Book Review: On the Beach

Maybe we've been too silly to deserve a world like this

I think we have a new contender for ‘Best Book of 2024’. This book was stunning. Don't get me wrong, it was also deeply depressing. Of course, this is a book about what the world would look like after a nuclear war. But still, there is beauty to be found here. To unpack this further -this book was written and published in the 1950s, when the nuclear arms race was at full speed, the Cold War was beginning, and atomic war seemed possible. So, like I said - there is a lot to unpack here.

The book focuses on several people in and around Melbourne, Australia. There is a toxic nuclear haze coming their way, and there is nothing they can do to stop it. Each person deals with the impending doom and fall of humanity differently. Peter Holmes, his wife Mary and their baby Jennifer carry on as best as they can, even planting a garden that they will never see. Dwight Townsend, an American naval officer and commander of one of the last working submarines, buys gist for his wife and children in America, who is most certainly dead. Moira Davidson enjoys a hedonistic lifestyle of booze and partying. At some point, they discover a faint Morse code signal coming in from Seattle, and the Australian Navy decides to set sail and search for signs of life.

If we look at the structure of the book, there are a few things to consider - the most prominent being hope and denial. Even as the end comes closer and closer, the characters will all plan for a future they will never see. There is hope in there, particularly at the point where they find the signal from Seattle, but that hope soon dies as no signs of life are found. This is where denial comes in because even as a reader, I was questioning whether all the characters in this novel were to really die. I was going through the book wondering where the magic button was to avoid the deaths of all the characters you grow to love. But of course, there isn't. What is especially clever is that our author, Nevil Shute gets you to join the characters in their pursuit of hope and denial of the inevitable. You hope that these characters survive and win. That is the real tragedy of the boo. But brilliantly done.

Many would argue that this is a great read for those who are interested in a nuclear war - mostly diplomats and politicians. It is considered a must-read for them because do we really want to have a global mass extinction of not only the human race but of all life on earth? No. There are a few issues with the book. For one, this was written in the 1950s when nuclear war and the subsequent fallout were not as understood as it is now. But then again, none of the leading characters are scientists, so there is a license to forgive them. But there is the absence of ‘Nuclear Winter’ and other phenomena that come with a full-out nuclear war.

That being said, this book was brilliant - sure, I was crying my eyes out at the end of it and am now reading an infinitely happier book, but my initial thoughts after closing the book was “goddammit Nevil Shute, you’ve done it again!”