On the Beach

Rating:
Summary: Deeply Disturbing
Review: I first read this book several years ago and it is one that I have returned to recently. The plot, that the world is going to end and there is nothing and nobody that can stop it, is deeply and profoundly disturbing. One almost wants to stop it, to hope that somehow, in the next paragraph or chapter that some escape route is going to be revealed. The slow and steady progress of the unstoppable radioactive cloud provides a backdrop of very real terror against the apparant normality of everyday existence. What makes this book all the more disturbing is the lack of blind panic, the lack of people losing their heads and the gradual acceptance of what is going to happen. I have read other books on this topic but none that has ever touched me in the way that this one did. It is a book I certainly will never forget.

Rating:
Summary: A Cold War Classic
Review: In conjuring up books that concern Cold War paranoaia, I am often reminded of Nevil Shute's masterful "On the Beach". This book is oriented for people below the age of 12. I believe this because of its dramatic intensity, explicity, and depressing ending. The story involves a navy captain who is attempting to lead a team of scientists through various radioactive plants. Their mission: to discover if in fact, radioactivity will lead to Earth's immineant destruction. The officer's wife begains to dissuade her husband from leading the expedition. However, fate intervenes and the government appoints him for the perilous mission. As they embark, each crew member will have to live in proximity 23 "mates". The main problem on the mission is that many of the crew members loathe each other even more than the expedition. Shute does an excellent job at forming mini-biographies surrounding each character involved in the expedition. Shute revels facts as: Where they grew up, family, characteristics, and numerous other obscure facts. Every integral character has a dramatic presents in each chapter. Exposition is filled with wonderful discriptions of each character and essence of story. Which leads me to the mext paragraph. The narrative is very atmospheric. Atmospheric in the fact that it highly corresponds to the Cold War confusion that plauged America in the 50's and 60's. Shute chooses a documentary style of writing to explain the mission more explicitly. However, Shute aknowledges that spectacle alone will never suceed, characters will! Shute's unabated intusiasm and boyant persona endorsed the narrative to the fullest. In conclusion, this book is a fascinating novel. If anyone chooses to explore and study character development, should be forced to study "On the Beach".

Rating:
Summary: Rather Sad
Review: This book was very intertaining. It is one of the few books that kills off ALL the main characters(and minor ones) and is still good. This book would be good to read for anyone who is interested in how things were during the Cold War.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing entertainment
Review: Some of the science in the book is not valid, but if you remember how long ago it was written, it can be overlooked. Besides that, though, the book is very interesting. It succeeds in being sad and frightening. I enjoyed reading it. If you want a happy ending, this is not your book.

Rating:
Summary: great topic - narrow treatment
Review: How would you react to the inevitable destruction of all life by a slowly encroaching radioactive cloud? I can imagine a multitude of responses.

The author seems content to explore a few simple variations of the same damned theme: remain calm and pleasant and display a simple-minded way of not accepting reality. It's not even a very interesting theme. Even in the our current age of peace and prosperity, there isn't that kind of homogeneity.

If group reaction to extinction intriguing topic to you, I'd recommend you read Camus' "The Plague". If nuclear war is your particular interest, then try "The Last Ship".

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the subject matter depressed him too much!
Review: This is a poor effort by a very good writer. Leaving "On the Beach" to one side, Nevil Shute is a writer who does a tradesman-like job, and can normally be counted on for a good story with an interesting background to it. This book must have been suggested to him by his publisher or something of the kind. Perhaps he was obliged to write it, for some contractual reason or other. It does not even come close to his other books, some of which are minor classics of mid-twentieth century literature (although usually disdained by the intelligentsia as not being literature of any kind).

I suppose the subject matter is such that the book is worth reading anyway. If you are willing to fumble and stumble along with the ups and downs of the writing, the story is not, historically, without interest. Yet I don't think many readers will be terribly convinced by the poor plot and simplistic characters. It's a facile book that I can't imagine Shute himself being very proud of, in spite of its relative success (due no doubt, to the film).

Rating:
Summary: A Startaling Glance into Humanity's Furture
Review: I picked this book up from the library and hesitiated to read it, partly because the cover was boring, but mostly because I thought I knew what was going to happen. When I started to read it I was immeditley captivated. The ending no longer mattered, only the story. This book is a great read, well worth the time. Perhaps one of the best that I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

Rating:
Summary: How can fiction hurt so much?
Review: I fancied myself well-read. I also thought I had felt it all and conquered it all. But when my English teacher made me read this book, my universe was ripped into two pieces and forced down my throat in a way that hurt. I had to stop and look at what I held dear, how fragile it all really is, and my own mortality that I thought I'd accepted. It's impossible for me not to admire the characters in this book: facing their deaths, agonizingly slow in coming, with as much dignity as each individual could muster. Dashed hopes, dreams cut short, beauty that was never to be...innocent victims, and nothing left in the end but the waves sighing along the rocky shores of a nation that was nothing but a Dreamland to me before. Thank God something opened my eyes before I let them be closed by my own ridiculous faith in my own ability to fight and win invariably.

Rating:
Summary: One of 3-4 books that built my view of humanity
Review: I'm re-reading this book because I can still remember the way it stoned me as a junior high kid as the Cold War still lingered. This book, along with Kerouac's On The Road and a couple of Hemingway's masterpieces helped me cross the bridge from impressionable youth to building a life based on character, making my own experiences, and respecting and appreciating the ability to do so for as long as I can. On the Beach is still so very relevant. I won't ever forget the impression it left on me.

Rating:
Summary: The world ends not with a bang
Review: I was looking for another book by Nevil Shute when I came across "On the Beach" and I'm glad I did. As another reader commented, when you put the book down, it feels as if you were facing the end of the world too. The atmosphere of the book is that powerful. The gradualness of the inevitable end is eerie. I was chilled as city after city in the Southern Hemisphere faded out of life. The submarine trip to the Northern Hemisphere was equally chilling. I definitely would encourage interested people to read it.