Another haunting tale, which along with “The Plague,” by Albert Camus, serves as an echo of the horrors we live today.
Nevil Shute (see also: “A Town Like Alice”) is not only an outstanding author, but his protagonists share a ferocious moral core that cannot be anything but genuine to the writer himself. I think sailors in particular would find a deep connection; there are undercurrents of quiet yet strong love of the sea, and surreal adventure. At times I was reminded of Captain Nemo in the Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
One of the delicate beauties of the book was its slow unveiling of the plot – mimicking both our human self-importance and nature to deny reality: “it won’t happen to me.”
What is different from our current reality is that all fate is equal in the book; there is no economic disparity to highlight, which I found to be profound. I thought of what I would do in my moment of sad but total liberation. I tossed and turned all night.
Don’t read the back of the book! Don’t read the wiki entry! Just start at the beginning, as all tales are intended to be read.
“He paused, thinking of the flowering trees that he had seen on shore through the periscope, cascaras and flame trees, the palms standing in the sunlight. ‘Maybe we’ve been too silly to deserve a world like this,’ he said.”
“It’s probably a fortuitous transmission. After all, if an infinite number of monkeys start playing with an infinite number of typewriters, one of them will write a play of Shakespeare.”
“She took the parcel and brought it to him in the bed, and stood watching as he tore off the paper. The Supreme Commander of the U.S Naval Forces was really just a little boy, she thought.”
Mar 29-30
JohannaAirth 