Earth Abides [Tapa dura]

When I write "one of the most memorable books I've read," that's saying something, because I've kept up a pace of reading at least four books a week since before entering Kindergarten and am now 67. I borrowed EARTH ABIDES from the library a year after it came out, in 1950, when I was a 14-year-old high school sophomore, reading everything and anything labeled "science fiction." I didn't own the book until fairly recently, but it stayed vividly in my memory. I could call up characters like fussy Maureen, stolid George, loyal Em and the tragic genius child, Joey. I remembered the fascinating journey across America, the vague frustration I felt (even so young) over Ish's passive character and the generally negative slide of the tribe from scavenging off civilization into what appeared almost to be an Upper Paleolithic lifestyle at the novel's end--not even qualifying as barbarism.

But it's Stewart's refusal to tread the usual Golden Age sci-fi path and make Ish a superscience hero that makes the novel very special. Ish may be a scientist, he's academically bright, but like many people he's low in energy, street-smarts, and foresight. By and large his motley clan possesses even lower survival skills. They aren't much different from the Valley Girls in another good story in the end-of-the-world genre, the movie NIGHT OF THE COMET. Both are based on an understanding that if the human race's average IQ is 100, half the people who are likely to survive a major disaster aren't going to be awfully competent. Stewart certainly knew that, and it provided both the uncanny realism and the rather depressing pessimism of this story. It's fascinating to note that the other reviewers have noted both aspects of EARTH ABIDES.

George R. Stewart weaves at once a beautiful and hauntingly believable tale with this novel, one that I've never been able to forget...or wanted to. Once considered dated, with the lessening of global nuclear tensions, the scenario Mr. Stewart envisions for a possible worldwide catastrophe, one brought about not by bombs but disease, has once again come to the forefront and become the most plausible ingredient in mankind's demise. More even than the fact that this is a truly enjoyable read is the deeper message Earth Abides shares with the reader as it reaches down and touches our very hearts, defining what it means to be human in an inhuman environment. The symbolism involved in Isherwood Williams' desire to keep a hammer with him for the future as a tie to the past is obviously an unconscious comment on his personal hope of rebuilding a fallen civilization. A hope that goes unfulfilled in his life time and maybe many lifetimes to follow. The insight into the human psyche that Mr. Stewart demonstates as he carries Isherwood from his youth at the beginning of the book to old age and finally death at the end and Isherwood's subtle change of attitude during that process, rings exceedingly true and speaks volumes about Mr. Stewart's keen and perhaps unique ability to put into words what it really means, or at least should mean, to be human. I've rarely read a book more than once because I just don't have the time, but I've read Earth Abides several times since I was a teen and I know I'll read it several more times before I too reach that stage in my life that Isherwood assures us won't be the calamity our youth oriented culture would have us to believe.

Due to a multitude of rude comments regarding this review I will edit to please. Here goes... NON-SPOILER ALERT

I can't expound upon this book as some of the reviewers have. Nor can I recall in exact detail everything in the book.

But I can add value in this way.... I read this book 30 years ago, and I still think about it. I can remember the xxxxxx, the xxxxx that xxxx the main character, the waves of xxxxx xxxxxx after the event... the xxxx, the forced xxxx, the eventual shut down of the xxxxx xxxxx as the xxxxxxxxx started to xxxxx. The shift from xxxxxxxxxx( for years) to xxxxxxx for themselves.

The last breaths of the xxxxxxx and the xxxxxx for the xxxxxxx, the xxxx which every year the xxxxxxx took up to the xxxxx and xxxxx the time since the xxxxx.

30 Years.... and I still think about it. How many books, movies, songs... etc... do you expect to think about 30 years down the road. You probably wouldn't even remember the title let alone a rough outline.

Will I read it again? Certainly! I ran into a young lady reading this on the subway a few years back, and we had a wonderful conversation... it's that kind of a book.

SPOILAGE AVERTED --- Skol