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Nevil Shute - On The Beach

A Review by: Brian Melican

Nevil Shute's novels are primarily about ordinary, decent people struggling admirably against an adverse situation, and succeeding with a modicum of good, old-fashioned exertion. In this respect, On The Beach differs from his other more popular novels. Whilst we have typically decent and moral Shutian characters, and indeed an adverse situation caused by faceless evil, there can be no prospect of success.

The precept to the novel is the most astounding of all Shute's brilliantly dreamed up settings. Showing an ability very rare for many novelists, and indeed for many of his age, he broke away from novels based during his own time and looked to the future. Having lived through two world wars, he obviously did not like what he foresaw. The northern hemisphere, torn apart by a massive nuclear war, is silent. The deadly radiation that killed everyone there is slowly shrouding the planet, and Australia, where the novel is set, will be one of the last places to see its human population extinguished. Whilst this is a real departure from his more usual settings, it is classic Shute territory. The enemy is faceless, indeed long dead, replaced by the situation it has caused. Just like Jean Paget in A Town Like Alice, the book is adumbrated by tragedy and adversity, but not defined by its villainous creators.

The typically Shutian characters inhabit or gather in Melbourne a year after the war. A young couple, Peter and Mary, with a new baby, open the novel. Peter, a naval officer, is introduced to an American submarine commander, whose ironically nuclear submarine has survived the war and made it to Australia. Dwight Towers is an exceptionally nice and controlled man, and even when befriended by Peter and introduced to his ravishingly alcoholic acquaintance Moira, he resists her original advances. The two strike up a charmingly sentimental, but refreshingly chaste, relationship, and from here the novel follows the last hope of humanity. A cruise in a sealed submarine to the northern hemisphere may prove a scientist's ridiculously hopeful predictions of declining radiation, and Dwight, Peter, and Moira's scientist relation John Osborne set out thereto. Unsurprisingly, they find nothing of the sort, and return to Australia. Here, the final kick of a dying civilisation manifests itself, and the inexorable decent into death touches all of the characters. Fittingly, the book ends on the suicide of Peter's young family, just as it began with their shattered hopes, before the suicide of Moira as Dwight sails off to his death.

For a novel about the complete extermination of life on Earth, On The Beach is surprisingly quiet. The distance from the original war, with its obviously horrific consequences, and the fundamental decency of the characters, shields the reader from the mess. Indeed, when Peter Holmes shouts at his wife the effects of radiation sickness on their baby, it is possibly the most stomach wrenching part of the book. However, bearing in mind that millions would have died of burns, internal injuries and other unspeakable afflictions in the burning wreckage of war-ravaged nations, what awaits them seems positively enjoyable. And this is what characterises the book; the reasonable but universal pursuit of some kind of enjoyment in the face of death...

Spot info:
Nevil Shute - On The Beach.mht / 119Kb
collection size: 1.31 MB, parts available: 6 / 6
- 1 txt file
- 1 mobi file
- 1 epub file
- 1 mht file

Thanks to Charlie :)

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