A classic, but very depressing. ( )

Whilst I have heard a lot about Shute, only 2 novels readily spring to mind. This and A Town Like Alice, neither of which I had read before this.

On the Beach (published in 1957) was made into a famous 1959 movie shot In Australia starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins (what a cast!), with Gardner (who was not a fan of Melbourne or perhaps Australia as a whole) saying that Melbourne was an ideal choice for siting a movie as to the end of human habitation of Earth.

And I am not providing spoilers by saying this as the premise of the novel is now well know and appears on the back cover of this edition, and is made pretty obvious early on in the novel, without knocking anyone the head with the 'facts'.

We are in post WW2 territory, and for various reasons, various countries start sending nuclear bombs against each other, with it escalating rapidly such that other countries get involved as well. Shute even suggests that some participate by mistake, even sending bombs to countries that have not threatened them.

My sense is that Shute was not trying to provide a prediction of what could have actually go wrong with the stance of various countries during the 1950s, and wanted to down play any ascription of "responsibilities", other than to hint as to "how the hell did we get ourselves into such a situation, where intentional, non intentional or accidental deployment of such weapons could have such a devastating impact on humanity.

And in this case it is end of humanity. Whilst the wars took place in the Northern hemisphere, the radioactive atmosphere is moving slowly but steadily southward, with deadly affect.

So why Melbourne as the focus of this novel? As the largest city in the Southern hemisphere, the US, British and Australians retreat to there. Even whilst the clouds may not have reached various places (eg northern Australis, Africa South America), the flow of vital resources (because of the knocking out of Northern hemisphere manufacturing centers, whether by destruction by bombs, the unavailability of manufacturing personnel or the unavailability of transportation from north to south), particularly transportation fuels, means that international flights and shipping ceases, with the exception of a very few nuclear powered submarines.

Everyone knows, but not all believe, that death is inevitable due to irradiation sickness. It is a matter of time.

This is not a book of pyrotechnics or rage against the world, as those waiting in Melbourne and surrounds await the inevitable. Instead it is the exploration of how a small group of characters (and those close to them) approach the inevitable.

It is a powerful and to a degree melancholic read. Being a book of the 1950s, there is no gore or post mortem like detail (and it does not need that). It is in that sense a cerebral or heart felt read.

I sense that Shute wrote this novel as a paean against the madness of nuclear war. AndI hope that the years that have passed since have not made become complacent as to the dangers that lie within.

Big Ship

1 August 2023 ( )

The grimmest book I've probably ever read, but easy to see why it's beloved. ( )

On the Beach tells the stories of five individuals in the wake of World War III. The world has basically been destroyed by nuclear fallout as a result of the war, but Australia remained unscathed. Initially. But the trade winds are blowing the radiation clouds closer and closer, and Shute's story deals with the human reactions to not only knowing that you are going to die (which we all know), but knowing when and how.
I loved that he didn't turn it into a book about the scramble to try to save oneself somehow. I'm sure, in a similar situation, there would be people trying to build some kind of oxygenated shelter. But instead, he told the story of five people, each of which had different levels of acceptance of what was happening and different ways of coping. A career naval officer who retained his sense of duty to country, ship, and family until the very end. A young woman who tries to drown her fears in brandy, but who has a heart of gold. A young family where the wife is in complete denial. A scientist who actually can fulfill his dream of racing cars now that death is inevitable anyway. Each of these stories is told in a way that makes you sympathetic to these characters, and the result is just a very moving tale. ( )

I found, to my surprise, that this book taught me a great deal about myself. I read about these characters who are braving on as though the world has not already ended, as though they are anything more than imminent casualties, making plans for next year even though there will be no next year for them, and I found kinship with them. You can point to anything: climate change, surveillance states, mass hysteria, capitalism’s untenable contradictions (eventually?), the tragic doomed fate of a species with consciousness, even just the tiny oncoming Big Nothing waiting for me at the end of my own brief gasps. This book made me realize how convinced I am that these are end times. Unfortunately these end times are not even so quick as the epigraphic T.S. Elliot “whimper,” but seem agonizingly more protracted. The world isn’t ending tomorrow for us, nor in 30 years, but it’s ending, really. At least that’s how I feel; that’s how I approach my life.

The differences between how we live today and how these last survivors live out their end days before the fallout kills them all are not so great. They, like us, usually pretend not to know about the immanence of the end. They, like us, make plans for how the garden will look next year, or how to raise the baby so she grows up healthy and well. They, like us, entertain the hope that “maybe it won’t happen to us.”

But of course, like us, they know it will. They defend against the knowledge of the end the same ways we do (via Zapffe): isolation, attachment, diversion, sublimation.

Isolation: “a completely arbitrary rejection of disturbing and destructive thoughts or feelings” (The Last Messiah, p. 4). Mary Holmes and others outright reject the notion that they will die, proceeding about their lives as usual. Of course, we largely don’t have access to these characters’ thoughts, so possibly they know more than they let on, like Dwight Towers, who refuses to admit aloud or alone that his entire family, left in the United States, is dead.

Attachment: “an attempt to establish fixed points in, or a wall around, the shifting chaos of consciousness,” (ibid, p. 4), whether in nation, religion, accumulation of wealth, privacy, accumulation of knowledge or aesthetic signifiers, family, etc. The most obvious example is Dwight Towers’ ridiculous insistence at strictly upholding the US Naval code of honor far beyond the point where the United States even exists. His allegiance is a fixed point, for Dwight, in the shifting chaos of nuclear fallout. But you see it everywhere: John Osborne’s car obsession, Peter Holmes’ family man attitude, Dwight’s uncle’s class posturing. Everyone does it.

Diversion: “keep[ing] our field of vision within acceptable bounds by keeping it busy with a ceaseless stream of new impressions,” (ibid, p. 5). Moira’s drinking, everyone’s drinking, everyone’s partying, the scientists’ record keeping, the navys’ voyagings, the baby’s health.

Sublimation: “with creative talent or unshakable panache, one might be able to transform the very agonies of life into pleasant experiences,” (ibid, p. 6). Admittedly you have to stretch slightly for this, but I think you could rightfully call John Osborne’s manifestation of a lifelong car racing dream, through hard work and creative productivity, sublimation. Why not? It’s more than most of us do.

These are Zapffe’s four “defense mechanisms” that he claims we use to shield ourselves against our surplus consciousness and subsequent knowledge of death, beautifully personified in the characters of the story. How different are we from them? Seriously, what is the difference?

It is difficult to accept, but (from a certain perspective) each one of us now, today, is a delusional fool who pretends not to know we have one right and one right only: the right to die. We are liars to ourselves about the awesome force of death in contrast our imagined futures, whether we believe we will them or that they are destined. Man’s only destiny is death. You know this, on some level. I am not revealing anything new to you. You say, “What else is there to do but to choose to ignore it? Am I meant to mope around all day? Am I meant to end it prematurely? I know from my life experiences that the time between birth and death holds not just pain, but also great pleasures and satisfactions. Why focus on what comes after?” True indeed (although maybe it is less a choice you are making than it is an instinct). I just personally struggle, and I think you might too, to make sense of why I should bother with it, knowing it’ll all be gone soon enough. I don’t find it self-evident that living is a net satisfactory condition. But that’s just me. Maybe I to be distracted for a while.

In this book a group of scientists prepare a monument atop a mountain to survive humanity. They press the knowledge of the races on sheets of paper between plates of glass. To be read by whom? We obsess over surviving ourselves, for posterity or for the future of the human race, we say. But when there is no future for the human race, when there is no posterity, we still obsessively attempt to survive ourselves. We cling hard and fast. ( )