Dramatic tension does not always come from violent action. Sometimes it is born and grows in the heart of the ordinary. I’ve just finished reading Nevil Shute’s On the Beach, a post-apocalyptical novel published in 1957. But if you are thinking a rag-tag band of survivors battling robots or zombies or bands of roving animals through the rubble and ruin of once-proud cities, it isn’t that at all. [Spoiler alert.] Everybody behaves very civilly. And everybody dies. As in everybody dies, the entire human race.
Hi, Mark, playing a little catch up on my blog reading. I really enjoy your reviews and literary analysis. "On The Beach" sounds like an interesting read. I keep thinking of how the characters in Australia waiting for the end could be an analogy with our current world situation: climate change and other existential threats such as war in the Ukraine. Not to be bleak, but it's like, in a sense, all of us are those characters in Australia, waiting for the end. Well, not exactly waiting, thank God. The end is not determined and we keep doing what we can to make the world a better place. Thanks for your clear prose and insight as usual. Your journey and work are inspiring.
Hi, Mark, playing a little catch up on my blog reading. I really enjoy your reviews and literary analysis. "On The Beach" sounds like an interesting read. I keep thinking of how the characters in Australia waiting for the end could be an analogy with our current world situation: climate change and other existential threats such as war in the Ukraine. Not to be bleak, but it's like, in a sense, all of us are those characters in Australia, waiting for the end. Well, not exactly waiting, thank God. The end is not determined and we keep doing what we can to make the world a better place. Thanks for your clear prose and insight as usual. Your journey and work are inspiring.