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Earth Abides
A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he'd either dreaded or hoped for.
345 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
About the author
George R. Stewart
69 books174 followersGeorge Rippey Stewart was an American toponymist, a novelist, and a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He is best known for his only science fiction novel Earth Abides (1949), a post-apocalyptic novel, for which he won the first International Fantasy Award in 1951. It was dramatized on radio's Escape and inspired Stephen King's
The Stand
.
His 1941 novel Storm , featuring as its protagonist a Pacific storm called Maria, prompted the National Weather Service to use personal names to designate storms and inspired Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to write the song "They Call the Wind Maria" for their 1951 musical "Paint Your Wagon." Storm was dramatized as "A Storm Called Maria" on a 1959 episode of ABC's Disneyland. Two other novels, Ordeal by Hunger (1936) and Fire (1948) also evoked environmental catastrophes.
Stewart was a founding member of the American Name Society in 1956-57, and he once served as an expert witness in a murder trial as a specialist in family names. His best-known academic work is Names on the Land A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (1945; reprinted, New York Review Books, 2008). He wrote three other books on place-names, A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names (1970), Names on the Globe (1975), and American Given Names (1979). His scholarly works on the poetic meter of ballads (published under the name George R. Stewart, Jr.), beginning with his 1922 Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, remain important in their field.
His 1959 book Pickett's Charge is a detailed history of the final attack at Gettysburg.
His 1941 novel Storm , featuring as its protagonist a Pacific storm called Maria, prompted the National Weather Service to use personal names to designate storms and inspired Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to write the song "They Call the Wind Maria" for their 1951 musical "Paint Your Wagon." Storm was dramatized as "A Storm Called Maria" on a 1959 episode of ABC's Disneyland. Two other novels, Ordeal by Hunger (1936) and Fire (1948) also evoked environmental catastrophes.
Stewart was a founding member of the American Name Society in 1956-57, and he once served as an expert witness in a murder trial as a specialist in family names. His best-known academic work is Names on the Land A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (1945; reprinted, New York Review Books, 2008). He wrote three other books on place-names, A Concise Dictionary of American Place-Names (1970), Names on the Globe (1975), and American Given Names (1979). His scholarly works on the poetic meter of ballads (published under the name George R. Stewart, Jr.), beginning with his 1922 Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, remain important in their field.
His 1959 book Pickett's Charge is a detailed history of the final attack at Gettysburg.
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November 30, 2016
Bands of cannibal raiders. Hordes of flesh-starved zombies. Radioactive wastelands stalked by vicious mutants.
If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction you've encountered all these scenarios, often blended together. You're familiar with the best ways to dispatch the walking dead, why you should keep away from isolated farmhouses with locked cellars and what lies outside the vault/silo. What you most likely haven't encountered is an end-of-the-world vision like the one George R. Stewart spins in Earth Abides - a zombie-less, nuke-less, cannibal-less world that is all the more compelling in its quiet realism.
Earth Abides is a gentler, slower story of the end of civilization than most of its peers. The story begins with a virus that wipes out most of humanity in the late 1940s, leaving only a tiny percentage of the population alive. You've seen this setup before (Stephen King's The Stand was inspired by this book), but where Earth Abides goes from here is both fascinating and original.
The remaining people clump together where they can, and Isherwood Williams - who survives the plague somehow due his being bitten by a rattlesnake when the disease strikes - joins a group in a now empty San Francisco. There are no rocket scientists, no survivalists, no surgeons in this group. They are ordinary people, with ordinary skills and they don't form a conquering army or create a post-civilisation Dystopia. Hell, they don't even try to restart civilisation, preferring instead to settle into the debris left behind, using tapwater and electricity until the utilities finally fail, eating the near limitless supplies of canned food left in untouched supermarkets and generally avoiding the reality of their situation. In short, they behave as many ordinary people would in such a situation.
What eventuates is a slow reprimitivising of human society as knowledge is lost, superstitions reappear and old, hunter-gatherer patterns of life begin to re-emerge. Isherwood, a man of science and reason, rails against this slow slide away from modernity and does his best to both limit the loss of knowledge and educate the children of his community. His desperate struggle against the inertia of his de-skilled community makes for gripping reading.
Earth Abides is a masterful work of post-apocalyptic fiction, and it really resonated with me. Where other novels are fuelled by Walking Dead style battles over resources, or mimic The Stand's good-vs-evil paradigm Earth Abides focuses on ordinary people surviving but failing to maintain modern civilisation in the aftermath of societal collapse. In the post-fact era of 2016, where the entirety of human knowledge is a swipe away, yet is usually completely ignored in favour of leisure, emotion and unfounded opinion Stewart's depiction of post-disaster decline feels ever more prescient.
In my opinion Earth Abides is a standout champion of its genre, as gripping and memorable as the best of its ilk. Stewart's unique take and striking ending have stuck in my mind longer than a dozen of his book's mutant-and-dystopia competitors.
If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction you've encountered all these scenarios, often blended together. You're familiar with the best ways to dispatch the walking dead, why you should keep away from isolated farmhouses with locked cellars and what lies outside the vault/silo. What you most likely haven't encountered is an end-of-the-world vision like the one George R. Stewart spins in Earth Abides - a zombie-less, nuke-less, cannibal-less world that is all the more compelling in its quiet realism.
Earth Abides is a gentler, slower story of the end of civilization than most of its peers. The story begins with a virus that wipes out most of humanity in the late 1940s, leaving only a tiny percentage of the population alive. You've seen this setup before (Stephen King's The Stand was inspired by this book), but where Earth Abides goes from here is both fascinating and original.
The remaining people clump together where they can, and Isherwood Williams - who survives the plague somehow due his being bitten by a rattlesnake when the disease strikes - joins a group in a now empty San Francisco. There are no rocket scientists, no survivalists, no surgeons in this group. They are ordinary people, with ordinary skills and they don't form a conquering army or create a post-civilisation Dystopia. Hell, they don't even try to restart civilisation, preferring instead to settle into the debris left behind, using tapwater and electricity until the utilities finally fail, eating the near limitless supplies of canned food left in untouched supermarkets and generally avoiding the reality of their situation. In short, they behave as many ordinary people would in such a situation.
What eventuates is a slow reprimitivising of human society as knowledge is lost, superstitions reappear and old, hunter-gatherer patterns of life begin to re-emerge. Isherwood, a man of science and reason, rails against this slow slide away from modernity and does his best to both limit the loss of knowledge and educate the children of his community. His desperate struggle against the inertia of his de-skilled community makes for gripping reading.
Earth Abides is a masterful work of post-apocalyptic fiction, and it really resonated with me. Where other novels are fuelled by Walking Dead style battles over resources, or mimic The Stand's good-vs-evil paradigm Earth Abides focuses on ordinary people surviving but failing to maintain modern civilisation in the aftermath of societal collapse. In the post-fact era of 2016, where the entirety of human knowledge is a swipe away, yet is usually completely ignored in favour of leisure, emotion and unfounded opinion Stewart's depiction of post-disaster decline feels ever more prescient.
In my opinion Earth Abides is a standout champion of its genre, as gripping and memorable as the best of its ilk. Stewart's unique take and striking ending have stuck in my mind longer than a dozen of his book's mutant-and-dystopia competitors.
October 19, 2020
”The trouble you’re expecting never happens; it’s always something that sneaks up the other way. Mankind had been trembling about destruction through war, and had been having bad dreams of cities blown to pieces along with their inhabitants, of animals killed, too, and of the very vegetation blighted off the face of the earth. But actually mankind seemed merely to have been removed rather neatly, with a minimum of disturbance.”
Isherwood “Ish” WIlliams is out in the wilderness rock climbing to clear his head from the buzz of civilization when he puts his hand in the wrong crevice. He hears the rattle and feels the strike.
He is pretty sure he is going to die.
He gets back to the cabin, uses the snake kit to suck as much of the poison out as he can. He becomes too sick and too woozy to drive. He waits for someone to find him. As his time to return comes and passes he becomes angry that no one has come looking for him, not family or friends.
He doesn’t die and when he recovers enough to drive into town he finds only dust motes and echoes. A virulent disease has swept through humanity, killing indiscriminately, collapsing society as easily as a biker crushes a beer can.
The one thing that we have always been able to count on is our genetic diversity. There always seems to be a fraction of a percent of humanity that is immune to whatever nature has to throw at us.
“As for man, there is little reason to think that he can in the long run escape the fate of other creatures, and if there is a biological law of flux and reflux, his situation is now a highly perilous one. During ten thousand years his numbers have been on the upgrade in spite of wars, pestilences, and famines. This increase in population has become more and more rapid. Biologically, man has for too long a time been rolling an uninterrupted run of sevens.”
It was just our turn to roll snake eyes.
He goes through this period of time swamped with a buffet of feelings. Ish never quite feels lucky to be alive, but certainly reaches varying levels of depression as the extent of the devastation becomes apparent.
But for now the electricity still flows through San Francisco. Street lights come on as if the hand of humanity was still guiding the way. For a while he just goes about his life. There is plenty of food. He makes friends with a dog. He reads books, but his curiosity gets the better of him and he explores the city. He finds people, a few stragglers, still alive. He decides that he has to see what has happened to America.
The Earth reclaims what man has built, quickly.
There is too much of everything now, too many cars, food spoiling, too many clothes, piles of things that no one might need for a thousand years. He drives across country and finds a survivor here or there. Some survivors can’t cope and suicide rates skyrocket among the few fortunate/unfortunate people who find themselves facing a new world bereft of family and friends. He discovers the the virulent entity has been thorough, unrelenting, all-embracing, and taken more far more than it has left.
He returns to San Francisco and finds a woman who becomes his wife. She moves in with him because, he...well...had a house full of books and anybody who has moved books before can relate to the fact that it is easier to move to the books than move the books to you.
Ish uses the term this is a New Deal to describe this new era which was ironic given that this book was written in 1949. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies had just been enacted in the decade before.
The book moves languidly along. There is never this feeling of desperation or Mad Max situations or really even scenes of high tension. George R. Stewart was more interested in exploring cultures, how they emerge, how they survive, what motivates them to innovate.
Being in the San Francisco area with a temperate climate, they don’t have to fight weather. The city is full of canned foods, weapons, bullets, clothes, and anything else they could possibly need. When the power does finally go out they switch to candles and lanterns. When the water shuts down they find streams and they dig latrines. Life overall is relatively easy almost better than before. Ish is the only intellectual in his tribe of survivors, soon offspring start to become plentiful. Ish finds himself to be the only one concerned about teaching them the ability to read. The only one that sees the importance of sharing a vision of the world through the lens of science.
Ish has a dream of restoring the world, to bring back the civilization that took several millennium to create, but to the new generations who never lived in that world they have all they need now. To bring that world back to life will take more labor than they are willing to give. They respect what he knows and even look on him, superstitiously, as a deity of knowledge, but they lack the curiosity or the desire to learn what he knows.
Ish reluctantly gives ground on his expectations. He soon realizes that instead of building an ice machine, or aqueducts, or keeping cars in working order that he needs to give them something they will desperately need when the supply of bullets finally run out, something that can be made with a sharp blade and a handful of feathers...the bow and arrow.
Original Ace Publishing painting for the 1949 cover.
Certainly another very different take on the post-apocalyptic world. Some of the complaints that people may have about this book are the same ones that they had about On the Beach, that there isn’t enough action, not enough tension, not enough claws and teeth, but those situations were not of interest to Stewart. He wanted to explore what we need. Why civilization is necessary? What do we gain from it? Are we happier in a penthouse apartment or would we be happier if we had to forage for food every day? One thing that Stewart and I can agree on is: “Men go and come, but earth abides.” At least I like to believe the earth will ultimately survive us.
You can read my most recent book and movie reviews at http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
Check out my Facebook bloggers page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Isherwood “Ish” WIlliams is out in the wilderness rock climbing to clear his head from the buzz of civilization when he puts his hand in the wrong crevice. He hears the rattle and feels the strike.
He is pretty sure he is going to die.
He gets back to the cabin, uses the snake kit to suck as much of the poison out as he can. He becomes too sick and too woozy to drive. He waits for someone to find him. As his time to return comes and passes he becomes angry that no one has come looking for him, not family or friends.
He doesn’t die and when he recovers enough to drive into town he finds only dust motes and echoes. A virulent disease has swept through humanity, killing indiscriminately, collapsing society as easily as a biker crushes a beer can.
The one thing that we have always been able to count on is our genetic diversity. There always seems to be a fraction of a percent of humanity that is immune to whatever nature has to throw at us.
“As for man, there is little reason to think that he can in the long run escape the fate of other creatures, and if there is a biological law of flux and reflux, his situation is now a highly perilous one. During ten thousand years his numbers have been on the upgrade in spite of wars, pestilences, and famines. This increase in population has become more and more rapid. Biologically, man has for too long a time been rolling an uninterrupted run of sevens.”
It was just our turn to roll snake eyes.
He goes through this period of time swamped with a buffet of feelings. Ish never quite feels lucky to be alive, but certainly reaches varying levels of depression as the extent of the devastation becomes apparent.
But for now the electricity still flows through San Francisco. Street lights come on as if the hand of humanity was still guiding the way. For a while he just goes about his life. There is plenty of food. He makes friends with a dog. He reads books, but his curiosity gets the better of him and he explores the city. He finds people, a few stragglers, still alive. He decides that he has to see what has happened to America.
The Earth reclaims what man has built, quickly.
There is too much of everything now, too many cars, food spoiling, too many clothes, piles of things that no one might need for a thousand years. He drives across country and finds a survivor here or there. Some survivors can’t cope and suicide rates skyrocket among the few fortunate/unfortunate people who find themselves facing a new world bereft of family and friends. He discovers the the virulent entity has been thorough, unrelenting, all-embracing, and taken more far more than it has left.
He returns to San Francisco and finds a woman who becomes his wife. She moves in with him because, he...well...had a house full of books and anybody who has moved books before can relate to the fact that it is easier to move to the books than move the books to you.
Ish uses the term this is a New Deal to describe this new era which was ironic given that this book was written in 1949. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies had just been enacted in the decade before.
The book moves languidly along. There is never this feeling of desperation or Mad Max situations or really even scenes of high tension. George R. Stewart was more interested in exploring cultures, how they emerge, how they survive, what motivates them to innovate.
