I am a sucker for end-of-the-world stories that bring on lump-in-the-throat teariness.
The first I read, The Time Machine (1895), filled me with gasping awe with its slingshot shift from battling the Morlocks to the end of everything.
A few years later, ditto Stephen King's The Stand (1978) –
“What?” she asked, and he realized he had murmured it aloud.
“A season of rest,” he repeated.
“What does that mean?”
“Everything,” he said, and took her hand.
Looking down at Peter he thought: Maybe if we tell him what happened, he’ll tell his own children. Warn them. Dear children, the toys are death—they’re, flashburns and radiation sickness and black, choking plague. These toys are dangerous; the devil in men’s brains guided the hands of God when they were made. Don’t play with these toys, dear children, please, not ever. Not ever again. Please... please learn the lesson. Let this empty world be your copybook.
“Frannie,” he said, and turned her around so he could look into her eyes.
“What, Stuart?”
“Do you think ... do you think people ever learn anything?”
She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, fell silent. The kerosene lamp flickered. Her eyes seemed very blue.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. She seemed unpleased with her answer; she struggled to say something more; to illuminate her first response ; and could only say it again:
I don’t know.
– instilling an aching and poignant view of past and present, and of a future perhaps fit for citizens of deep time to live in.
Twenty years ago, I added to my list George Stewart's 1946 novel Earth Abides. The poetry of its finale – the place of rest and death for the protagonist, the spot on which he abandoned his car decades before on the Golden Gate Bridge– achieves heights of the U.S. apocalyptic literary sublime.
In essence, these stories encouraged in me a way of looking at the present as a repeated series of "'Ozymandias' moments."
* * *
Nevil Shute's 1957 novel On the Beach, which I read two Februarys ago, is probably the most well-known work of popular fiction covering the apocalyptic subject. Published when mainstream doomsday fiction was not yet a marketing category, the novel was purchased and read worldwide. Its significance in voicing a minatory global mood among petty bourgeois tastemakers was palpable. (Just ask your parents and grandparents.)
My two favorite scenes of characters confronting the end are low-key.
[Moira] arrived at Falmouth station two nights later, and set herself to walk two miles up the hill in a misty drizzle. In the little flat Mary was waiting to welcome her with a bright fire in the lounge. She changed her shoes, helped Mary bathe the baby and put her down, and then they got the supper. Later they sat together on the floor before the fire.
The girl asked, “When do you think they’ll be back?”
[N.B. U.S.S. Scorpion, its crew including Mary's husband Peter and Moira's inamorato Dwight Towers commanding, has been dispatched to the Northern Hemisphere to find the source of a recurring Morse signal.]
“Peter said that they’d be back about the fourteenth of June.” She reached out for a calendar upon the desk behind her. “Three more weeks-just over. I’ve been crossing off the days.”
“Do you think they’re up to time at this place—wherever they sent the wireless signal from?”
“I don’t know. I ought to have asked Commander Peterson that. I wonder if it would be all right to ring him up tomorrow and ask?”
“I shouldn’t think he’d mind.”
“I think I’ll do that. Peter says this is his last job for the Navy, he’ll be unemployed after they come back. I was wondering if we couldn’t get away in June or July and have a holiday. It’s so piggy here in the winter—nothing but rain and gales.”
The girl lit a cigarette. “Where would you go to?”
“Somewhere where it’s warm. Queensland or somewhere. It’s such an awful bore not having the car. We’d have to take Jennifer by train, I suppose.”
Moira blew a long cloud of smoke. “I shouldn’t think Queensland would be very easy.”
“Because of the sickness? It’s so far away.”
“They’ve got it at Maryborough,” the girl said. “That’s only just north of Brisbane.”
“But there are plenty of warm places to go to without going right up there, aren’t there?”
“I should think there would be. But it’s coming down south pretty steadily.”
Mary twisted round and glanced at her. “Tell me, do you really think it’s going to come here?”
“I think I do.”
“You mean, we’re all going to die of it? Like the men say?”
“I suppose so.”
Mary twisted round and pulled a catalogue of garden flowers down from a muddle of papers on the settee. “I went to Wilson’s today and bought a hundred daffodils,” she said. “Bulbs. King Alfreds—these ones.” She showed the picture. “I’m going to put them in in that corner by the wall, where Peter took out the tree. It’s sheltered there. But I suppose if we’re all going to die that’s silly.”
“No sillier than me starting in to learn shorthand and typing,” the girl said drily. “I think we’re all going a bit mad, if you ask me. When do daffodils come up?”
“They should be flowering by the end of August,” Mary said. “Of course, they won’t be much this year, but they should be lovely next year and the year after. They sort of multiply, you know.”
