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A review by dee9401
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
3.0
Like Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, I'd seen the movie version of On the Beach (1959) before I read this book. As usual, the book is better than the movie.
The premise is really intriguing. What happens after a nuclear war, especially to those in areas not even remotely targeted? The book chronicles that last few months of people's lives in southern Australia. A nuclear war, which lasted only about a month, devastated the northern hemisphere. Radiation makes living there impossible. What's worse is that a cloud of nuclear fallout is spreading southward, into the southern hemisphere and killing all in its path. The novel addresses how people react to the news that the end of the world is not just near but has a target date.
Suicide, dangerous lifestyle choices and denial are explored at a top-level. Shute doesn't develop his characters much beyond two-dimensions and he often avoids any outright emotional expressions by his characters. It's almost as if they are all queuing up for death, in a nice orderly fashion. Some people expect the end, others deny it, and still others drift back and forth, but it's done in a very calm, collected fashion, as if they were just deciding on whether to have a whiskey or a brandy. The treatment of the female characters as weak, in ridiculous denial or in desperate need of a man to save them is sexist, but in keeping with a book written by a man in the 1950s.
I enjoyed the psychology of the premise, but not so much as how Shute develops the story. There's no chance to delve into the inner thinking of the characters, such as how they internally struggle (or don't) with the impending end of not just all human life, but their own specific life.
Given all that, I still think it's worth a read in order to open up thought avenues. Many of the themes are still present today (weapons of mass destruction and nations willing to use them). While not a perfect tool to explore these theme, it is a useful starting point. I'd suggesting reading both On the Beach and John Hershey's nonfiction work, Hiroshima, to being exploring these issues.
The premise is really intriguing. What happens after a nuclear war, especially to those in areas not even remotely targeted? The book chronicles that last few months of people's lives in southern Australia. A nuclear war, which lasted only about a month, devastated the northern hemisphere. Radiation makes living there impossible. What's worse is that a cloud of nuclear fallout is spreading southward, into the southern hemisphere and killing all in its path. The novel addresses how people react to the news that the end of the world is not just near but has a target date.
Suicide, dangerous lifestyle choices and denial are explored at a top-level. Shute doesn't develop his characters much beyond two-dimensions and he often avoids any outright emotional expressions by his characters. It's almost as if they are all queuing up for death, in a nice orderly fashion. Some people expect the end, others deny it, and still others drift back and forth, but it's done in a very calm, collected fashion, as if they were just deciding on whether to have a whiskey or a brandy. The treatment of the female characters as weak, in ridiculous denial or in desperate need of a man to save them is sexist, but in keeping with a book written by a man in the 1950s.
I enjoyed the psychology of the premise, but not so much as how Shute develops the story. There's no chance to delve into the inner thinking of the characters, such as how they internally struggle (or don't) with the impending end of not just all human life, but their own specific life.
Given all that, I still think it's worth a read in order to open up thought avenues. Many of the themes are still present today (weapons of mass destruction and nations willing to use them). While not a perfect tool to explore these theme, it is a useful starting point. I'd suggesting reading both On the Beach and John Hershey's nonfiction work, Hiroshima, to being exploring these issues.