Being in the San Francisco area with a temperate climate, they don’t have to fight weather. The city is full of canned foods, weapons, bullets, clothes, and anything else they could possibly need. When the power does finally go out they switch to candles and lanterns. When the water shuts down they find streams and they dig latrines. Life overall is relatively easy almost better than before. Ish is the only intellectual in his tribe of survivors, soon offspring start to become plentiful. Ish finds himself to be the only one concerned about teaching them the ability to read. The only one that sees the importance of sharing a vision of the world through the lens of science.
Ish has a dream of restoring the world, to bring back the civilization that took several millennium to create, but to the new generations who never lived in that world they have all they need now. To bring that world back to life will take more labor than they are willing to give. They respect what he knows and even look on him, superstitiously, as a deity of knowledge, but they lack the curiosity or the desire to learn what he knows.
Ish reluctantly gives ground on his expectations. He soon realizes that instead of building an ice machine, or aqueducts, or keeping cars in working order that he needs to give them something they will desperately need when the supply of bullets finally run out, something that can be made with a sharp blade and a handful of feathers...the bow and arrow.
Original Ace Publishing painting for the 1949 cover.
Certainly another very different take on the post-apocalyptic world. Some of the complaints that people may have about this book are the same ones that they had about On the Beach, that there isn’t enough action, not enough tension, not enough claws and teeth, but those situations were not of interest to Stewart. He wanted to explore what we need. Why civilization is necessary? What do we gain from it? Are we happier in a penthouse apartment or would we be happier if we had to forage for food every day? One thing that Stewart and I can agree on is: “Men go and come, but earth abides.” At least I like to believe the earth will ultimately survive us.
You can read my most recent book and movie reviews at http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
Check out my Facebook bloggers page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
March 14, 2020
For fifteen years I taught a university course in Western Civilization. It began in the spring. The textbook I assigned my students began with the sentence, “Civilization was not inevitable; it was an act of human creativity.” After reading about our primitive ancestors’ advance from hunting and gathering to the agricultural settlements of the Neolithic Revolution, we studied the great ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
By April, Rome had fallen and we were in the Dark Ages. Western Civilization had reached its lowest ebb. Hundreds of years of barbarism followed. But civilization did not completely die. It held on, in Kenneth Clark’s words, by “The Skin of Our Teeth.” In a little corner of the world, against all odds, some Irish monks were copying Bibles. This made possible a brief return to literacy during the Age of Charlemagne and this Carolingian Renaissance likewise made possible the rebirth of civilization ~ just in time for summer vacation. The course resumed in the fall with the rise of modern Europe, the scientific revolution, a couple of World Wars, and then ended the semester in the present. We had arrived.
George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides begins where my survey of Western Civilization ends ~ with what might happen next. Yet what I love most about this book is that it raises several philosophical questions about civilization in general and Western civilization in particular.
Civilizations die. There’s no doubt about that. And new civilizations emerge among the ruins of the old. Civilization may not be inevitable, but then again, as an act of human creativity, perhaps it is inevitable. Perhaps human creativity, sooner or later, will always lead to the rise of civilization. At any rate, it happens often enough to seem nearly inevitable. But whether civilization is inevitable or not, a second question arises: Is it desirable?
The book is divided into three parts. The first part is the story of the individual. Ish must adapt to a world suddenly bereft of civilization. Two themes appear in this part of the book:
1. Earth Without Man: As a shy intellectual geography student, Ish naturally assumes the role of observer. As such, he pays attention to the changes in the natural world following the demise of most of the human race. This part of the book is a fascinating account of a world reverting to nature: the overgrowth of vegetation, the crumbling infrastructure, the encroaching rust, wildfires, feral dogs, and rapid increases in the populations of ants and rats followed by equally rapid die offs. Interestingly, the disaster that decimated the human race was equally catastrophic to human parasites like lice and various diseases. Without human hosts, they faced extinction too.
2. The Balance Between the Individual and the World: Ish ponders the relationship between himself and everything that is not himself. As the world changes, he is changed; and as he changes, so the world is changed. It is an “equation” in which the two sides always strive for balance (p. 97). This theme becomes even more important in the second part of the book where the question is not about the individual but about society.
Stewart’s story-telling is realistic, so realistic that I found myself wondering what I would do if the “Great Disaster” were to happen. Being a bit of a hypochondriac, I would probably gather up every type of antibiotic the pharmacies had. I would also have to be much more careful with my reading glasses, lest I end up like Burgess Meredith in “Time Enough at Last.” And for safety and companionship, I would surely find myself some dogs before they all went feral.
There are so many ways a person could respond to such a crisis and Stewart provides a small but representative sampling of a few survivors.
a. The Drunk: Unable to cope with the situation, Mr. Barlow simply drinks himself to death.
b. The Dangerous Couple: A hostile man with a gun and his tawdry female companion have a predatory vibe and Ish retreats from them quickly.
c. The Frightened Teenager: The teenage girl runs away at the sight of Ish. He speculates about the perils of being a young woman alone in a lawless world.
d. The Hoarder: An old man collects everything he can get his hands on whether useful or useless.
Ish sees the hoarder as “essentially dead” (p. 34). The same might be said of the other survivors. These are the people who are so damaged by the shock that they have lost their humanity. They are the living dead ~ a phrase I can’t help but use here. Having seen my fair share of zombie apocalypse movies, I find the metaphor apt. These are the real living dead, the real zombies, the people who become withdrawn and psychologically dead.
Later he meets people who are faring better than these walking corpses. He decides to search for other survivors by driving cross-country from Berkeley to New York. What could be a more quintessentially American thing to do than to go on a road trip!
e. The Poor Farmers: In Arkansas, he comes upon a little group of Black farmers—a man, a pregnant woman, and a boy, all unrelated of course, who have a garden, small patches of corn and cotton, and some chickens and pigs. Having been poor before the “Great Disaster,” their lifestyle is not much altered. They are surviving and are not as likely to succumb to what Ish calls the “Secondary Kill”—the deaths caused, not by the pandemic itself, but by the lack of civilization’s conveniences.
f. The New Yorkers: In New York City, Ish meets apartment-dwellers Milt and Ann. They eat canned food, drink warm martinis, and listen to records on a wind-up phonograph. They’re nice people but they probably won’t survive the winter.
Having little experience of the world outside of New York City, I took to heart Stewart’s assessment of Milt and Ann and their prospects for long-term survival. Even with my stash of antibiotics, books, and dogs, I would probably end up no better than Milt and Ann. Like them, I’m a city-dweller, dependent on the city for my survival. Like them, I do not drive. But unlike Milt and Ann, I like to walk. So I might just kiss my books goodbye and start walking south.
But at least Milt and Ann have their wind-up phonograph. (Earth Abides was published in 1949.) Here I am in 2015 having upgraded from records to eight-tracks to audio cassettes to CDs to MP3s—all for this. A wind-up phonograph would be looking pretty good to me now. Instead I might have to dust off my guitar and toss it in the cart. In fact, I can see myself now, walking down the I-95, pushing a supermarket shopping cart full of antibiotics, canned food, bottled water, and doggie treats.
♫ Going down the road feeling bad ♫
But this is Ish’s chronicle, not mine.
Ish reflects that Milt and Ann’s way of life is the opposite of the poor farmers’ way of life. Milt and Ann are too “specialized” to adapt. Yet Ish says of them:
“It was a kind of make-believe. You pretended there was a world outside the windows; you were playing cards by candlelight because that was a pleasant thing to do; you did not trade reminiscences or talk of what you might think anyone would talk about under such circumstances. And Ish realized that this was proper and right. Normal people, and Milt and Ann seemed to be certainly normal, did not concern themselves much with either the distant past or the distant future. Fortunately, they lived in the present” (p. 73).
Although Milt and Ann “lived in the present” in the sense that they neither talk about the past nor plan for the future, they are actually living in the past. They’re living in a world of martinis and card games and phonograph records—a world that has died. Their way is “proper and right” not because it is a way to live but because it is a way to die. Milt and Ann have outlived their city. Nevertheless they maintain themselves and their world the best that they can and they do so with dignity.
All of the people Ish encounters in these first days and weeks underscore a theme that becomes prominent in the second part of the book:
3. The Difference Between Scavenging and Living Creatively: Unlike Milt and Ann, the Arkansas farmers are likely to survive. However, their regressive way of life is not ideal. Though they’re growing rather than scavenging, they’re not progressing. They’re at a stand still. They too are living in the past. This is symbolized by the cotton patch. They no longer need cotton, but they continue growing it because it is what they have always done.
Just as the first part of the book is the story of the individual, the second part is the story of the tribe.
Towards the end of part one there’s a powerful scene in which Ish watches the lights fade and eventually go out for good. “The Dark Ages were closing in” (p. 94). The line is wonderfully melodramatic, but it also provides a historical framework to the book. Traditionally the Middle Ages are called the Dark Ages because they are perceived as a period of stagnation. But the Middle Ages were not merely a thousand years of benighted barbarism separating the light of antique civilization from that of modern civilization. Much happened in those years to permit that light to be rekindled. And much will happen in the lives of Ish and his tiny tribe as they face the challenges of living in a post-apocalyptic world.
As Ish chronicles his life with the Tribe, he poses questions related to the main theme of the book:
4. The Problem of Civilization: People create civilization to better their lives, yet despite all the benefits of civilization, it also introduces new troubles. Man’s progress from the state of nature to civilization is a double-edged sword. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of the philosophers who have confronted the problem of civilization. In Discourse on the Arts and Sciences and Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau outlines a philosophy of history that may be relevant to Ish’s world.
a. The Noble Savage: This is the individual in the state of nature—solitary, happy, healthy, and good.
b. Nascent Society: This is the first form of society and, according to Rousseau, the best. It is a gentler life than that lived in the state of nature. This is the life of settled homes and the nuclear family. It is midway between the state of nature and civilization.
c. Pre-Political Society: This is where society starts to go wrong. The introduction of a social contract, division of labor, and private property lead to inequality, egotism, and greed.
d. Civilization: This is the artistically, culturally, and scientifically sophisticated society that inevitably becomes corrupt. Rousseau argued that the primitive innocence of the noble savage was morally superior to the great civilizations because great civilizations always decay due to cultural progress.
At the beginning of part one Ish is on his own. His life resembles that of Rousseau’s noble savage. Then he meets Em. They have a baby and the family is born.
“After all, he thought, the family was the toughest of all human institutions. It had preceded civilization, so it naturally survived afterward” (p. 170).
The Tribe in part two is a nascent society. This little group, seven adults and an ever-growing number of children, are happy. They scavenge from the remnants of civilization and they hunt the wildlife that have returned since the death of civilization.
There’s only one thing wrong with all of this, and it’s not really an issue for anyone except Ish ~ and me. There’s a big beautiful university library full of the knowledge—the art and culture and science—of our great civilization and he can’t get the children interested in learning to read!
Every time I heard myself thinking, “Ish, you’ve got to try harder. You’ve got to make them want to learn,” I soon realized that I probably could not have done any more than he did. The children weren’t interested and the other adults could not see how important it was for the children to be able to read.
I kept thinking, “they need to read books so they can become physicians and engineers, plumbers, electricians, and mechanics. They need to get our technology functioning again.” Yet in my imagination I saw myself standing before the children discussing history and philosophy, art and literature. I began to wonder, “What is it that I want so passionately to restore? I mean, of course I want hot showers and modern dentistry and a way to listen to my MP3s, but underneath these practical concerns is something much more abstract. It’s not just the comforts and conveniences of civilization that I want back. It’s our history, our cultural achievements, our art that must not be allowed to pass from the earth.” Thus Ish’s own reading list made perfect sense to me.
“Although he often thought that he should use his reading to make himself skillful in such fields as medicine and agriculture and mechanics, he found that what he actually wanted to read was the story of mankind. He plunged through innumerable volumes of anthropology and history, and went on into philosophy, particularly the philosophy of history. He read novels and poems and plays, which also were the story of mankind” (p. 132).
The younger generations, the children born after the Great Disaster, feel no connection to the human civilization that lived and died before they were born. But it’s not just intellectual knowledge that is being lost. Before the Great Disaster, George was a carpenter. When something needs to be repaired, it’s George who fixes it. He has more practical knowledge than anyone. Yet no one tries to learn carpentry from him. When he brings up the subject of rigging up a gas-powered refrigerator they likewise show no interest. Perhaps this is human nature. Ish observes:
“The boys, who had never known what it was to have ice, had no urge to make them go to the work of obtaining it” (p. 154).
I should do well to remember that these are all ordinary people. They’re not explorers or pioneers or inventors. They’re just regular folks who are getting along as best as they can and not doing too badly at it. Instead of acting, they react. Instead of doing, they make-do. When the toilets stop working, they dig latrines. Perhaps this is just human nature. And I don’t think the problem of civilization can be properly understood without some understanding of human nature.
Another example of human nature in action concerns religion. Ish’s hammer becomes a ritual object and Ish himself a god-like figure despite the Tribe being nonreligious ~ or perhaps because of it. Early on, the three adults who were religious (two Catholics and one Methodist) wanted church services, especially for the children, but the Tribe’s attempt at Church fell as flat as the attempt at school. Although Ish worried that superstitions might arise in a religious “vacuum” (p. 223), as a skeptic, he felt uncomfortable leading church services. Perhaps a need for supernatural beliefs is a part of human nature. But inevitable or not, superstitions did develop and ironically Ish himself was the focus of them.
This brings back that question of the relationship between the individual and the world:
“Again he wondered, as so often before, what really were springs of action. Did it come from the man inside? Or from the world, the outside” (p. 266)?
If civilization is not inevitable, then the Tribe might continue indefinitely at the stage of nascent society. Yet if pressure from the outside world is the catalyst for change, this hardly seems likely. Needs will arise which will have to be met. The Tribe has already had occasion to respond to a crisis by organizing as a body, as a “state.” Given enough time, they may build a new civilization. But would this be desirable?
Just as the death of most of the human race led to the end of many diseases, so the death of civilization led to the end of the problem of civilization.
“What a strange thing then is this great civilization, that no sooner have men attained it than they seek to flee from it” (p. 293)!
In the short third part of the book, Ish accepts the passing away of civilization. Nevertheless, given enough time the Tribe may build a new civilization which in turn will go the way of every civilization before it, repeating a historical cycle of rising and falling, rising and falling civilizations.
