On the Beach

So in between all the ups and downs that goes with fostering animals I was also reading this depressing book (Neville Shute) I've been wanting to read for some time. Why? I'm not sure, doesn't everybody like to read about humanity's untimely end? The way disaster movies gross millions of dollars maybe they do.

Basic plot line without giving too much away:

Set in the not too distant future (for the time) the world has been rocked by some kind of war where nuclear weapons were used in the northern hemisphere. The last few countries with the population still alive is Australia, some of South America and Africa, but the global air currents are slowly sending the fallout down to the southern hemisphere.

The only hope the navy is clinging to is that there is some unexplained Morse code transmitting from Seattle. The Australian navy organises for the American submarine to go and check it out. In the meantime people are coming to terms (or living in delusion land) about the nuclear fallout reaching them and the end of life as they know it.

I wanted to read this book ever since I saw the telemovie when I was in high school, according to IMDB it came out in 2000 so I must have been 16/17 which seems to be the age I view dooms day films (I must do a post on Threads sometime, that film will scare the shit out of any 14 year old). 

The things I remembered from the telemovie:

• some guy kills himself driving really fast and crashing in his Ferrari instead of waiting for the radioactive sickness
• the lead guy played by an American had a really cool name (Armand Assante)

So based on these observations from a decade ago, I'm still not sure why I wanted to read this. I know I am a sucker for post apocalyptic books/films (don't judge, there's a lot of us) but this one just really depressed me. Also the females came across as none too bright, seriously living in la-la land about the future and the possibility of having to murder a child with a government issued suicide pill or injection. I know I'd rather watch my daughter get slowly poisoned to death! I realise it is a coping mechanism to continually think ahead and just avoid the harsh reality but seriously? I think I would have just took a pill as soon as I found out instead of just sitting around waiting to die. But that's the human spirit isn't it?

My god even this review is depressing. I did like some things: the way it makes you question your own behaviour in a similar situation and the way that the dialogue in all old Australian novels still always sounds vaguely English.

My apologies for the sombre post, our latest foster puppy has just gone out on trial and I'm feeling a mite sad.

For the record the original movie came out in 1959 (2 years after the book was published) and had Americans playing Australians (Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins). Slightly worst than watching the dubbed version of mad max. Don't buy old Australian films in Bali, children.