On the Beach by Nevil Shute Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of On the Beach
Book Review: Complete and Utter Excellence! Absolutely Astounding!
Summary: 5 Stars
My mother first recommended this book to me not long after I had seen the movie "The Day After". I can rightly say that I have never been so emotionally gripped by a novel. I couldn't bear to ever put it down. Now, enough of my gushing, here's the real dirt on why this is one of the most phenomenal novels ever to tackle the subject of Nuclear War:It addresses the topic of a nuclear war not in the context of techno-thriller explosions, but in the context of the horror of is aftermath. Once all the political and military hotheads have finished blowing each other to pieces, all that is left to do is come to terms with the disaster and it implications (a topic made even more timely by the recent nuclear testings by India and Pakistan).
The one aspect of "On the Beach" that had a profound emotional impact on me was how the last remaining survivors cope with reality of what has happened. Some panic, while others cling to the unrealistic hope that the disaster is not as bad as they thought. Soon, this all gives way to melancholy emotion of accepting the inevitable. While death is common in everyday life, it is tempered by the knowledge that life will go on. The saddest and most profound emotion Shute creates is the despair in knowing that after death, there will no longer be life.
Book Review: Couldn't put it down
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow, very good book. A glimps back at the paranoia of the eary 60's at the beginning of the arms race. I kept thinking 'why don't they go underground?' and I remembered that during the first part of the cold war people were told to Duck and Cover, the general public did not know about radiation. In other words they didn't know what we know know. A very good look back.Book Review: Deep, thoughtful, will make you think....
Summary: 5 Stars
This definately isn't a light book, by any definition. The subject matter is depressing, but in a good way. It makes you want to jump up and find a hippie peace movement. This book makes you think long and hard about the choices humans have made, and where they might lead us. If, after reading this book, you've slid into a colossal blue funk, may I suggest "The Celestine Prophecy" by James Redfield, which offers a more optimistic view of the fate of humanity.Book Review: Deeply Disturbing
Summary: 4 Stars
I first read this book several years ago and it is one that I have returned to recently. The plot, that the world is going to end and there is nothing and nobody that can stop it, is deeply and profoundly disturbing. One almost wants to stop it, to hope that somehow, in the next paragraph or chapter that some escape route is going to be revealed. The slow and steady progress of the unstoppable radioactive cloud provides a backdrop of very real terror against the apparant normality of everyday existence. What makes this book all the more disturbing is the lack of blind panic, the lack of people losing their heads and the gradual acceptance of what is going to happen. I have read other books on this topic but none that has ever touched me in the way that this one did. It is a book I certainly will never forget.Book Review: Depressing, but Moving
Summary: 4 Stars
The end of the world is coming. The madness of nuclear war has consumed the Northern hemisphere and the ensuing radiation is seeping south to destroy Australia. The population attempt to deal with certain death in a variety of ways. Some deny it,drowning themselves in drink. Others live their lives to the fullest before the end. This book is a chronicle of how it could have been. The threat of total global destruction may be less now that the cold war is "over", but the threat of nuclear disaster is still present, if only on a smaller scale.