This cyclical view of history is reinforced by the Biblical book from which Stewart takes his title: Ecclesiastes. In fact, Ecclesiastes is the only Biblical book to take a cyclical view of history. The rest are linear. But the cyclical Ecclesiastes exists within the otherwise linear view of history of the rest of the Bible. Ish expresses it thus:
“‘History repeats itself,’ he thought, ‘but always with variations’” (p. 189).
Ish desires that the cycle of civilization not be repeated. The Tribe has a satisfying and successful way of life. Like Rousseau, Ish seems to have reached the painful conclusion that for all its sophisticated art, culture, and science, for all its suspension bridges and university libraries, civilization is founded on “slavery and conquest and war and oppression” (p. 344).
But the words that ring in my mind after finishing this novel are not those of Ish but of Em, who Ish so often called “Mother of Nations” ~ the epithet of the Biblical Sarah:
“Not by denying life was life lived” (p. 111).
There is creativity in Ish’s Tribe, in his grandchildren and great-grandchildren; there’s life and love of life, so there is hope for their future.
By April, Rome had fallen and we were in the Dark Ages. Western Civilization had reached its lowest ebb. Hundreds of years of barbarism followed. But civilization did not completely die. It held on, in Kenneth Clark’s words, by “The Skin of Our Teeth.” In a little corner of the world, against all odds, some Irish monks were copying Bibles. This made possible a brief return to literacy during the Age of Charlemagne and this Carolingian Renaissance likewise made possible the rebirth of civilization ~ just in time for summer vacation. The course resumed in the fall with the rise of modern Europe, the scientific revolution, a couple of World Wars, and then ended the semester in the present. We had arrived.
George R. Stewart’s Earth Abides begins where my survey of Western Civilization ends ~ with what might happen next. Yet what I love most about this book is that it raises several philosophical questions about civilization in general and Western civilization in particular.
Civilizations die. There’s no doubt about that. And new civilizations emerge among the ruins of the old. Civilization may not be inevitable, but then again, as an act of human creativity, perhaps it is inevitable. Perhaps human creativity, sooner or later, will always lead to the rise of civilization. At any rate, it happens often enough to seem nearly inevitable. But whether civilization is inevitable or not, a second question arises: Is it desirable?
The book is divided into three parts. The first part is the story of the individual. Ish must adapt to a world suddenly bereft of civilization. Two themes appear in this part of the book:
1. Earth Without Man: As a shy intellectual geography student, Ish naturally assumes the role of observer. As such, he pays attention to the changes in the natural world following the demise of most of the human race. This part of the book is a fascinating account of a world reverting to nature: the overgrowth of vegetation, the crumbling infrastructure, the encroaching rust, wildfires, feral dogs, and rapid increases in the populations of ants and rats followed by equally rapid die offs. Interestingly, the disaster that decimated the human race was equally catastrophic to human parasites like lice and various diseases. Without human hosts, they faced extinction too.
2. The Balance Between the Individual and the World: Ish ponders the relationship between himself and everything that is not himself. As the world changes, he is changed; and as he changes, so the world is changed. It is an “equation” in which the two sides always strive for balance (p. 97). This theme becomes even more important in the second part of the book where the question is not about the individual but about society.
Stewart’s story-telling is realistic, so realistic that I found myself wondering what I would do if the “Great Disaster” were to happen. Being a bit of a hypochondriac, I would probably gather up every type of antibiotic the pharmacies had. I would also have to be much more careful with my reading glasses, lest I end up like Burgess Meredith in “Time Enough at Last.” And for safety and companionship, I would surely find myself some dogs before they all went feral.
There are so many ways a person could respond to such a crisis and Stewart provides a small but representative sampling of a few survivors.
a. The Drunk: Unable to cope with the situation, Mr. Barlow simply drinks himself to death.
b. The Dangerous Couple: A hostile man with a gun and his tawdry female companion have a predatory vibe and Ish retreats from them quickly.
c. The Frightened Teenager: The teenage girl runs away at the sight of Ish. He speculates about the perils of being a young woman alone in a lawless world.
d. The Hoarder: An old man collects everything he can get his hands on whether useful or useless.
Ish sees the hoarder as “essentially dead” (p. 34). The same might be said of the other survivors. These are the people who are so damaged by the shock that they have lost their humanity. They are the living dead ~ a phrase I can’t help but use here. Having seen my fair share of zombie apocalypse movies, I find the metaphor apt. These are the real living dead, the real zombies, the people who become withdrawn and psychologically dead.
Later he meets people who are faring better than these walking corpses. He decides to search for other survivors by driving cross-country from Berkeley to New York. What could be a more quintessentially American thing to do than to go on a road trip!
e. The Poor Farmers: In Arkansas, he comes upon a little group of Black farmers—a man, a pregnant woman, and a boy, all unrelated of course, who have a garden, small patches of corn and cotton, and some chickens and pigs. Having been poor before the “Great Disaster,” their lifestyle is not much altered. They are surviving and are not as likely to succumb to what Ish calls the “Secondary Kill”—the deaths caused, not by the pandemic itself, but by the lack of civilization’s conveniences.
f. The New Yorkers: In New York City, Ish meets apartment-dwellers Milt and Ann. They eat canned food, drink warm martinis, and listen to records on a wind-up phonograph. They’re nice people but they probably won’t survive the winter.
Having little experience of the world outside of New York City, I took to heart Stewart’s assessment of Milt and Ann and their prospects for long-term survival. Even with my stash of antibiotics, books, and dogs, I would probably end up no better than Milt and Ann. Like them, I’m a city-dweller, dependent on the city for my survival. Like them, I do not drive. But unlike Milt and Ann, I like to walk. So I might just kiss my books goodbye and start walking south.
But at least Milt and Ann have their wind-up phonograph. (Earth Abides was published in 1949.) Here I am in 2015 having upgraded from records to eight-tracks to audio cassettes to CDs to MP3s—all for this. A wind-up phonograph would be looking pretty good to me now. Instead I might have to dust off my guitar and toss it in the cart. In fact, I can see myself now, walking down the I-95, pushing a supermarket shopping cart full of antibiotics, canned food, bottled water, and doggie treats.
♫ Going down the road feeling bad ♫
But this is Ish’s chronicle, not mine.
Ish reflects that Milt and Ann’s way of life is the opposite of the poor farmers’ way of life. Milt and Ann are too “specialized” to adapt. Yet Ish says of them:
“It was a kind of make-believe. You pretended there was a world outside the windows; you were playing cards by candlelight because that was a pleasant thing to do; you did not trade reminiscences or talk of what you might think anyone would talk about under such circumstances. And Ish realized that this was proper and right. Normal people, and Milt and Ann seemed to be certainly normal, did not concern themselves much with either the distant past or the distant future. Fortunately, they lived in the present” (p. 73).
Although Milt and Ann “lived in the present” in the sense that they neither talk about the past nor plan for the future, they are actually living in the past. They’re living in a world of martinis and card games and phonograph records—a world that has died. Their way is “proper and right” not because it is a way to live but because it is a way to die. Milt and Ann have outlived their city. Nevertheless they maintain themselves and their world the best that they can and they do so with dignity.
All of the people Ish encounters in these first days and weeks underscore a theme that becomes prominent in the second part of the book:
3. The Difference Between Scavenging and Living Creatively: Unlike Milt and Ann, the Arkansas farmers are likely to survive. However, their regressive way of life is not ideal. Though they’re growing rather than scavenging, they’re not progressing. They’re at a stand still. They too are living in the past. This is symbolized by the cotton patch. They no longer need cotton, but they continue growing it because it is what they have always done.
Just as the first part of the book is the story of the individual, the second part is the story of the tribe.
Towards the end of part one there’s a powerful scene in which Ish watches the lights fade and eventually go out for good. “The Dark Ages were closing in” (p. 94). The line is wonderfully melodramatic, but it also provides a historical framework to the book. Traditionally the Middle Ages are called the Dark Ages because they are perceived as a period of stagnation. But the Middle Ages were not merely a thousand years of benighted barbarism separating the light of antique civilization from that of modern civilization. Much happened in those years to permit that light to be rekindled. And much will happen in the lives of Ish and his tiny tribe as they face the challenges of living in a post-apocalyptic world.
As Ish chronicles his life with the Tribe, he poses questions related to the main theme of the book:
4. The Problem of Civilization: People create civilization to better their lives, yet despite all the benefits of civilization, it also introduces new troubles. Man’s progress from the state of nature to civilization is a double-edged sword. Jean-Jacques Rousseau is one of the philosophers who have confronted the problem of civilization. In Discourse on the Arts and Sciences and Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau outlines a philosophy of history that may be relevant to Ish’s world.
a. The Noble Savage: This is the individual in the state of nature—solitary, happy, healthy, and good.
b. Nascent Society: This is the first form of society and, according to Rousseau, the best. It is a gentler life than that lived in the state of nature. This is the life of settled homes and the nuclear family. It is midway between the state of nature and civilization.
c. Pre-Political Society: This is where society starts to go wrong. The introduction of a social contract, division of labor, and private property lead to inequality, egotism, and greed.
d. Civilization: This is the artistically, culturally, and scientifically sophisticated society that inevitably becomes corrupt. Rousseau argued that the primitive innocence of the noble savage was morally superior to the great civilizations because great civilizations always decay due to cultural progress.
At the beginning of part one Ish is on his own. His life resembles that of Rousseau’s noble savage. Then he meets Em. They have a baby and the family is born.
“After all, he thought, the family was the toughest of all human institutions. It had preceded civilization, so it naturally survived afterward” (p. 170).
The Tribe in part two is a nascent society. This little group, seven adults and an ever-growing number of children, are happy. They scavenge from the remnants of civilization and they hunt the wildlife that have returned since the death of civilization.
There’s only one thing wrong with all of this, and it’s not really an issue for anyone except Ish ~ and me. There’s a big beautiful university library full of the knowledge—the art and culture and science—of our great civilization and he can’t get the children interested in learning to read!
Every time I heard myself thinking, “Ish, you’ve got to try harder. You’ve got to make them want to learn,” I soon realized that I probably could not have done any more than he did. The children weren’t interested and the other adults could not see how important it was for the children to be able to read.
I kept thinking, “they need to read books so they can become physicians and engineers, plumbers, electricians, and mechanics. They need to get our technology functioning again.” Yet in my imagination I saw myself standing before the children discussing history and philosophy, art and literature. I began to wonder, “What is it that I want so passionately to restore? I mean, of course I want hot showers and modern dentistry and a way to listen to my MP3s, but underneath these practical concerns is something much more abstract. It’s not just the comforts and conveniences of civilization that I want back. It’s our history, our cultural achievements, our art that must not be allowed to pass from the earth.” Thus Ish’s own reading list made perfect sense to me.
“Although he often thought that he should use his reading to make himself skillful in such fields as medicine and agriculture and mechanics, he found that what he actually wanted to read was the story of mankind. He plunged through innumerable volumes of anthropology and history, and went on into philosophy, particularly the philosophy of history. He read novels and poems and plays, which also were the story of mankind” (p. 132).
The younger generations, the children born after the Great Disaster, feel no connection to the human civilization that lived and died before they were born. But it’s not just intellectual knowledge that is being lost. Before the Great Disaster, George was a carpenter. When something needs to be repaired, it’s George who fixes it. He has more practical knowledge than anyone. Yet no one tries to learn carpentry from him. When he brings up the subject of rigging up a gas-powered refrigerator they likewise show no interest. Perhaps this is human nature. Ish observes:
“The boys, who had never known what it was to have ice, had no urge to make them go to the work of obtaining it” (p. 154).
I should do well to remember that these are all ordinary people. They’re not explorers or pioneers or inventors. They’re just regular folks who are getting along as best as they can and not doing too badly at it. Instead of acting, they react. Instead of doing, they make-do. When the toilets stop working, they dig latrines. Perhaps this is just human nature. And I don’t think the problem of civilization can be properly understood without some understanding of human nature.
Another example of human nature in action concerns religion. Ish’s hammer becomes a ritual object and Ish himself a god-like figure despite the Tribe being nonreligious ~ or perhaps because of it. Early on, the three adults who were religious (two Catholics and one Methodist) wanted church services, especially for the children, but the Tribe’s attempt at Church fell as flat as the attempt at school. Although Ish worried that superstitions might arise in a religious “vacuum” (p. 223), as a skeptic, he felt uncomfortable leading church services. Perhaps a need for supernatural beliefs is a part of human nature. But inevitable or not, superstitions did develop and ironically Ish himself was the focus of them.
This brings back that question of the relationship between the individual and the world:
“Again he wondered, as so often before, what really were springs of action. Did it come from the man inside? Or from the world, the outside” (p. 266)?
If civilization is not inevitable, then the Tribe might continue indefinitely at the stage of nascent society. Yet if pressure from the outside world is the catalyst for change, this hardly seems likely. Needs will arise which will have to be met. The Tribe has already had occasion to respond to a crisis by organizing as a body, as a “state.” Given enough time, they may build a new civilization. But would this be desirable?
Just as the death of most of the human race led to the end of many diseases, so the death of civilization led to the end of the problem of civilization.
“What a strange thing then is this great civilization, that no sooner have men attained it than they seek to flee from it” (p. 293)!
In the short third part of the book, Ish accepts the passing away of civilization. Nevertheless, given enough time the Tribe may build a new civilization which in turn will go the way of every civilization before it, repeating a historical cycle of rising and falling, rising and falling civilizations.
This cyclical view of history is reinforced by the Biblical book from which Stewart takes his title: Ecclesiastes. In fact, Ecclesiastes is the only Biblical book to take a cyclical view of history. The rest are linear. But the cyclical Ecclesiastes exists within the otherwise linear view of history of the rest of the Bible. Ish expresses it thus:
“‘History repeats itself,’ he thought, ‘but always with variations’” (p. 189).
Ish desires that the cycle of civilization not be repeated. The Tribe has a satisfying and successful way of life. Like Rousseau, Ish seems to have reached the painful conclusion that for all its sophisticated art, culture, and science, for all its suspension bridges and university libraries, civilization is founded on “slavery and conquest and war and oppression” (p. 344).
But the words that ring in my mind after finishing this novel are not those of Ish but of Em, who Ish so often called “Mother of Nations” ~ the epithet of the Biblical Sarah:
“Not by denying life was life lived” (p. 111).
There is creativity in Ish’s Tribe, in his grandchildren and great-grandchildren; there’s life and love of life, so there is hope for their future.
