Jane Puddicombe: Nevil Shute's On The Beach (1957)

On The Beach (1957) By Nevil Shute.
A nuclear war has ravaged the planet. A cloud of radioactive dust has killed everyone in the Northern Hemisphere and is now drifting south. Shute’s novel, On the Beach describes the last months of humanity through the experiences a small group of characters as they wait for a deadly cloud of radiation to arrive.

The story opens in December, roughly a year after the war has ended. Communications from The Northern Hemisphere have ceased and the population is presumed dead. Scientists have estimated that lethal levels of radiation will overwhelm Australia including the small town of Falmouth, by September. The story tells how a handful of Falmouth’s inhabitants cope, their changing view on what it means to be alive and their struggle to enjoy their remaining time in increasingly unfamiliar circumstances.

The pacing is slow, Shute emphasis the mundane. There is no panicking in the streets, no looting or violent gangs; the characters drift through much of the story in a domestic daze, jolted every now and then by the enormity of what they face. Peter Holms, a Lieutenant Commander in the Australian Navy continues going to work, and returns home to his wife Mary and baby girl, Jennifer. Dwight Towers, an American submarine Captain, pretends that his wife and children are still alive, that he is just on a mission and will be returning shortly. A young woman named Moira turns away from her heavy drinking lifestyle and enrols in secretarial school. There are barbeques and dinner parties and every so then somebody mentions a future endeavour such as planting a garden or the ministry decide to open the trout fishing season early and characters have to redefine their horizons.

Shute could be accused of understatement at times. For example, a scene when Peter Holmes discusses suicide provisions for his wife and daughter with the chemist. Peter is worried that his naval mission might not have him back in time to help his wife commit suicide and ‘see to the baby’. The chemist offers to explain the medical protocol to Mrs Holmes when the time comes but Peter asks to be shown now as he’d rather do it himself as “...she’ll be a bit upset.” The stoicism is on occasion stifling. But the idea that these characters are facing the end of civilisation with dignity, albeit, comforted by a thin blanket of denial, is heartening.

When reading the novel I didn’t dwell too much on the politics of the novel or warnings about the dangers of modern technology. Shute puts the blame for the war on the ‘little nations’ as ‘cobalt’ bombs became too cheap and assessable. Dwight Towers suggests that, “Maybe we’ve been too silly to deserve a world like this,” and a scientist, John Osborne replies “That’s absolutely and precisely right.”. Obviously the novel is anti-war, but what is Shute really advocating? A more sensible approach to progress? In the final pages Peter makes a comment that newspapers could have been used to stop the war, however, the arguments seem naive and unfinished.

The novel’s power lies for me in how we view death in general. For Mary, for example, death for herself and Jennifer is unthinkable and she chooses to ignore the inevitable almost to the last page. John Osborn chooses to fulfil his life’s ambition and race a Ferrari (dangerously) . But the two main characters in the novel, in my opion, represent a dualism within the human spirit -the ability to know the truth yet continue with seemingly pointless things without becoming a hypocrite.

Peter works right up till almost the last day then, despite feeling well decides to ‘go with’ Mary and baby Jennifer. Dwight stays faithful to his dead wife and chooses to follow navel protocol and die sinking his vessel, denying Moria the chance to die with him as ‘uncle Sam wouldn’t like it’. Both characters decide that the life they lived before the war was worth continuing despite the circumstances. I do not believe Shute had them do this through fear or denial of even boredom but a poignant reaffirmation of their lives as was. Shute chose not to have the characters descend into a nihilistic or Hobbsean existence. The habits and rituals of the pre-war life, of work and the family were not, I believe, written by Shute to be merely a veneer of society but instead the stuff of which characters are actually comprised.

The horror and misery of the last few days is played out, again in an almost absurd understatement. Very few details are offered, in fact in a scene where Mary is telling Peter about baby Jennifer’s illness Shute actually writes, “she added some details.”, rather than actually add details. However, the information Shute does offer creates many moving moments such as Mary being relieved that her husband daughter and herself have the sickness together and John Osborn’s mother leaving a selfless goodbye note to her son.

Compare this dignity to Cormack McCormack’s 2006 novel The Road. McCormack’s novel is far more graphic and violent. Another baby is killed in The Road, in very different circumstances, but, despite the heightened imagery and stark brutality one could argue that story lacks the poignancy and quiet power of Shute’s Novel. On the Beach is dated, and the stoicism could be a consequence of a different generation but I find reassuring the dignity and quiet of Shute’s post apocalyptic ‘hiatus’, that under duress mankind does not necessarily descend into violent anarchy but, given the option, dies quietly shrouded in the mundane of everyday living. The idea that rabbits will continue for a while after the humans are all gone is also strangely comforting.