“Well, of course it’s sensible to put them in. You’ll see them anyway, and you’ll sort of feel you’ve done something.”
Mary looked at her gratefully. “Well, that’s what I think. I mean, I couldn’t bear to—to just stop doing things and do nothing. You might as well die now and get it over.”
Moira nodded. “If what they say is right, we’re none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.”
They sat on the hearthrug, Mary playing with the poker and the wood fire. Presently she said, “I forgot to ask you if you’d like a brandy or something. There’s a bottle in the cupboard, and I think there’s some soda.”
The girl shook her head. “Not for me. I’m quite happy.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Have you reformed, or something?”
“Or something,” said the girl. “I never tip it up at home. Only when I’m out at parties, or with men. With men particularly. Matter of fact, I’m even getting tired of that, now.”
“It’s not men, is it, dear? Not now. It’s Dwight Towers.”
“Yes,” the girl said. “It’s Dwight Towers.”
“Don’t you ever want to get married? I mean, even if we are all dying next September.”
The girl stared into the fire. “I wanted to get married,” she said quietly. “I wanted to have everything you’ve got. But I shan’t have it now.”
“Couldn’t you marry Dwight?”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure he likes you.”
“Yes.” she said. “He likes me all right.”
“Has he ever kissed you?”
“Yes,” she said again. “He kissed me once.”
“I’m sure he’d marry you.”
The girl shook her head again. “He wouldn’t ever do that. You see, he’s married already. He’s got a wife and two children in America.”
Mary stared at her. “Darling, he can’t have. They must be dead.”
“He doesn’t think so,” she said wearily. “He thinks he’s going home to meet them, next September. In his own home town, at Mystic.” She paused. “We’re all going a bit mad in our own way,” she said. “That’s his way.”
“You mean, he really thinks his wife is still alive?”
“I don’t know if he thinks that or not. No, I don’t think he does. He thinks he’s going to be dead next September, but he thinks he’s going home to them, to Sharon and Dwight junior and Helen. He’s been buying presents for them.”
Mary sat trying to understand. “But if he thinks like that, why did he kiss you?”
“Because I said I’d help him with the presents.”
Mary got to her feet. “I’m going to have a drink,” she said firmly. “I think you’d better have one, too.” And when that was adjusted and they were sitting with glasses in their hands, she asked curiously, “It must be funny, being jealous of someone that’s dead?”
The girl took a drink from her glass and sat staring at the fire. “I’m not jealous of her,” she said at last. “I don’t think so. Her name is Sharon, like in the Bible. I want to meet her. She must be a very wonderful person, I think. You see, he’s such a practical man.”
“Don’t you want to marry him?”
The girl sat for a long time in silence. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t know if I do or not. If it wasn’t for all this … I’d play every dirty trick in the book to get him away from her. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy with anyone else. But then, there’s not much time left now to be happy with anyone.”
“There’s three or four months, anyway,” said Mary. “I saw a motto once, one of those things you hang on the wall to inspire you. It said, ‘Don’t worry—it may never happen.’”
“I think this is going to happen all right,” Moira remarked. She picked up the poker and began playing with it. “If it was for a lifetime it’ld be different,” she said. “It’ld be worth doing her dirt if it meant having Dwight for good, and children, and a home, and a full life. I’d go through anything if I could see a chance of that. But to do her dirt just for three months’ pleasure and nothing at the end of it—well, that’s another thing. I may be a loose woman, but I don’t know that I’m all that loose.” She looked up, smiling. “Anyway, I don’t believe that I could do it in the time. I think he’d take a lot of prising away from her.”
“Oh dear,” said Mary. “Things are difficult, aren’t they!”
“Couldn’t be worse,” Moira agreed. “I think I’ll probably die an old maid.”
“It doesn’t make sense. But nothing does seem to make sense, these days. Peter …” She stopped.
“What about Peter?” the girl asked curiously.
“I don’t know. It was just horrible, and crazy.” She shifted restlessly.
“What was? Tell me.”
“Did you ever murder anybody?”
“Me? Not yet. I’ve often wanted to. Country telephone girls, mostly.”
“This was serious. It’s a frightful sin to murder anybody, isn’t it? I mean, you’d go to Hell.”
“I don’t know. I suppose you would. Who do you want to murder?”
The mother said dully, “Peter told me I might have to murder Jennifer.” A tear formed and trickled down her cheek.
The girl leaned forward impulsively and touched her hand. “Darling, that can’t be right! You must have got it wrong.”
She shook her head. “It’s not wrong,” she sobbed. “It’s right enough. He told me I might have to do it, and he showed me how.” She burst into a torrent of tears.