July 26, 2017
"Take er easy Earth."
"Yeah, well, the Earth Abides"
THE definitive post-apocalyptic novel.
First published in 1949, this has some dating but has stood the test of time remarkably well. Modern readers may notice some post-ap clichés and oft used techniques, but the same reader must consider that Stewart's remarkable work may have been the origin of many of this sub-grenre’s elements.
This is an archetypal work that should be on a MUST read list for any true fan of speculative fiction. While reading, I thought of many other works, most notably Stephen King’s The Stand. King said of Stewart’s novel, published some thirty years earlier than his epic, that Earth Abides was a great influence on him.
Whereas King added theological and mystical elements, Stewart’s survivors are taking care of business in a minimalist reset of society.
Isherwood Williams is the Last American as a second and third generation after the catastrophe is explored and Ish witnesses first hand the beginning of a new legend as his own generation evolves into myth.
The final scenes of Ish at the library is one of the great moments in speculative fiction.
"Yeah, well, the Earth Abides"
THE definitive post-apocalyptic novel.
First published in 1949, this has some dating but has stood the test of time remarkably well. Modern readers may notice some post-ap clichés and oft used techniques, but the same reader must consider that Stewart's remarkable work may have been the origin of many of this sub-grenre’s elements.
This is an archetypal work that should be on a MUST read list for any true fan of speculative fiction. While reading, I thought of many other works, most notably Stephen King’s The Stand. King said of Stewart’s novel, published some thirty years earlier than his epic, that Earth Abides was a great influence on him.
Whereas King added theological and mystical elements, Stewart’s survivors are taking care of business in a minimalist reset of society.
Isherwood Williams is the Last American as a second and third generation after the catastrophe is explored and Ish witnesses first hand the beginning of a new legend as his own generation evolves into myth.
The final scenes of Ish at the library is one of the great moments in speculative fiction.
July 8, 2024
To begin with I must state this is the best post-apocalyptic novel and I've read so many but not all. A plague hits the world set in the United States during the late 40s and the human race like flies fall to the ground in bunches, an endless profusion of people expiring in bed, still miracles occur, a few for an unknown reason stay standing , this is the straightforward plot. One of the lucky or unlucky depending on your point of view by the odd name of Isherwood ( Ish ) Williams camping in the high Sierra Nevada mountains of northern California just to get away from civilization. He will get his wish and then some as the disease quickly terminates the Earth people while Ish recovers from a snake bite seemingly a break for him in an abandoned cabin. Weird things happen though, strangers sneak in look terrified seeing Mr. Williams sick in a bunk fleeing in panic...why ? Discovers the unhealthy circumstance as the Berkeley University graduate student who had gone away because of too much pressure gets rewarded a plenty then but not in a good way. The story becomes a mystery when Ish searches across the almost 3,000 miles wide land from sea to now empty sea , however only a handful of beings spotted . These are not the type to rebuilt America or the Earth, returning to California the roads deteriorating , trees blocking the paths, deadly lightning strikes causing forest fires, old automobiles soon become useless the friendless man needs friends. Emma found, a decade older not book smart still has wisdom, mixed blooded, she makes the shy loner happy, Ezra an Englishman with two wives the planet needs children, George an intellectual... not quite, yet a splendid carpenter repairs anything , a few dozens in the new settlement in dusty houses, the owners left in good condition, poor Evie the prettiest girl in the group has mental problems. Ish the ineffectual leader the best educated but nevertheless the kind that are liked but not taken seriously. Schools, he teaches badly, mentions plumbing, growing crops, rebuilding, and restarting the culture they agree still that's for tomorrow which never arrives. A good guess by the writer if the collapse comes, this unfortunate premise could become fact. My second read of the novel and this hasn't diminished its impact and the dismal narrative continues to impress even though written seventy-five years ago, maybe things have changed immensely but people are people.
March 28, 2024
Rating: 4* of five
A six-episode limited series is coming soon on MGM.
The Publisher Says: A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he'd either dreaded or hoped for.
My Review: Call him Isherwood. (Cause that's his name.) On a camping trip in the mountains, Ish gets bitten by a rattlesnake and barely survives. Clearly he can't call for help on his cell because 1) the mountains and 2) 1949. After all his sufferings, Ish drives down the mountain and finds humanity...in Los Angeles...gone. Just not there. (Oddly, there are also not heaping mounds of dead bodies everywhere...he's only been gone a week or so, and the Plague killed quick. That nit being picked, I resume.) Ish spends his time alternately looking for survivors and ruminating on the justice and inevitability of the plague:
When he stops being stunned, he sets out to contact and assess his fellow survivors. He spends a lot of the book out a-wanderin', and he picks up here and there some fellow remnants. No one is a medical research genius or a high government official or anything, thank goodness, so no one knows where this plague came from, how many are dead in other places, or any of that other stuff that pockmarks other post-apocalyptic stories I've read. I completely buy that the survivors are shocked and isolated, where I've always been hmmphy about the better-informed-character stories.
Any road, time passes, life goes on, babies are born and people die and food is grown in tune with nature. We revert, in other words, to the way things were for ~10,000 years before monoculture and factory farming. Ish ages, and the younger people without strong attachments to the pre-apocalyptic world start to think about what the meaning of life is:
If there is an apocalypse while I'm alive, I'm makin' this my post-apocalyptic mission: Disestablishing religion. Ish is my soul-brother in this regard. But as you can imagine, he's fighting a rear-guard action despite being the oldest person anyone knows, and also the last survivor of Before in the Now. Having lived through the AIDS apocalypse, some days I feel the same way.
And as it must, Death comes for Ish at last, putting an end to his moanings about the stupidity of the human race for making the same mistakes that cost us so dearly before, his pessimistic views on the sustainability of his made tribe, and his invaluable store of knowledge...despite the fact that the whippersnappers don't listen:
I suspect all of us over a Certain Age feel this way to a greater or lesser degree. Plague or no plague, Youth isn't inclined to listen to Age, and apocalypse is relative. My apocalypse...the endangerment of tree books...is youth's Bright New Dawn, bulkless environmentally sound infinite stories! Yes, I'm going, I'm going, stop pushing me!
A six-episode limited series is coming soon on MGM.
The Publisher Says: A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he'd either dreaded or hoped for.
My Review: Call him Isherwood. (Cause that's his name.) On a camping trip in the mountains, Ish gets bitten by a rattlesnake and barely survives. Clearly he can't call for help on his cell because 1) the mountains and 2) 1949. After all his sufferings, Ish drives down the mountain and finds humanity...in Los Angeles...gone. Just not there. (Oddly, there are also not heaping mounds of dead bodies everywhere...he's only been gone a week or so, and the Plague killed quick. That nit being picked, I resume.) Ish spends his time alternately looking for survivors and ruminating on the justice and inevitability of the plague:
As for man, there is little reason to think that he can in the long run escape the fate of other creatures, and if there is a biological law of flux and reflux, his situation is now a highly perilous one. During ten thousand years his numbers have been on the upgrade in spite of wars, pestilences, and famines. This increase in population has become more and more rapid. Biologically, man has for too long a time been rolling an uninterrupted run of sevens.
When he stops being stunned, he sets out to contact and assess his fellow survivors. He spends a lot of the book out a-wanderin', and he picks up here and there some fellow remnants. No one is a medical research genius or a high government official or anything, thank goodness, so no one knows where this plague came from, how many are dead in other places, or any of that other stuff that pockmarks other post-apocalyptic stories I've read. I completely buy that the survivors are shocked and isolated, where I've always been hmmphy about the better-informed-character stories.
Any road, time passes, life goes on, babies are born and people die and food is grown in tune with nature. We revert, in other words, to the way things were for ~10,000 years before monoculture and factory farming. Ish ages, and the younger people without strong attachments to the pre-apocalyptic world start to think about what the meaning of life is:
If there is a God who made us and we did wrong before His eyes—as George says—at least we did wrong only because we were as God made us, and I do not think that He should set traps. Oh, you should know better than George! Let us not bring all that back into the world again—the angry God, the mean God—the one who does not tell us the rules of the game, and then strikes us when we break them. Let us not bring Him back.
If there is an apocalypse while I'm alive, I'm makin' this my post-apocalyptic mission: Disestablishing religion. Ish is my soul-brother in this regard. But as you can imagine, he's fighting a rear-guard action despite being the oldest person anyone knows, and also the last survivor of Before in the Now. Having lived through the AIDS apocalypse, some days I feel the same way.
And as it must, Death comes for Ish at last, putting an end to his moanings about the stupidity of the human race for making the same mistakes that cost us so dearly before, his pessimistic views on the sustainability of his made tribe, and his invaluable store of knowledge...despite the fact that the whippersnappers don't listen:
Then, though his sight was now very dim, he looked again at the young men. "They will commit me to the earth," he thought. "Yet I also commit them to the earth. There is nothing else by which men live. Men go and come, but earth abides."
I suspect all of us over a Certain Age feel this way to a greater or lesser degree. Plague or no plague, Youth isn't inclined to listen to Age, and apocalypse is relative. My apocalypse...the endangerment of tree books...is youth's Bright New Dawn, bulkless environmentally sound infinite stories! Yes, I'm going, I'm going, stop pushing me!
June 9, 2013
If I were to teach an upper-level college writing class, I’d use this book as the foundation for my semester. Just as secret service agents need real, expertly crafted, counterfeit bills removed from circulation and brought into their classroom to learn how to identify bad paper, every writer needs a counterfeit novel that made it into circulation and received praise. Through deconstruction of this book, I could teach almost everything writers shouldn’t do.
Hundreds of places the author could have ‘shown us’, with suspense, but instead ‘tells us’, with none (As an example, this is all we are told about our main character being attacked by a mountain lion): ...In the end there was bad luck, because Ish missed his shot and instead of killing a lion merely raked it across the shoulders, and it charged and mauled him before Ezra could get another shot home. After that he walked with a little limp,...
And this, I believe, is the author’s failed attempt at suspense, which actually results in confusion (I’ve omitted nothing): ...one question, he knew, that they had not yet faced, and now she brought it forward.
“That would be fine!” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, it would.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You mean you don’t like it for me?”
“Yes. It’s dangerous. There’d be no one else but me, and I wouldn’t be any use.”
“But you can read—all the books.”
“Books!” he laughed a little as he spoke. “The Practical Midwife?"...
The first sentence was probably supposed to read: …and now he brought it forward…. But even without the typo, this is not only horrible dialogue, (one of several in a book desperately short on dialogue) as well as a glance at massive misuse of exclamation points, (three times on every page, minimum) but a good example of the authors incessant self-censorship and avoidance of certain words and descriptions. He not only avoids reference to human intercourse, but birth, death, pain, anger, hatred, bigotry and bloodshed. In a story detailing a handful of human survivors, in 1949 California, after a planet-wide plague—avoiding those topics (or glossing over them) becomes a herd of white dinosaurs in the bathroom.
There are thousands of poorly constructed sentences (like this one, which contains a large word-proximity hiccup): …He began to temporize, just as he used to do when he said that he had a great deal of work to do and so buried himself in a book instead of going to a dance. …
Factual errors, which could have been avoided with a small amount of research, are prevalent (here are two):
…batteries with the acid not yet in them...they made the experiment of pouring the acid into a battery…put it into the station-wagon. It worked perfectly… (I guess in 1949, putting battery acid in the battery charged it too!)
…The clock was run, he knew, by electrical impulses which were ordinarily timed at sixty to the minute. Now they must be coming less often… (AC power is 60 pulses per second).
This book contains one main character and dozens of secondary characters we never grow to care about. On almost every page a situation unfolds that could be easily re-written to involve the reader in the action, infuse the character(s) with depth and emotions, or add suspense to the plot. Instead, the story centers around an emotionally dead man who preaches to a bland cast of less-than-ordinary, paper-cut-out idiots about their failure to reach for a fraction of their potential, while he wallows in an uncomfortable rut and never lifts a finger to attain any of his own potential.
Aspiring writers and educators should use this counterfeit paper, available for less than the price of a cup of coffee at used bookstores, as a valuable learning/teaching tool. Where books filled with examples of great writing abound—it's nice to have something chock-full of such a concentrated and vast range of terrible writing to weigh down the other end of the scale.
Hundreds of places the author could have ‘shown us’, with suspense, but instead ‘tells us’, with none (As an example, this is all we are told about our main character being attacked by a mountain lion): ...In the end there was bad luck, because Ish missed his shot and instead of killing a lion merely raked it across the shoulders, and it charged and mauled him before Ezra could get another shot home. After that he walked with a little limp,...
And this, I believe, is the author’s failed attempt at suspense, which actually results in confusion (I’ve omitted nothing): ...one question, he knew, that they had not yet faced, and now she brought it forward.
“That would be fine!” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, it would.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You mean you don’t like it for me?”
“Yes. It’s dangerous. There’d be no one else but me, and I wouldn’t be any use.”
“But you can read—all the books.”
“Books!” he laughed a little as he spoke. “The Practical Midwife?"...
The first sentence was probably supposed to read: …and now he brought it forward…. But even without the typo, this is not only horrible dialogue, (one of several in a book desperately short on dialogue) as well as a glance at massive misuse of exclamation points, (three times on every page, minimum) but a good example of the authors incessant self-censorship and avoidance of certain words and descriptions. He not only avoids reference to human intercourse, but birth, death, pain, anger, hatred, bigotry and bloodshed. In a story detailing a handful of human survivors, in 1949 California, after a planet-wide plague—avoiding those topics (or glossing over them) becomes a herd of white dinosaurs in the bathroom.
There are thousands of poorly constructed sentences (like this one, which contains a large word-proximity hiccup): …He began to temporize, just as he used to do when he said that he had a great deal of work to do and so buried himself in a book instead of going to a dance. …
Factual errors, which could have been avoided with a small amount of research, are prevalent (here are two):
…batteries with the acid not yet in them...they made the experiment of pouring the acid into a battery…put it into the station-wagon. It worked perfectly… (I guess in 1949, putting battery acid in the battery charged it too!)
…The clock was run, he knew, by electrical impulses which were ordinarily timed at sixty to the minute. Now they must be coming less often… (AC power is 60 pulses per second).
