with Booker Prize-winning novelist George Saunders to discuss his new book, “Vigil.” The novel, out this week, is a climate-focused story told from the deathbed of an oil executive haunted by ghosts, reminiscent of a “Christmas Carol” scenario. Saunders explained he began writing during the Biden administration when climate action seemed more plausible, aiming to tackle the “most important thing in the world.” The conversation also broadened into Saunders’ thoughts on AI’s role in creativity and why literature remains vital. You can listen to the full 43-minute episode on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
The Tricky Business of Climate Fiction
Here’s the thing about writing a “climate novel”: it sounds noble, but it’s incredibly easy to do badly. Saunders nails the central anxiety—you don’t want your book to become a “book report about your research that nobody wants.” His method is fascinating. He does a “medium-intense” deep dive, stuffs it all in a folder, and then deliberately ignores it. The goal isn’t journalistic accuracy, but to be a “well-informed amateur” so his inventions aren’t totally unmoored from reality.
And his personal background is key. He’s not some academic theorizing about Big Oil. He worked on an oil exploration crew in Sumatra in the 80s. He gets the mindset—the adventure, the feeling of being part of an “embattled, but noble crew of technocrats.” That lived experience gives him the “overflow” he needs to write the character from the inside, not as a caricature. It’s a masterclass in how to write about something systemic and vast: ground it in a specific, flawed human you can almost understand.
AI, Creativity, and Why It Falls Flat
Now, the part about AI is where Saunders gets really interesting, and frankly, a bit dismissive. He frames creativity as a playful, generous “parlour game” between writer and reader, where the writer says, “I’m pretending to be this person, and you’re pretending to believe me.” His whole process is about accessing the “multitudes” he believes are inside everyone.
So where does AI fit in? From his perspective, probably not in the driver’s seat. An AI tool can’t play that game with genuine generosity or specific human overflow. It can mimic and assemble, but the spark comes from lived contradiction—like a progressive professor channeling an oil exec. For the kind of deep, empathetic invention Saunders champions, AI seems like a lazy partner. It might help with the folder of research, but it can’t do the wild, intuitive leap after you close that folder.
Why Messy Stories Still Matter
The conversation ties back to that big question from Amitav Ghosh a decade ago: why was literature ignoring the climate crisis? Saunders thinks intention has improved, but the “how” is the real struggle. The risk is producing preachy, simplistic morality tales.
Good literature, in his view, complicates things. It doesn’t ask you to judge a cartoon villain, but to momentarily inhabit a person who made devastating choices from within their own logic. That’s a far more powerful and unsettling form of engagement than any tweet or TikTok clip. In an era of hot takes and algorithmic simplification, the novel’s job is to be slow, ambiguous, and human. Basically, it’s supposed to make you think, not tell you what to think. And that might be the most useful tool we have.
