Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart
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Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm going to be teaching a writing seminar for the WriterHouse, in Charlottesville, VA, on writing fiction about plagues and pandemics, and this 1949 novel is from the suggested reading list. I read it years ago and now, parts of it seem dated--particularly some of the references about race and women are more than a little patronizing. But otherwise, it seems to hold up and, as I remembered from the first time I read, it has beauty.
The opening quote is even more apt, given where we are today in the pandemic: "If a killing type of virus strain should suddenly arise by mutation ... it could, because of the rapid transportation in which we indulge nowadays, be carried to the far corners of the earth and cause the deaths of millions of people." --W.M. Stanley, in Chemical and Engineering News, December 22, 1947 (Stewart 1).
73 years later our transportation is even more rapid. Not millions, but globally 1.34 million (as of today, November 20, 2020). This novel is the tale of what happens after, when civilization as we know it, is gone. Ish Williams, erstwhile grad student, must learn how to survive in a world in which such things as electricity, water, plants cultivated by humans (such as wheat and corn)--the list goes on--are vanishing, or gone. "[How] long will it be before all traces of man's civilization faded from Earth[?] At the same time, he couldn't help wondering where others had survived and whether even a. handful of human beings would ever to be able to rebuild their world" (back cover).
Ish bears witness to the remaking of the world--a process that will last for centuries, it seems.
View all my reviews
Earth Abides by George R. StewartMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I'm going to be teaching a writing seminar for the WriterHouse, in Charlottesville, VA, on writing fiction about plagues and pandemics, and this 1949 novel is from the suggested reading list. I read it years ago and now, parts of it seem dated--particularly some of the references about race and women are more than a little patronizing. But otherwise, it seems to hold up and, as I remembered from the first time I read, it has beauty.
The opening quote is even more apt, given where we are today in the pandemic: "If a killing type of virus strain should suddenly arise by mutation ... it could, because of the rapid transportation in which we indulge nowadays, be carried to the far corners of the earth and cause the deaths of millions of people." --W.M. Stanley, in Chemical and Engineering News, December 22, 1947 (Stewart 1).
73 years later our transportation is even more rapid. Not millions, but globally 1.34 million (as of today, November 20, 2020). This novel is the tale of what happens after, when civilization as we know it, is gone. Ish Williams, erstwhile grad student, must learn how to survive in a world in which such things as electricity, water, plants cultivated by humans (such as wheat and corn)--the list goes on--are vanishing, or gone. "[How] long will it be before all traces of man's civilization faded from Earth[?] At the same time, he couldn't help wondering where others had survived and whether even a. handful of human beings would ever to be able to rebuild their world" (back cover).
Ish bears witness to the remaking of the world--a process that will last for centuries, it seems.
View all my reviews
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