This book contains one main character and dozens of secondary characters we never grow to care about. On almost every page a situation unfolds that could be easily re-written to involve the reader in the action, infuse the character(s) with depth and emotions, or add suspense to the plot. Instead, the story centers around an emotionally dead man who preaches to a bland cast of less-than-ordinary, paper-cut-out idiots about their failure to reach for a fraction of their potential, while he wallows in an uncomfortable rut and never lifts a finger to attain any of his own potential.
Aspiring writers and educators should use this counterfeit paper, available for less than the price of a cup of coffee at used bookstores, as a valuable learning/teaching tool. Where books filled with examples of great writing abound—it's nice to have something chock-full of such a concentrated and vast range of terrible writing to weigh down the other end of the scale.
March 21, 2021
Hello, my name is Jenna, and I'm a germaphobe.
Even before the pandemic, I worried about all those creepy, crawly, virusy, microscopic murderers lurking on just about every surface. Ok, no, not every creepy, crawly, virusy, microscopic thing can kill us - the majority don't even make us sick - but that doesn't stop my brain from being consumed by those teensy, tiny....things.
A normal person washes their hands once. Me? Two, three, seven times... and I still worry there's a virus or some salmonella-causing bacterium clinging to my hands, nefariously refusing to disappear down the drain.
And so, when the pandemic hit and many of my friends were reading books about epidemics and pandemics and creepy, crawly, evil viruses, I kept my distance. I didn't need one more reason to
I still won't read a nonfiction book about viruses and the probability of future pandemics, but a fictitious story about a pandemic that wipes out 99% of humanity?
Earth Abides tells the story of Ish, a man who survives when an air-borne virus wipes out most humans. He travels from his home in San Francisco across the United States to New York City. He finds only a handful of other survivors, none of whom he wishes to remain with.
Ish is a loner and doesn't mind being on his own. This probably helps Ish keep his sanity during the long days and nights when he has no one but his dog to talk to.
He decides to return to California where he meets Em. Ish and Em become a couple, and eventually some other people turn up and join them.
This is Ish's story. He narrates what he observes, both of the other people in his tribe and of the way nature takes over after civilization collapses. It is a quiet book, contemplative, and yet a page-turner.
Thankfully Covid-19 hasn't been nearly as destructive to human life as the virus in Earth Abides. However, it is a reminder that in spite of all our technology and the fact that humans now dominate Earth, we are just one more animal trying to survive in a world that doesn't care about humans any more than it does cockroaches or pheasants or moles.
Humans will one day go extinct, along with all other species alive today. We are not special. Earth will continue to abide long after we are gone. Eventually though, it too will cease to exist. Our sun will turn into a red giant and vaporize this blue planet we call home.
This book was published in 1949 and the underlying racism and sexism that is typical of books from that time keep me from giving it five stars. However, it is a compelling look at how life goes on, with or without humans in control. It is also a study of how some people can survive when everything they know ceases to be, and how future generations might adapt to a world after civilization.
I am still a germaphobe after reading this book. Even after I'm vaccinated, I think I will be like Ish, who "began to feel an unreasoning fear of any stranger" and wanted to implement a two-hundred-yards law. Sounds like a good idea to me, Ish. Six feet is far from enough.
June 19, 2010
Men go and come but the earth abides.
I picked up Earth Abides because it was one of the inspirations for Stephen King's The Stand and because I've been in a post-apocalyptic mood lately. Earth Abides didn't disappoint.
It grabs you from the start. Isherwood Williams (Ish), gets bitten on the hand by a rattlesnake just after discovering an old hammer in the desert. After days of suffering from the rattler's bite, Ish wakes up and no one else is around. The beginning reminded me a little of Day of the Triffids but since this one was written first I couldn't complain.
At least a third of the world's population was wiped out by a plague. Ish theorizes that the venom in his veins protected him but we never find out why he survived. The rest of the book consists of Ish travelling across the country and eventually founding a tribe and leading them in the struggle for survival, all the while wondering if his tribe will repeat the mistakes of the past.
To sum up, Earth Abides is a welcome addition to any post-apoc fan's bookshelf. If it's good enough for Stephen King, it's good enough for you.
I picked up Earth Abides because it was one of the inspirations for Stephen King's The Stand and because I've been in a post-apocalyptic mood lately. Earth Abides didn't disappoint.
It grabs you from the start. Isherwood Williams (Ish), gets bitten on the hand by a rattlesnake just after discovering an old hammer in the desert. After days of suffering from the rattler's bite, Ish wakes up and no one else is around. The beginning reminded me a little of Day of the Triffids but since this one was written first I couldn't complain.
At least a third of the world's population was wiped out by a plague. Ish theorizes that the venom in his veins protected him but we never find out why he survived. The rest of the book consists of Ish travelling across the country and eventually founding a tribe and leading them in the struggle for survival, all the while wondering if his tribe will repeat the mistakes of the past.
To sum up, Earth Abides is a welcome addition to any post-apoc fan's bookshelf. If it's good enough for Stephen King, it's good enough for you.
February 5, 2011
Perhaps, he felt in his mind, that was the difference! That was the difference between woman and man. She felt only in terms of the immediate, and was more interested in being able to spot her child’s birthday than in all the future of civilization. Again, he felt superior to her.
I don't mind dated language in books, particularly when the book was written then. I don't mind dated ideas necessarily, as someone who likes classics and historical fiction. What I found in this book, which I had hoped to like as a fan of post-apocalyptic works and with a respect for its fathers, was that it dragged on slowly (albeit as slowly as time would drag on post-apocalypse), had little in the ways of interesting characters (I liked the dog more than the passive, egotistic protagonist, who, despite his sense of self-grandeur, was hardly a fountain of original thought), and that it did not redeem itself in any way. An interesting and perhaps accurate depiction of a speculative post-epidemic America, but with blinkers on.
The bleakness seeped into my consciousness like water oozing from a sponge of desolation, but unlike works like The Road, I found it not touching, not disturbing, not moving at all... just bleak and empty and rather devoid of character. And, yes, as the fact I quoted one of the more repulsive lines from this book, as a woman I felt put off by the misogyny in it. Ah, she may be the mother of nations, but woman, according to Earth Abides, is stupid, excitable, and unable of perceiving the same distant concepts and abstract notions that Ish and, indeed, Stewart are.
Then there are Evie and the native Americans Ish encounters early in the book. It would have been better, he had often thought, if they had merely put a can of sweet ant-poison within her reach somewhere. Well! I don't think Charlie thought so. And George certainly saw her as more than what he had written off when she was struggling as a child from the shock of the whole thing. Who knows? She was just Evie... none of the characters were particularly fleshed out, except Ish, and to an extent, Em and Joey. Joey's death was probably the most interesting part in the book.
It's not a terrible book, but I only finished it out of a sense of completionism. Even books I don't like have their place in my literary canon, refining my palate and reinforcing my contempt of certain ideas. Furthermore, by virtue of its citation as influences of greater works, and its place in post-apocalyptic literary history, it's at least notable, but I can't help but find that merit undeserved.
The rise and fall of humankind is a fascinating story, but I definitely think humans themselves are far more fascinating than this. Naturally its outdated worldview can be forgiven somewhat for its archaicness, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow.
PS I did enjoy this bit:
“Oh,” she cried, “do not ask me for more courage! I do not know the arguments. I never went to college. All I know is that we did what we thought best. If there is a God who made us and we did wrong before His eyes—as George says—at least we did wrong only because we were as God made us, and I do not think that He should set traps. Oh, you should know better than George! Let us not bring all that back into the world again—the angry God, the mean God—the one who does not tell us the rules of the game, and then strikes us when we break them. Let us not bring Him back! Not you too!”
In its defense, perhaps I was looking for something else in this book that was not there. Did I understand what it was converying, that men go and come while Earth abides? Yes, but somehow, I found it so colourless I could not really develop a conviction about it at all.
I don't mind dated language in books, particularly when the book was written then. I don't mind dated ideas necessarily, as someone who likes classics and historical fiction. What I found in this book, which I had hoped to like as a fan of post-apocalyptic works and with a respect for its fathers, was that it dragged on slowly (albeit as slowly as time would drag on post-apocalypse), had little in the ways of interesting characters (I liked the dog more than the passive, egotistic protagonist, who, despite his sense of self-grandeur, was hardly a fountain of original thought), and that it did not redeem itself in any way. An interesting and perhaps accurate depiction of a speculative post-epidemic America, but with blinkers on.
The bleakness seeped into my consciousness like water oozing from a sponge of desolation, but unlike works like The Road, I found it not touching, not disturbing, not moving at all... just bleak and empty and rather devoid of character. And, yes, as the fact I quoted one of the more repulsive lines from this book, as a woman I felt put off by the misogyny in it. Ah, she may be the mother of nations, but woman, according to Earth Abides, is stupid, excitable, and unable of perceiving the same distant concepts and abstract notions that Ish and, indeed, Stewart are.
Then there are Evie and the native Americans Ish encounters early in the book. It would have been better, he had often thought, if they had merely put a can of sweet ant-poison within her reach somewhere. Well! I don't think Charlie thought so. And George certainly saw her as more than what he had written off when she was struggling as a child from the shock of the whole thing. Who knows? She was just Evie... none of the characters were particularly fleshed out, except Ish, and to an extent, Em and Joey. Joey's death was probably the most interesting part in the book.
It's not a terrible book, but I only finished it out of a sense of completionism. Even books I don't like have their place in my literary canon, refining my palate and reinforcing my contempt of certain ideas. Furthermore, by virtue of its citation as influences of greater works, and its place in post-apocalyptic literary history, it's at least notable, but I can't help but find that merit undeserved.
The rise and fall of humankind is a fascinating story, but I definitely think humans themselves are far more fascinating than this. Naturally its outdated worldview can be forgiven somewhat for its archaicness, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow.
PS I did enjoy this bit:
“Oh,” she cried, “do not ask me for more courage! I do not know the arguments. I never went to college. All I know is that we did what we thought best. If there is a God who made us and we did wrong before His eyes—as George says—at least we did wrong only because we were as God made us, and I do not think that He should set traps. Oh, you should know better than George! Let us not bring all that back into the world again—the angry God, the mean God—the one who does not tell us the rules of the game, and then strikes us when we break them. Let us not bring Him back! Not you too!”
In its defense, perhaps I was looking for something else in this book that was not there. Did I understand what it was converying, that men go and come while Earth abides? Yes, but somehow, I found it so colourless I could not really develop a conviction about it at all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 13, 2021
A pandemic has wiped out much of the human race. We follow one man as he looks for other survivors. Written in 1949, it was fairly dated, but for obvious reasons it had its own taste of timeliness, too. I freely admit I picked this up after reading another review that noted that it was part of the inspiration for Stephen King when he penned The Stand. My interest was kept for the first part of the book, but it flagged after a while, turning into a bit of a slog. I just couldn't wrap my arms around it.
May 24, 2009
It comes across as a little dated. (When the hero sprays his pregnant wife's clothes with DDT because of flea concerns and it's considered a good thing, you gotta laugh.) But the core story holds up remarkably well.
Instead of the typical apocalyptic aftermath story with brave survivors fighting for survival, we get a small band of average people who would rather coast along by scrounging off the old world rather than trying to rebuild.
Stewart was doing a version of 'Life After People' decades before the new book and History channel series here with pretty detailed theories about the way things would break down. His view seems more optimistic than what would actually happen. (Electricity and running water lasting far longer than seems feasible.) But he obviously put a great deal of thought of how the break down of civilization would occur.
Instead of the typical apocalyptic aftermath story with brave survivors fighting for survival, we get a small band of average people who would rather coast along by scrounging off the old world rather than trying to rebuild.
Stewart was doing a version of 'Life After People' decades before the new book and History channel series here with pretty detailed theories about the way things would break down. His view seems more optimistic than what would actually happen. (Electricity and running water lasting far longer than seems feasible.) But he obviously put a great deal of thought of how the break down of civilization would occur.
June 11, 2012
Earth Abides, written in 1949, has a reputation as a landmark science fiction novel. It made Locus Magazine’s list of Best All Time Science Fiction and was a major inspiration for The Stand. I know a number of people who really enjoyed this book, and my dislike for it certainly puts me in the minority. However, I was very disappointed by this one and found it to be a real slog.
In Earth Abides, a super virus nearly wipes out the human race in the late 1940s. Only a handful of survivors remain across the globe. One of these is Isherwood Williams, the story’s protagonist. Ish spends the first part of the book meandering around on his own, before mercifully finding another significant character to talk to: a woman named Em. This is good for Ish, but not so good for Em because my first problem with this book is that -
#1: Ish is Insufferable
Isherwood Williams is not an easy guy to like. There are two central storylines in Earth Abides: the earth’s reversion to a natural state after the human population disappears, and the effect this disappearance has on the remaining humans. Once Ish and Em hook up with some other survivors, Ish quickly realizes he is the last person on Earth with a college degree and spends the rest of the book making sure we don’t forget it. George R. Stewart was a professor, and at times this book reads like an advertisement for the University of California. Ish’s fellow (non-collegiate) survivors are generally presented as dull, slow-witted individuals (with a few exceptions) incapable of long-term planning or deep thought. This makes Ish look like an elitist prig for the most part and it got very old, very fast. Poor Em has to put up with a lot of crap throughout this book but hanging out with Ish without braining him with a frying pan might have been her most impressive achievement. I can deal with a less-than-heroic protagonist (I loved Flashman, after all) if there’s a great story to be told but that brings us to problem #2…
#2: If the Earth Abides but Nothing Happens, Does Anyone Care?
This isn’t a “kitten-squisher” of a book (Richard’s term) but at 373 pages it’s not exactly a novella, either. And there is very little excitement over that span. I thought the first 100 pages, where Ish just wanders around looking at shit, was truly excruciating and while the action picks up a bit from there, it is still a very slow moving book. It would be one thing if Stewart was using the book to highlight some truly novel (and unexpected) consequences of a disaster like this. But instead, he spends page after page describing things like metal getting rusty, plants growing where normally they would be weeded/trimmed back, etc.
Now, not every book is going to read like a Michael Bay script. I have no problem diving into a slow moving cerebral book, even one with a pretentious jerk for a main character, if I’m being treated to some top-notch prose. Unfortunately, this leads to my third and largest problem with the book…
#3: The Writing! Drove Me Crazy!
