Grade: A
On the Beach is Nevil Shute's chilling, prophetic novel about the lives of people waiting for their own deaths -- and the end of humankind -- from radiation advancing on the winds: After a nuclear holocaust that begins with a war between Russia and China, the Northern Hemisphere is dead. People are dead. Dogs are dead. Birds are dead.
No one surviving in the Southern Hemisphere knows precise details of the war. Seismic records show 4,700 bombs were dropped; speculation is that more were used. By the end of the war, the United States has bombed Russia by mistake.
The novel, first published in 1957, focuses on those who remain in southeastern Australia, near Melbourne, specifically Dwight Towers, a submarine commander who is a refuge from the United States, and Moira Davidson, a party girl who falls in love with Dwight and goes from wanting to cure the reality of the pending apocalypse with brandy to attending classes she will never be able to use to become a secretary. "It's like waiting to be hung," Moira tells Dwight at one point.
Other characters include Lt. Cmd. Peter Holmes, and his wife, Mary; the couple has a young baby, who is key when Peter tells Mary she must poison their child -- pharmacies begin to hand out pills to hasten death -- when the end finally comes.
Instead of rioting or committing other acts of violence, people stick to the routine, the familiar: They plant flowers in their gardens, mend shirts, and take fishing trips.
The most outrageous act people commit is to drink in excess and pass out in the street: "[A] man, staggering along in front of them, fell down, paused for a moment upon hands and knees, and rolled dead drunk into the gutter. Nobody paid much attention to him. A policeman, strolling down the pavement, turned him over, examined him casually, and strolled on."
Other than a few exceptions that include auto racing, people travel by horse, bicycle or electric train, because little gasoline is left. People shave and shower, they fetch milk and cream, they go to work, they attend church, they perform surgeries to extend life, and they wait to fall ill and die.
To scout for human life and check radiation levels, Dwight, a small crew of military personnel and a scientist take submarine missions to various ports in the Northern Hemisphere. These fact-finding cruises are pointless, but Dwight is not above living in the delusion that sustains everyone else. He buys presents for his wife and children, who lie dead in a Connecticut town. When Moira finds out, she goes to some length to find a Pogo stick for Dwight's daughter. She even has the daughter's name engraved on the toy.
On the Beach will be one of the darkest, most difficult novels you read in your life -- you will find yourself unable to continue at times -- but is not devoid of beauty and its own glimmer of hope for humanity.
The T.S. Eliot poem at the beginning foreshadows the ending, which is flawless in a quiet way:
This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.
-- Jeanie Straub, reference librarian, Parker Library, Douglas County Libraries