(An Audio version of this will appear on the August Book Review Podcast – Reading in Bed which can be found on all of the usual networks including readinginbed.bandcamp.com)
Blurb:
After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path. Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life. On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.
Strengths
/ Weaknesses:
I heard of this book originally back in 2001 just before I left university likely through the first filming off it, but for one reason or the other never got round to reading it until the other month when a long story short, my Dad got several hundred books from my sister whose friend’s Mum was being moved into a home and her husband was left with 12,000 books mostly thrillers to get rid off.
My sister put aside me tons of poetry books, but I came across this one in a pile my Dad got but didn’t fancy with A town like Alice, another book I was familiar from university but hadn’t read (Thats in my pile to read).
On the Beach was orginally published in 1957 is a reasonably short novel taking place in Melbourne, Australia a year or so after a Nuclear World War III wiping out everybody in the Northern hemisphere and was blowing death slowly down south through radioactive clouds towards Australia which was the last country still alive and this novel covers the final months, weeks and days of what is lead to suggest some (if not thats it) of the last people still alive on Earth.
What really surprised me here was not the riots and the crazy situations that so many books seem to fall into a pitfall with but a whimper with everybody very quietly going on about their days. Looting, theft, vandalism or any other sort of crime has not risen. Doctors continue to perform lifesaving (and life extending) surgery and you find casual references akin to ‘It won’t be long now’. It’s all very told at a lesire like pace and the book leaves you afterwards did these people live their last few months in a state of denial?
It’s a strange book that’s for sure and heartbreakingly sad with the end when you are wondering right up to the end for example will mankind find a way to live and well without going into heavy spoilers, well…
The book itself is split into several different narratives of a young family, whether an American Captain and should he cheat on his wife and family considering she is very likely dead back in America, just carrying on as normal right up until the end.
I’ve seen a few reviews state it is also incredibly unrealistic. I am not 100% sure I agree with this but I personally liked the understated viewpoint adapted in this book right up to the end and the way the people chose to face their deaths and resolve what their lives had being.
I think as a book it is dated with some of the dialogue certainly and it did jar in places and the pacing seems to be stilted I have to be honest, but it is beauitfully wrote in places and a bit plodding in others but the ending is really moving and poetic, and is worth your time (as thankfully it is not a epic book – 500 pages would have being well too much here).
8/10
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