Earth Abides tells a story where civilization has effectively bit the dust and a small group of survivors attempt to start the whole thing over from scratch. There are definitely some Adam & Eve themes in play here, and Stewart decides early on to adopt a semi-biblical tone. That’s fine in theory, but the results were truly painful to read. A sample:
"I have seen it again," Ish thought to himself. "The great pageant of the year! Now is the time of dryness and death. Now the god lies dying! Soon the rains will come, and then the hills will be green. At last one morning I shall look out westward, here from the porch, and I shall see the sun setting far to the south. Then we shall all go together, and I shall carve the number into the rock."
Think about reading dialogue like that for over 300 pages. For me, this wore thin very fast and quickly became grating. Also, the multiple exclamation marks above are not at all atypical. There must be well over a thousand littering these pages. At times, it read like a comic book:
”What is the fascination?” said Ish to Em.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. It’s just the attraction of a stranger, something new. Isn’t that natural?”
“There is trouble ahead!”
TO THE BATMOBILE!
Honestly, the thing that put me over the edge in this regard is the fact that George Stewart can actually write. Towards the very end of the book, Stewart cuts the crap and just writes like a normal person, no biblical affectations or exclamation point fixation or anything. And once he does, the book is pretty darn good, even moving at times. But it was far too little, too late.
Anyway. This book has an excellent reputation, and the book’s influence on the genre is undisputable. But I just can’t recommend it. 2 stars, and much closer to a 1 for me than a 3.
In Earth Abides, a super virus nearly wipes out the human race in the late 1940s. Only a handful of survivors remain across the globe. One of these is Isherwood Williams, the story’s protagonist. Ish spends the first part of the book meandering around on his own, before mercifully finding another significant character to talk to: a woman named Em. This is good for Ish, but not so good for Em because my first problem with this book is that -
#1: Ish is Insufferable
Isherwood Williams is not an easy guy to like. There are two central storylines in Earth Abides: the earth’s reversion to a natural state after the human population disappears, and the effect this disappearance has on the remaining humans. Once Ish and Em hook up with some other survivors, Ish quickly realizes he is the last person on Earth with a college degree and spends the rest of the book making sure we don’t forget it. George R. Stewart was a professor, and at times this book reads like an advertisement for the University of California. Ish’s fellow (non-collegiate) survivors are generally presented as dull, slow-witted individuals (with a few exceptions) incapable of long-term planning or deep thought. This makes Ish look like an elitist prig for the most part and it got very old, very fast. Poor Em has to put up with a lot of crap throughout this book but hanging out with Ish without braining him with a frying pan might have been her most impressive achievement. I can deal with a less-than-heroic protagonist (I loved Flashman, after all) if there’s a great story to be told but that brings us to problem #2…
#2: If the Earth Abides but Nothing Happens, Does Anyone Care?
This isn’t a “kitten-squisher” of a book (Richard’s term) but at 373 pages it’s not exactly a novella, either. And there is very little excitement over that span. I thought the first 100 pages, where Ish just wanders around looking at shit, was truly excruciating and while the action picks up a bit from there, it is still a very slow moving book. It would be one thing if Stewart was using the book to highlight some truly novel (and unexpected) consequences of a disaster like this. But instead, he spends page after page describing things like metal getting rusty, plants growing where normally they would be weeded/trimmed back, etc.
Now, not every book is going to read like a Michael Bay script. I have no problem diving into a slow moving cerebral book, even one with a pretentious jerk for a main character, if I’m being treated to some top-notch prose. Unfortunately, this leads to my third and largest problem with the book…
#3: The Writing! Drove Me Crazy!
Earth Abides tells a story where civilization has effectively bit the dust and a small group of survivors attempt to start the whole thing over from scratch. There are definitely some Adam & Eve themes in play here, and Stewart decides early on to adopt a semi-biblical tone. That’s fine in theory, but the results were truly painful to read. A sample:
"I have seen it again," Ish thought to himself. "The great pageant of the year! Now is the time of dryness and death. Now the god lies dying! Soon the rains will come, and then the hills will be green. At last one morning I shall look out westward, here from the porch, and I shall see the sun setting far to the south. Then we shall all go together, and I shall carve the number into the rock."
Think about reading dialogue like that for over 300 pages. For me, this wore thin very fast and quickly became grating. Also, the multiple exclamation marks above are not at all atypical. There must be well over a thousand littering these pages. At times, it read like a comic book:
”What is the fascination?” said Ish to Em.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. It’s just the attraction of a stranger, something new. Isn’t that natural?”
“There is trouble ahead!”
TO THE BATMOBILE!
Honestly, the thing that put me over the edge in this regard is the fact that George Stewart can actually write. Towards the very end of the book, Stewart cuts the crap and just writes like a normal person, no biblical affectations or exclamation point fixation or anything. And once he does, the book is pretty darn good, even moving at times. But it was far too little, too late.
Anyway. This book has an excellent reputation, and the book’s influence on the genre is undisputable. But I just can’t recommend it. 2 stars, and much closer to a 1 for me than a 3.
June 19, 2011
In this pleasant, low-key post-apocalyptic classic, nearly all the human race has been wiped out by a mysterious disease. Yet, as the title suggests, the rest of the world continues and barely notices we're gone.
I was reminded of this novel the other day when a friend was telling me about her father's view of the future. He thinks our society is doomed, and that we're also inflicting incalculable harm on tens of thousands of other species. All the same, as she said, he doesn't consider that it's ultimately that important. It only took the planet about fifty million years to recover from the extinction of the dinosaurs, and most likely we aren't as bad as the Chicxulub meteorite.
So George Stewart was no doubt looking at things in too rosy a light, but it's nice to see that there are still a few optimists around.
I was reminded of this novel the other day when a friend was telling me about her father's view of the future. He thinks our society is doomed, and that we're also inflicting incalculable harm on tens of thousands of other species. All the same, as she said, he doesn't consider that it's ultimately that important. It only took the planet about fifty million years to recover from the extinction of the dinosaurs, and most likely we aren't as bad as the Chicxulub meteorite.
So George Stewart was no doubt looking at things in too rosy a light, but it's nice to see that there are still a few optimists around.
October 22, 2014
I thought about giving this 5 stars as it is one of the best & earliest of the modern, serious apocalyptic SF novels. Written in 1949, it is a bit dated in some ways (the use of chemicals, lack of panic, & some equipment) but overall, it held up very well over the years. I don't agree with some of the specifics, but the story is not so much about specific technology, but about humanity & I think he presented a very interesting set of ideas.
If you're looking for action & adventure, this book isn't for you. It is more thoughtful, posing interesting questions about the human condition. It does this by following one man who survives the end of our civilization & sees what happens to several generations of his descendents. How the rest of the world fares is briefly addressed, sometimes quite personally, but always in a perfunctory manner. I don't think this harmed the story at all, though. Any more detail would have bogged it down & not helped the central themes.
I'm not sure if I read this before, but parts seemed familiar, especially the end. Does anyone know if there was ever a short story done of this or did part of it appear as a novella or something?
If you're looking for action & adventure, this book isn't for you. It is more thoughtful, posing interesting questions about the human condition. It does this by following one man who survives the end of our civilization & sees what happens to several generations of his descendents. How the rest of the world fares is briefly addressed, sometimes quite personally, but always in a perfunctory manner. I don't think this harmed the story at all, though. Any more detail would have bogged it down & not helped the central themes.
I'm not sure if I read this before, but parts seemed familiar, especially the end. Does anyone know if there was ever a short story done of this or did part of it appear as a novella or something?
November 8, 2015
Earth Abides: Not with a bang, but a contented sigh...
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature)
You may have heard of pastoral SF (ala Clifford Simak), and this book may be best classified as post-holocaust pastoral SF, perhaps even "bucolic SF" (similar books include Leigh Bracket's Long Tomorrow and Pat Frank's Alas Babylon). Civilization is wiped out by a mysterious and never-explained virus, but our intrepid protagonist Isherwood Williams ("Ish" to his buddies) makes the best of a primitive existence, first surviving alone by scavenging from the bountiful remains of grocery stores, hardware shops, and gas stations, and eventually gathering together a few stragglers to create a very basic family group of people that recreate a stripped-down version of society that is basically happy, healthy, and utterly lacking in introspection or regrets about the loss of modern civilization. Ish is a former graduate student, and therefore understands and treasures the knowledge represented by the books that remain in libraries, but as his children and grand-children are born into this new post-industrial world, their interest in the old world wanes with each successive generation. It becomes clear that life will go on without any reference to the past, as the title alludes to: "Men come and go, but earth abides."
The book is filled with lush and loving descriptions of the steady, unperturbable rhythms of nature, weather, animals, and plants. The events of the story are sparse and could be summarized into just a dozen episodes, but the core of the story is the thoughts of Ish on the fall of civilization, and his gradual realization that it is gone and will not return, and his coming to acceptance of this.
Thanks to reading this on my Kindle app, I discovered the handy highlight function and picked out a few representative passages:
That fact, when he thought of it, sometimes even made the Great Disaster seem beneficient – a magnificent wiping off of the slate which allowed man as a species to escape from of the aches and pains he had been accumulating for so many centuries, and start anew.
Perhaps there were too many people, too many old ways of thinking, too many books. Perhaps the ruts of thinking had grown too deep and the refuse of the past lay too deep around us, like piles of garbage and old clothes. Why should not the philosopher welcome the wiping-out of it all and a new start and men playing the game with fresh rules? There would be, perhaps, more gain than loss.
Must we not think then that this great civilization grew up not by men’s desires, but rather by Forces and Pressures. Step by step, as villages grew larger, men must give up the free wandering life of berry-picking and seed-gathering and tie themselves to the security (and drudgery) of agriculture. Step by step, as villages grew more numerous, men must renounce the excitement of the hunt for the security (and drudgery) of cattle-keeping. Then at last it was like Frankenstein’s vast monster. They had not willed it, but it ruled them all. And so by a thousand little surreptitious paths they tried to escape.
Yes, the future was certain. The Tribe was not going to restore civilization. It did not want civilization. For a while the scavenging would go on – this opening of cans, this expending of cartridges and matches stored up from the past, all this uncreative but happy manner of life. Then at last, sooner or later, there would be more and more people, and the supplies would fail. There would perhaps be no quick catastrophe because cattle could be had for the taking, and life would go on.
So why the 3 star rating? I enjoyed the opening section detailing his early months of survival and finally discovering a female companion to share his existence and then restart the populace. But the longer middle section takes it sweet time describing the bucolic daily existence of their growing family, and wouldn’t be out of place in any story of country existence other than short passages from an omniscient narrator. Certainly there are some setbacks and tragedies, but I found myself getting bored and skipping through a lot of this.
However, the final section of the book, when Ish has reached a very old age and is treated as a sort of god or oracle by his progeny, has some very moving and melancholic reminiscing about the old world and the new, and is very profound. So in many ways the middle bit could be skimmed and you would still get the main effect and intent of the narrative. It remains a remarkable statement of a yearning for a simpler, pre-industrial existence, while still acknowledging the sadness and loss associated with the disappearance of all man’s hard-won knowledge and history.
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature)
You may have heard of pastoral SF (ala Clifford Simak), and this book may be best classified as post-holocaust pastoral SF, perhaps even "bucolic SF" (similar books include Leigh Bracket's Long Tomorrow and Pat Frank's Alas Babylon). Civilization is wiped out by a mysterious and never-explained virus, but our intrepid protagonist Isherwood Williams ("Ish" to his buddies) makes the best of a primitive existence, first surviving alone by scavenging from the bountiful remains of grocery stores, hardware shops, and gas stations, and eventually gathering together a few stragglers to create a very basic family group of people that recreate a stripped-down version of society that is basically happy, healthy, and utterly lacking in introspection or regrets about the loss of modern civilization. Ish is a former graduate student, and therefore understands and treasures the knowledge represented by the books that remain in libraries, but as his children and grand-children are born into this new post-industrial world, their interest in the old world wanes with each successive generation. It becomes clear that life will go on without any reference to the past, as the title alludes to: "Men come and go, but earth abides."
The book is filled with lush and loving descriptions of the steady, unperturbable rhythms of nature, weather, animals, and plants. The events of the story are sparse and could be summarized into just a dozen episodes, but the core of the story is the thoughts of Ish on the fall of civilization, and his gradual realization that it is gone and will not return, and his coming to acceptance of this.
Thanks to reading this on my Kindle app, I discovered the handy highlight function and picked out a few representative passages:
That fact, when he thought of it, sometimes even made the Great Disaster seem beneficient – a magnificent wiping off of the slate which allowed man as a species to escape from of the aches and pains he had been accumulating for so many centuries, and start anew.
Perhaps there were too many people, too many old ways of thinking, too many books. Perhaps the ruts of thinking had grown too deep and the refuse of the past lay too deep around us, like piles of garbage and old clothes. Why should not the philosopher welcome the wiping-out of it all and a new start and men playing the game with fresh rules? There would be, perhaps, more gain than loss.
Must we not think then that this great civilization grew up not by men’s desires, but rather by Forces and Pressures. Step by step, as villages grew larger, men must give up the free wandering life of berry-picking and seed-gathering and tie themselves to the security (and drudgery) of agriculture. Step by step, as villages grew more numerous, men must renounce the excitement of the hunt for the security (and drudgery) of cattle-keeping. Then at last it was like Frankenstein’s vast monster. They had not willed it, but it ruled them all. And so by a thousand little surreptitious paths they tried to escape.
Yes, the future was certain. The Tribe was not going to restore civilization. It did not want civilization. For a while the scavenging would go on – this opening of cans, this expending of cartridges and matches stored up from the past, all this uncreative but happy manner of life. Then at last, sooner or later, there would be more and more people, and the supplies would fail. There would perhaps be no quick catastrophe because cattle could be had for the taking, and life would go on.
So why the 3 star rating? I enjoyed the opening section detailing his early months of survival and finally discovering a female companion to share his existence and then restart the populace. But the longer middle section takes it sweet time describing the bucolic daily existence of their growing family, and wouldn’t be out of place in any story of country existence other than short passages from an omniscient narrator. Certainly there are some setbacks and tragedies, but I found myself getting bored and skipping through a lot of this.
However, the final section of the book, when Ish has reached a very old age and is treated as a sort of god or oracle by his progeny, has some very moving and melancholic reminiscing about the old world and the new, and is very profound. So in many ways the middle bit could be skimmed and you would still get the main effect and intent of the narrative. It remains a remarkable statement of a yearning for a simpler, pre-industrial existence, while still acknowledging the sadness and loss associated with the disappearance of all man’s hard-won knowledge and history.
