On the Beach

Neville Shute’s classic cold-war era novel, On the Beach, concerns itself with the lives of a group of Australians living on the island (and the crew of an American submarine docked there) in the final days of human civilization as a deadly radioactive cloud makes its southerly way across the planet on its inexorable march to kill off earth’s last few thousand human survivors of the recent global thermonuclear war.

What makes the book so poignant, and so very much in keeping with Shute’s prediliction for characters who behave with stereotypical British reserve is that, by and large, everyone in the novel acts as if the world were not ending, even though all know they have less than a year to live. For instance, they plant gardens, attend school, pay their bills and so forth, and even continue to abide by the moral norms that have always guided them. Thus, two of the main characters, a somewhat bawdy Australian girl and a highly-principled American sailor choose, rather charmingly, not to have a sexual affair because he has a wife back in the States (although she is surely dead) and his views on marital fidelity prevent him from betraying her.

One might therefore read the book as a kind of existentialist tome: people choosing to living meaningfully in a world that has no real meaning; it is the absurd human condition, abandonment, anguish, and despair, and yet they freely choose to live in a manner that is meaningful to them.

Point being: I get the feeling, especially after our travels abroad, that Shute’s picture is pretty apt for human life on earth overall right now. Essentially, I think, we’re doomed. There’s just too many people, with too many desires, and not enough planet to go around.

But what else can we do but try to live in a manner that respects each other and ourselves?

And for me, absurd as it is, that means biking not driving.