It’s worth a second read…

Book review:

On the Beach

by Nevil Shute (1899-1960)

New York: Vintage International, Vintage Books, 1957

312 pages

I could not read On the Beach again without taking on some of the terminal burden of the characters. I awakened some of my disturbing memories (Weltschmerz, perhaps) of reading it the first time, almost 60 years ago.

Maybe you think you know the story line: in the aftermath of worldwide nuclear destruction, an inescapable deadly radioactive miasma is finally devastating Australia. The land down under is the last refuge of human beings on the planet.

All of them know they’re going to die in a couple months. Many of them choose to live as if they don’t know it.

The reader doesn’t need to apply much imagination. On the Beach is a baldly powerful chronicle of the unyielding imperatives of human nature, including the impulse to work side by side with someone you love, planting a garden, hoping to share a rich crop next year, ignoring the darkness in the northern sky.

Nevil Shute’s story is not out of date.

I desperately fear that my grandchildren may be re-reading this book as they survive in the hills, trying to ignore the advancing seas below.

* * * * * *

Book review: Shantung Compound

They didn’t care much

about each other…

by Langdon Gilkey

click here

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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”