Holger Seelefand reviewed On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Dated but still affecting
4 stars
My version is actually missing the T.S. Eliot quote:
This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
Indeed. A lot of things are dated here. The female characters are eyebrow raising at times, and at the time of writing, nuclear winter was not properly understood. But the way almost everyone in this novel is determined to continue with their little occupations and past times right until the end captures some truth about human nature.
Thinking about it further, there is a hint of a pessimistic philosophical undercurrent: The inhabitants of Australia die blamelessly, the war which brought on the lethal radiation was not theirs. And yet, their pastimes express an objectifying carelessness with nature and life. When one of anglers gives advice:
I like a little frog. You get alongside a pool you know about two in the morning with a little frog and …
My version is actually missing the T.S. Eliot quote:
This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
Indeed. A lot of things are dated here. The female characters are eyebrow raising at times, and at the time of writing, nuclear winter was not properly understood. But the way almost everyone in this novel is determined to continue with their little occupations and past times right until the end captures some truth about human nature.
Thinking about it further, there is a hint of a pessimistic philosophical undercurrent: The inhabitants of Australia die blamelessly, the war which brought on the lethal radiation was not theirs. And yet, their pastimes express an objectifying carelessness with nature and life. When one of anglers gives advice:
I like a little frog. You get alongside a pool you know about two in the morning with a little frog and put the hook just through the skin on his back and cast him across and let him swim about...
Or when each race of the final Australian Grand Prix results in dozens of car crashes with casualties.
Striking is also the speechlessness with regards to the war itself (which just so happened) and what could have been done to prevent it:
Newspapers, he said. You could have been done something with the newspapers. We didn't do it. No nation did, because we are too silly...
My reading is that western culture has an inherent defect which is blame for its demise. Its the old thesis that technical advancement with an essentially unchanged human nature will lead to catastrophe.