December 1, 2010
Picked this up because I heard this was the inspiration of Steven King's "The Stand". Written in 1949, it tells the story of a man named Ish that is one of the only survivors of a worldwide plague. Ish was based on Ishi, the last Indian who wondered out of the woods in the 1920's in California and was studied by Berkeley. Stewart taught at Berkeley so we see how he came up with this story.
I am puzzled why this is considered a classic and is so well reviewed, other than what I call "Star Trek syndrome", which is sci fi people had such a dearth of material back in the day they tend to gush over any author (or crappy TV show) that provides sci-fi rather than dealing objectively with the question of whether the book is actually good. There is no action or plot, the characters except for Ish are paper thin, and even he is arrogant and pretentious. The book starts out well with his story of how he survived and taking a tour of the USA to assess the damage done by the plague. But once Ish "settles down" the story crashes to a snooze.
The story covers a few generations and is the life of Ish from beginning to death in a Brave New World. The author obviously pays homage to Huxley in the stilted language the narrator uses (almost a pretentious Shakespear-like dramatics) and his Ish is like the savage in BNW as they are both supposedly smarter than the people around them and can only watch with horror what is happening to people. Did this author think all sci fi had to be written in a weird shakesperian pretention because Huxley did it?
As others have pointed out, even though it is refreshing that people do not act the way we expect in fiction, it does get tedious after 21 years people still are eating out of magic cans. This is usually pointed to as how this book is special. People are lazy and Ish doesn't really seem to like the survivors he meets. However, this starts to become unbelievable after year five or so. They do not learn to plant crops, make things, or do anything really. Kids are bored with learning..wow what a dilemma, make them learn like people have been doing for 50000 years!
The author seems to not have a good grasp on the science (bad for this genre) as things last wayy! too long to be believable for the point he wants to make. (food, cars, razors, etc..are indestructable in this world)The worst sin for me, and what ruined the book is the fact that all this behavior is not organic to the characters, but seems shoehorned into the author's preordained conclusion people would revert to a primative state. Its ok to get to that conclusion if it is true to the story and organic, but it isn't here. Ish gives up on teaching because the kids are bored and are therefore hopeless, what kid wants to learn and be at school? People just eat cans for a generation because people don't want to learn new skills..there is no long term planning at all and it isn't believable. In Cast Away, Tom Hanks character was a mild manner Fed Ex guy that could spear a fish in three years on an island..people learn when they have to, they have kids in this book, where is the long term thinking?
It may be ok to give this to students for a literary history of the genre, but I felt it heavy handed and stilted and dated. People do not act like real people, talk like real people (he actually calls his wife "oh mother of nations!" please) or make decisions like real people. I am sure that in the time it was written he may have had to sugarcoat an interacial union and tone down sex, but it comes across as absurd in the 21st century. (Ish the main character realizes after being involved with his wife Em for years after she is pregnant that she is black! He is the smart character btw) Barely finished it.
I am puzzled why this is considered a classic and is so well reviewed, other than what I call "Star Trek syndrome", which is sci fi people had such a dearth of material back in the day they tend to gush over any author (or crappy TV show) that provides sci-fi rather than dealing objectively with the question of whether the book is actually good. There is no action or plot, the characters except for Ish are paper thin, and even he is arrogant and pretentious. The book starts out well with his story of how he survived and taking a tour of the USA to assess the damage done by the plague. But once Ish "settles down" the story crashes to a snooze.
The story covers a few generations and is the life of Ish from beginning to death in a Brave New World. The author obviously pays homage to Huxley in the stilted language the narrator uses (almost a pretentious Shakespear-like dramatics) and his Ish is like the savage in BNW as they are both supposedly smarter than the people around them and can only watch with horror what is happening to people. Did this author think all sci fi had to be written in a weird shakesperian pretention because Huxley did it?
As others have pointed out, even though it is refreshing that people do not act the way we expect in fiction, it does get tedious after 21 years people still are eating out of magic cans. This is usually pointed to as how this book is special. People are lazy and Ish doesn't really seem to like the survivors he meets. However, this starts to become unbelievable after year five or so. They do not learn to plant crops, make things, or do anything really. Kids are bored with learning..wow what a dilemma, make them learn like people have been doing for 50000 years!
The author seems to not have a good grasp on the science (bad for this genre) as things last wayy! too long to be believable for the point he wants to make. (food, cars, razors, etc..are indestructable in this world)The worst sin for me, and what ruined the book is the fact that all this behavior is not organic to the characters, but seems shoehorned into the author's preordained conclusion people would revert to a primative state. Its ok to get to that conclusion if it is true to the story and organic, but it isn't here. Ish gives up on teaching because the kids are bored and are therefore hopeless, what kid wants to learn and be at school? People just eat cans for a generation because people don't want to learn new skills..there is no long term planning at all and it isn't believable. In Cast Away, Tom Hanks character was a mild manner Fed Ex guy that could spear a fish in three years on an island..people learn when they have to, they have kids in this book, where is the long term thinking?
It may be ok to give this to students for a literary history of the genre, but I felt it heavy handed and stilted and dated. People do not act like real people, talk like real people (he actually calls his wife "oh mother of nations!" please) or make decisions like real people. I am sure that in the time it was written he may have had to sugarcoat an interacial union and tone down sex, but it comes across as absurd in the 21st century. (Ish the main character realizes after being involved with his wife Em for years after she is pregnant that she is black! He is the smart character btw) Barely finished it.
July 11, 2009
No wonder this is a classic. It's a wonderful book. It's one of those books that tells a story with such a logical progression that it seems that anyone could have written it (but didn't). Yet, the wisdom this novel contains is the wisdom it takes the main character a lifetime to learn.
In the novel, a plague falls upon the earth, leaving behind a scant few survivors. Our hero, Ish, is one of the few survivors. One of his first inclinations is to travel across the US from California to New York to see who else has survived. Finding people (but nobody of like mind), he goes back home to San Francisco. If it would have been me, I would have searched the city for the nicest house to live in and scavenged the city for the nicest furnishings. However, Ish simply goes back to living in his parents' home.
Over the course of time, people join Ish, he takes a wife, he has grandchildren and great grandchildren, and the world goes on, living off the leavings of the Old World. Ish is initially saddened that the people who make up this new tribe are not intellectually inclined as he is. They're ordinary folks with no great skills or inclinations toward religion. The tribe initially tries to keep connections to the past with church and school. However, these things fall away just as America has. When Ish asks the kids who they think made the world, they say that The Americans did. And they refuse to touch Ish's security-blanket-esque hammer because they see Ish as an American, one of the Old Ones, and perhaps a god. The new generations have primitively replaced religion with a set of new taboos and superstitions much like those people of early pre-history civilizations once did.
While there is a logical progression to the book, people's logic can often be shocking. There is a point in the book where the tribal elders make a unanimous decision by secret ballot about the solution to a problem. The decision is based on fear and extreme conservatism. While the solution is a logical one, it bothers them on a moral level. And when disaster falls soon after, the elders first wonder if this is a punishment from god for their horrendous yet logical decision.
I'm trying so hard not to give away the entire story here, but there are just so many great parts in this seemingly simple novel. In the end, you find yourself realizing the same things its taken Ish a lifetime to learn. What's really important in a civilization? Is it intelligence and invention or is it adaptability and happiness? Are intellectual people really more valuable than regular people in society? Is it better to bring back what was lost or is it better to forge a new future?
In the novel, a plague falls upon the earth, leaving behind a scant few survivors. Our hero, Ish, is one of the few survivors. One of his first inclinations is to travel across the US from California to New York to see who else has survived. Finding people (but nobody of like mind), he goes back home to San Francisco. If it would have been me, I would have searched the city for the nicest house to live in and scavenged the city for the nicest furnishings. However, Ish simply goes back to living in his parents' home.
Over the course of time, people join Ish, he takes a wife, he has grandchildren and great grandchildren, and the world goes on, living off the leavings of the Old World. Ish is initially saddened that the people who make up this new tribe are not intellectually inclined as he is. They're ordinary folks with no great skills or inclinations toward religion. The tribe initially tries to keep connections to the past with church and school. However, these things fall away just as America has. When Ish asks the kids who they think made the world, they say that The Americans did. And they refuse to touch Ish's security-blanket-esque hammer because they see Ish as an American, one of the Old Ones, and perhaps a god. The new generations have primitively replaced religion with a set of new taboos and superstitions much like those people of early pre-history civilizations once did.
While there is a logical progression to the book, people's logic can often be shocking. There is a point in the book where the tribal elders make a unanimous decision by secret ballot about the solution to a problem. The decision is based on fear and extreme conservatism. While the solution is a logical one, it bothers them on a moral level. And when disaster falls soon after, the elders first wonder if this is a punishment from god for their horrendous yet logical decision.
I'm trying so hard not to give away the entire story here, but there are just so many great parts in this seemingly simple novel. In the end, you find yourself realizing the same things its taken Ish a lifetime to learn. What's really important in a civilization? Is it intelligence and invention or is it adaptability and happiness? Are intellectual people really more valuable than regular people in society? Is it better to bring back what was lost or is it better to forge a new future?
February 21, 2021
I was reading a book about the heyday of radio and this story was mentioned. It had been presented as an hour long dramatic rendering of the book and is considered a classic of radio broadcasting. I found the book and was mesmerized by the apocalyptic story of a man facing a world without people (well, not quite) and how he survives and adapts. It appears that it is the basis of Stephen King's The Stand. One does not have to be a fan of this particular genre to enjoy this well written and very chilling story of the end of the world as we know it. Highly recommended. This is a re-read for me and well worth it
December 25, 2021
Very well written, with some interesting ideas on how people would cope with the end of civilization. It is dated in its main character's attitudes and prejudices (with some particular distressing racism at the beginning). However, I do find it a perfect argument on how you don't have to like the main character to enjoy the book.
September 10, 2022
I've lost track of how many times I've read Earth Abides. This is the first time I've read it after the publication of The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, a nonfiction account of what would happen to the world if humans disappeared overnight. It's amazing how much Stewart got right.
I'm also amazed once again by the meticulous construction of this novel to prove certain theses about human civilizations and how they evolve and adapt to circumstances. Stewart provides a nearly obsessive level of detail. As always, when I got to the part where Ish crosses the Golden Gate bridge and notices that the six lanes of the bridge are nearly empty, I thought: come on, George, the Golden Gate Bridge has FIVE lanes but this never-corrected mistake only highlights how much Stewart got right.
I imagine George Stewart must have been a lot like Ish, the hero of this novel--observant, curious, clinical, cultured, optimistic. Ish's company makes this particular journey through the apocalypse a fascinating and almost hopeful one. Everything that happens feels like the author made himself really think through and answer for himself the question "what would happen next, if this were real?" rather than thinking "what do I as the author of this story want to happen next?" and it makes for fascinating and sometimes-sad reading.
I'm sad, for instance, when ... is this a spoiler? is there anyone left who hasn't read this novel at least once? ok...
This time I also paid attention to the storytelling, the writing. There is a lot to learn here about how to tell a years-long story and have it hang together as a single statement. Wonderful.
I'm also amazed once again by the meticulous construction of this novel to prove certain theses about human civilizations and how they evolve and adapt to circumstances. Stewart provides a nearly obsessive level of detail. As always, when I got to the part where Ish crosses the Golden Gate bridge and notices that the six lanes of the bridge are nearly empty, I thought: come on, George, the Golden Gate Bridge has FIVE lanes but this never-corrected mistake only highlights how much Stewart got right.
I imagine George Stewart must have been a lot like Ish, the hero of this novel--observant, curious, clinical, cultured, optimistic. Ish's company makes this particular journey through the apocalypse a fascinating and almost hopeful one. Everything that happens feels like the author made himself really think through and answer for himself the question "what would happen next, if this were real?" rather than thinking "what do I as the author of this story want to happen next?" and it makes for fascinating and sometimes-sad reading.
I'm sad, for instance, when ... is this a spoiler? is there anyone left who hasn't read this novel at least once? ok...
This time I also paid attention to the storytelling, the writing. There is a lot to learn here about how to tell a years-long story and have it hang together as a single statement. Wonderful.
January 10, 2016
This was excellent and lived up to all the good things I've heard about it. I loved the zoological and sociological look at the apocalypse rather than the typical us-versus-them or zombie apocalypse scenarios you seem to find so much of these days. Stewart did a remarkable job of making the daily lives of a few survivors not only seem interesting and extremely realistic (important for it to be a good book) but also provided philosophical insights and morals of human nature (the difference for me between good books and great books).
On a side note, I loved seeing how different two books can be that start with the same basic premise. Years ago, I created stories like The Man Who Watched The World End and A Different Alchemy because I wanted a quiet end-of-the-world story. It was fascinating to see how much of a contrast Earth Abides is from my own books. Both focus on the social and environmental aspects of the end of man, but Stewart focuses on the rebuilding efforts of a few survivors while I focused on the inevitable ending of the last few who would one day fade away. The result are two starkly opposing views of the apocalypse. Stewart's is filled with hope and the slow re-establishment of man while mine is bleak and focuses on mankind's slow extinction--two similar starting points, two very contrasting endpoints.
On a side note, I loved seeing how different two books can be that start with the same basic premise. Years ago, I created stories like The Man Who Watched The World End and A Different Alchemy because I wanted a quiet end-of-the-world story. It was fascinating to see how much of a contrast Earth Abides is from my own books. Both focus on the social and environmental aspects of the end of man, but Stewart focuses on the rebuilding efforts of a few survivors while I focused on the inevitable ending of the last few who would one day fade away. The result are two starkly opposing views of the apocalypse. Stewart's is filled with hope and the slow re-establishment of man while mine is bleak and focuses on mankind's slow extinction--two similar starting points, two very contrasting endpoints.
November 30, 2016
I started this book without a clear picture of when or where it was written, just knew it was "a classic." It started out with the stereotypical "lone survivor surveys the empty cities" scenes and moved on to a cross country jaunt to see what humanity survived. However, there was a scene where he came across a couple, a "negro" couple, whereupon he began to wonder if he should just stay there, become their master and have them provide for him. My first thought was "WTF?" My second was "When was this written anyway?" and my third was, "Yeah, good luck with THAT."