Moira took her in her arms and soothed her, and gradually the story came out. At first the girl could not believe the words she heard, but later she was not so sure. Finally they went together to the bathroom and looked at the red boxes in the cabinet. “I’ve heard something about all this,” she said seriously. “I never knew that it had got so far …” One craziness was piled on to another.
“I couldn’t do it alone,” the mother whispered. “However bad she was, I couldn’t do it. If Peter isn’t here … if anything happens to Scorpion … will you come and help me, Moira? Please?”
“Of course I will,” the girl said gently. “Of course I’ll come and help. But Peter will be here. They’re coming back all right. Dwight’s that kind of a man.” She produced a little screwed up ball of handkerchief, and gave it to Mary. “Dry up, and let’s make a cup of tea. I’ll go and put the kettle on.”
They had a cup of tea before the dying fire.
From this, Shute can shift effortlessly in tone to the droll observations of men exhibiting an ethos of personal priority at their club:
“Ha, John,” [Sir Douglas Froude] said. “I heard last night that you were back again. Had a good trip?”
John Osborne introduced [Peter Holmes] the naval officer. “Quite good,” he said. “I don’t know that we found out very much, and one of the ship’s company developed measles. Still, that’s all in the day’s work.”
“Measles, eh? Well, that’s better than this cholera thing. I hope you none of you got that. Come and have a drink—I’m in the book.”
They crossed to the table with him. John said, “Thank you, uncle. I didn’t expect to see you here today. I thought your day was Friday.”
They helped themselves to pink gins. “Oh no, no. It used to be Friday. Three years ago my doctor told me that if I didn’t stop drinking the club port he couldn’t guarantee my life for longer than a year. But everything’s changed now, of course.” He raised his glass of sherry. “Well, here’s thanks for your safe home-coming. I suppose one ought to pour it on the ground as a libation or something, but the situation is too serious for that. Do you know we’ve got over three thousand bottles of vintage port still left in the cellars of this club, and only about six months left to go, if what you scientists say is right?”
John Osborne was suitably impressed. “Fit to drink?”
“In first-class condition, absolutely first-class. Some of the Fonseca may be just a trifle young, a year or two maybe, but the Gould Campbell is in its prime. I blame the Wine Committee very much, very much indeed. They should have seen this coming.”
Peter Holmes repressed a smile. “It’s a bit difficult to blame anyone,” he said mildly. “I don’t know that anybody really saw this coming.”
“Stuff and nonsense. I saw this coming twenty years ago. Still, it’s no good blaming anybody now. The only thing to do is to make the best of it.”
John Osborne asked, “What are you doing about the port?”
“There’s only one thing to do,” the old man said. “What’s that?”
“Drink it, my boy, drink it—every drop. No good leaving it for the next comer, with the cobalt half-life over five years. I come in now three days a week and take a bottle home with me.” He took another drink of his sherry. “If I’m to die, as I most certainly am, I’d rather die of drinking port than of this cholera thing. You say you none of you got that upon your cruise?”
Peter Holmes shook his head. “We took precautions. We were submerged and under water most of the time.”
“Ah, that makes a good protection.” He glanced at them. “There’s nobody alive up in North Queensland, is there?”
“Not at Cairns, sir. I don’t know about Townsville.”
The old man shook his head. “There’s been no communication with Townsville since last Thursday, and now Bowen has it. Somebody was saying that they’ve had some cases in Mackay.”
John Osborne grinned. “Have to hurry up with that port, uncle.”
“I know that. It’s a very terrible situation.” The sun shone down on them out of a cloudless sky, warm and comforting; the big chestnut in the garden cast dappled shadows on the lawn. “Still, we’re doing our best. The secretary tells me that we put away over three hundred bottles last month.”
* * *
If we compare The Time Machine, Earth Abides, The Stand, and On The Beach, several points can be made.
Critic John Clute observes about Shute:
[He] was an excellent popular novelist; his stories demonstrate a seamless narrative skill, and his protagonists are, unfailingly, decent.
The same, in the titles noted above, could also be said of The Time Machine. But H. G. Wells presents the humanist tragedy of his time traveler as a footnote to the solar system's death. Stewart and King, novelists of midcentury melodrama, have no truck with human extinction; their characters, and the descendants of those characters, will thrive once they have “turned away to face the thousand-year night,” to quote Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon.
Shute, having weighed claims of civil defense and the so-called “balance of terror,” has chosen only to explore the application of mutually assured destruction to a human remnant in one city. High and low social classes retain their dignity and make the most of it. There are no heroes, much less banal technocratic evil-doers.
What would be the point of heroic measures when only resignation conveys dignity?
Jay
12 February 2024