So that's when I realized this was written in the 40s. Paradigm shift for sure, I gained quite an appreciation for the novel. And it was really eye-opening how little the human animal changes, regardless of the technological advances around. The universal themes of solitude v lonliness, need for community and so on were indistinguishable from something that would take place today. Except for small "tells" here and there (and one big one!), I never would have guessed that it was 60 years old.
So that's when I realized this was written in the 40s. Paradigm shift for sure, I gained quite an appreciation for the novel. And it was really eye-opening how little the human animal changes, regardless of the technological advances around. The universal themes of solitude v lonliness, need for community and so on were indistinguishable from something that would take place today. Except for small "tells" here and there (and one big one!), I never would have guessed that it was 60 years old.
February 7, 2014
I did not like this, Dawn I am.
Boring. Antiquated. Boring. Asshole character. Boring. Did I mention boring?
Nothing happens. Plot goes no where. Everyone dies on page one... And that's pretty much it. I have no idea what the point of the rest of the pages was.
Main character, Ich, was a pompous douche. I get that it's partially a matter of the time period the book takes place in, but it's also partially a matter of him being a know it all full of himself dick.
And honestly.. The way he was portrayed.. He's around 20 (I think) when the disaster happens. By the end of the book he's an elderly man. His personality? Exactly the same as when he was 20. Meaning? The 20 year old version of Ich is written as a partially senile old man. Considering the fact that Stewart was 65 when he wrote the book, it doesn't surprise me.. I don't think he knew how to write a young man and so Ich came across seeming like he was 50 or 60 rather than 20.
Regardless, this is all beside my point. My point is that I didn't like this book, it was ridiculously boring, and it fills me with rage. So glad to be done with it!
Boring. Antiquated. Boring. Asshole character. Boring. Did I mention boring?
Nothing happens. Plot goes no where. Everyone dies on page one... And that's pretty much it. I have no idea what the point of the rest of the pages was.
Main character, Ich, was a pompous douche. I get that it's partially a matter of the time period the book takes place in, but it's also partially a matter of him being a know it all full of himself dick.
And honestly.. The way he was portrayed.. He's around 20 (I think) when the disaster happens. By the end of the book he's an elderly man. His personality? Exactly the same as when he was 20. Meaning? The 20 year old version of Ich is written as a partially senile old man. Considering the fact that Stewart was 65 when he wrote the book, it doesn't surprise me.. I don't think he knew how to write a young man and so Ich came across seeming like he was 50 or 60 rather than 20.
Regardless, this is all beside my point. My point is that I didn't like this book, it was ridiculously boring, and it fills me with rage. So glad to be done with it!
June 27, 2011
Sometime in the 10 days that it took me to read through this book, I decided that the title could be renamed to "Earth Bides"--as in the Earth bides its time, and so does George R. Stewart in his deliberate study of the decline of civilization following a world-wide plague. After a strong first part, Stewart's story dips into a depression of shallow character development and didactic storytelling. Agenda takes the fore, and Stewart's writing takes a manipulative turn as his character marionette from one crisis to another. Put bluntly, the middle of 100 pages of this book were, at times, a bore.
Still, "Earth Abides" is interesting for its time and place in fiction. Stewart wrote and published "Earth Abides" in 1949, so the society that gives way to nature and the passage of time is one that is devoid of cell phones, personal computers, internets, the multitude of plastic goods, disposable water bottles, a gi-normous nuclear industry and all of its lovely by-products, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, the sexual revolution, and other cultural movements and institutions that inform much of our modern thinking. The post-apocalyptic landscape that Stewart constructs is therefore very different from those that other artists depicted in the decades that followed. There is no radiation poisoning; no talk of world governments; no talk of the rest of the world in general. Without a nuclear arsenal to contend with--not to mention, any Cold War hang-ups about good vs evil, or all of the propaganda-prompted thinking that came with that period--his survivors are less attached to the world in any international sense, and thus free to consider their prospects for long-term survival in the context of an insular world that is less cynical than those proposed by other writers in later decades. (In fact, having read this, I am now interested in picking up other apocalypse-oriented fiction such as "The Plague," "Swan Song," "The Stand," "Hiero's Journey," etc, and comparing everyone's take on how it all ends).
Also topical at the time is Stewart's depiction of people's lingering reliance on consumer goods such as matches and rifles and canned goods. His characters represent those who were immersed in the growing consumerism of the late 40s and used to its comforts. Once they assemble and agree to build a new life, they continue to seek out products and goods that they counted on for sustenance and industry. The main protagonist, Isherwood Williams, recognizes the limitations to this practice, and devotes himself to constructing a society that will be more self-reliant and capable--at least, in his eyes. Stewart plumbs some good insights from these parts of the story, and his portrayal of the different generations that follow the dissolution of civilization rings with enough truth to hold interest. Unfortunately, he is so keen to demonstrate his ideas that he resorts to didactic prose and plotting that is reminiscent of the dense writing that Ayn Rand poured into "Atlas Shrugged." The story slows considerably (one year occupies nearly 150 pages, whereas 21 passed by in less than twenty), and the characters devolve into flat game pieces that Stewart pushes around into arrangements that serve his agenda.
"Earth Abides" is a long-winded elegy about mankind (and I must stress the male gender implied in that word, as female characters play only a minor role in the story) and its place in the world without the context of civilization. As stated, it is notable for its time and place in literature, and for the influence that it had on future writers such as Stephen King. If you do pick it up, consider this advice: set aside a healthy amount of time, and just power through to the last sixty pages, where Stewart rests most of his agenda, and writes some poetic and profound prose about the end of life as he knew it.
Still, "Earth Abides" is interesting for its time and place in fiction. Stewart wrote and published "Earth Abides" in 1949, so the society that gives way to nature and the passage of time is one that is devoid of cell phones, personal computers, internets, the multitude of plastic goods, disposable water bottles, a gi-normous nuclear industry and all of its lovely by-products, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, the sexual revolution, and other cultural movements and institutions that inform much of our modern thinking. The post-apocalyptic landscape that Stewart constructs is therefore very different from those that other artists depicted in the decades that followed. There is no radiation poisoning; no talk of world governments; no talk of the rest of the world in general. Without a nuclear arsenal to contend with--not to mention, any Cold War hang-ups about good vs evil, or all of the propaganda-prompted thinking that came with that period--his survivors are less attached to the world in any international sense, and thus free to consider their prospects for long-term survival in the context of an insular world that is less cynical than those proposed by other writers in later decades. (In fact, having read this, I am now interested in picking up other apocalypse-oriented fiction such as "The Plague," "Swan Song," "The Stand," "Hiero's Journey," etc, and comparing everyone's take on how it all ends).
Also topical at the time is Stewart's depiction of people's lingering reliance on consumer goods such as matches and rifles and canned goods. His characters represent those who were immersed in the growing consumerism of the late 40s and used to its comforts. Once they assemble and agree to build a new life, they continue to seek out products and goods that they counted on for sustenance and industry. The main protagonist, Isherwood Williams, recognizes the limitations to this practice, and devotes himself to constructing a society that will be more self-reliant and capable--at least, in his eyes. Stewart plumbs some good insights from these parts of the story, and his portrayal of the different generations that follow the dissolution of civilization rings with enough truth to hold interest. Unfortunately, he is so keen to demonstrate his ideas that he resorts to didactic prose and plotting that is reminiscent of the dense writing that Ayn Rand poured into "Atlas Shrugged." The story slows considerably (one year occupies nearly 150 pages, whereas 21 passed by in less than twenty), and the characters devolve into flat game pieces that Stewart pushes around into arrangements that serve his agenda.
"Earth Abides" is a long-winded elegy about mankind (and I must stress the male gender implied in that word, as female characters play only a minor role in the story) and its place in the world without the context of civilization. As stated, it is notable for its time and place in literature, and for the influence that it had on future writers such as Stephen King. If you do pick it up, consider this advice: set aside a healthy amount of time, and just power through to the last sixty pages, where Stewart rests most of his agenda, and writes some poetic and profound prose about the end of life as he knew it.
March 28, 2008
This is my favorite novel of all time. I first read the story way back when I was in high school, so I can recommend this to young readers.
The story may well be the first post-apocalyptic novel of its kind - I know of no others that have proceeded it and I do not count H.G. Wells' The Time Machine as in this category. Regardless, I consider this book to be the standard against which all other post-apocalyptic novels should be judged.
George R. Stewart is well suited to write this book as he has a strong background in biology. He uses the premise of "what if the human race disappeared from the earth?" as one of the themes. Few survive the planet-wide plague that all be destroys humanity. Only a few survive and this is the tale of one of those people, from the days of the plague to his death (due to old age). It is a remarkable journey and well worth the read.
The story may well be the first post-apocalyptic novel of its kind - I know of no others that have proceeded it and I do not count H.G. Wells' The Time Machine as in this category. Regardless, I consider this book to be the standard against which all other post-apocalyptic novels should be judged.
George R. Stewart is well suited to write this book as he has a strong background in biology. He uses the premise of "what if the human race disappeared from the earth?" as one of the themes. Few survive the planet-wide plague that all be destroys humanity. Only a few survive and this is the tale of one of those people, from the days of the plague to his death (due to old age). It is a remarkable journey and well worth the read.
July 21, 2016
I don't read much science fiction but both my sister and a library friend recommended it. Wow! Not what I was expecting. It was written in 1949 the year I was born and was awarded the first International Fantasy Award. Imagine that most of Earth's population has been wiped out by an unknown virus. The main character, Isherwood "Ish" Williams, is one of the survivors and his emotional and physical journey is full of hope for himself a small group of men and women.
It took me a short while to get used to the author's style of writing and the voice that he gave to Ish. There isn't much action in this novel but I was completely immersed in the story. Not only are we witness to how humanity reacts to this tragic event but we also see how Earth is changed with so few humans left. I had a feeling of almost claustrophobia during parts of the story. This definitely gave me much to think about in relation to our world today.
It took me a short while to get used to the author's style of writing and the voice that he gave to Ish. There isn't much action in this novel but I was completely immersed in the story. Not only are we witness to how humanity reacts to this tragic event but we also see how Earth is changed with so few humans left. I had a feeling of almost claustrophobia during parts of the story. This definitely gave me much to think about in relation to our world today.
November 9, 2023
Check out my full, spoiler free, video review HERE. Excellent early post-apocalyptic novel that was way ahead of its time. This is very well written and has a gripping narrative that keeps you invested the whole way through. The story takes place after a devastating virus takes out nearly all humans, we follow the main character as he tries to help rebuild society. So many ideas explored about individuals, tribes, civilization as a whole and humans relationship with the earth.
September 22, 2021
Novela post-apocalíptica en la que no hay caníbales ni zombies, sino que es más bien una reflexión sobre la civilización humana y cómo podría extinguirse por diversos factores. No es una novela de acción a la manera tradicional y los hechos tal como se suceden y el autor va explicando detalladamente, parecen muy lógicos y reales.
El protagonista, Isherwood Williams, es un joven que está realizando un trabajo de campo para su tesis doctoral en una zona aislada de las montañas de California. Tras pasar varios días inconsciente por la mordedura de una serpiente cascabel, vuelve a la civilización para encontrar que la especie humana ha sido prácticamente arrasada por un virus y quedan muy pocos supervivientes. En su búsqueda inicial va encontrando diversas personas aisladas que afrontan la situación cada uno a su manera. Finalmente se establece en Berkeley, con la mulata Em - concepto bastante chocante en los años 40 - con la cual forma una familia a la que se van añadiendo otras personas, hasta constituir lo que él denomina La Tribu.
Seguimos el devenir del grupo, que se enfrenta a diferentes peligros y problemas, siempre dentro de un tono muy realista. Isherwood intenta preservar el conocimiento y transmitirlo a los jóvenes del grupo, pero poco a poco se da cuenta de que sus esfuerzos son inútiles y de que los otros son felices con el nuevo estilo de vida que están desarrollando.
Es una historia lenta, bien contada, meditativa, que conduce a la pregunta fundamental de si la civilización – tal como la conocemos y concebimos – es un valor en sí misma que es esencial preservar frente a otras maneras de vivir.
Un clasicazo, totalmente imprescindible para los aficionados a la CF filosófica.
4,5*
Para saber más sobre la obra:
http://universodecienciaficcion.blogs...
El protagonista, Isherwood Williams, es un joven que está realizando un trabajo de campo para su tesis doctoral en una zona aislada de las montañas de California. Tras pasar varios días inconsciente por la mordedura de una serpiente cascabel, vuelve a la civilización para encontrar que la especie humana ha sido prácticamente arrasada por un virus y quedan muy pocos supervivientes. En su búsqueda inicial va encontrando diversas personas aisladas que afrontan la situación cada uno a su manera. Finalmente se establece en Berkeley, con la mulata Em - concepto bastante chocante en los años 40 - con la cual forma una familia a la que se van añadiendo otras personas, hasta constituir lo que él denomina La Tribu.
Seguimos el devenir del grupo, que se enfrenta a diferentes peligros y problemas, siempre dentro de un tono muy realista. Isherwood intenta preservar el conocimiento y transmitirlo a los jóvenes del grupo, pero poco a poco se da cuenta de que sus esfuerzos son inútiles y de que los otros son felices con el nuevo estilo de vida que están desarrollando.
Es una historia lenta, bien contada, meditativa, que conduce a la pregunta fundamental de si la civilización – tal como la conocemos y concebimos – es un valor en sí misma que es esencial preservar frente a otras maneras de vivir.
Un clasicazo, totalmente imprescindible para los aficionados a la CF filosófica.
4,5*
Para saber más sobre la obra:
http://universodecienciaficcion.blogs...
August 21, 2017
Thought-provoking post-apocalyptic novel
Not an action-packed book and even quaint by today's standards, Earth Abides is a widely recognized classic of the genre with good reason. It puts one in mind of the Universal monster movies of the thirties and forties--enjoyable as classics but not facing the more stark and brutal realities portrayed in stories from our current time. So judging it by the time in which it was written, it was probably a ground-breaking book. But I think it has been much improved upon by many succeeding post-apocalyptic novels. That or I am simply quite jaded.
Not an action-packed book and even quaint by today's standards, Earth Abides is a widely recognized classic of the genre with good reason. It puts one in mind of the Universal monster movies of the thirties and forties--enjoyable as classics but not facing the more stark and brutal realities portrayed in stories from our current time. So judging it by the time in which it was written, it was probably a ground-breaking book. But I think it has been much improved upon by many succeeding post-apocalyptic novels. That or I am simply quite jaded.
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