snpmurray's Full Review: George R. Stewart - Earth Abides
Earth Abides... ah, what a fantastic book this one is!
Isherwood Williams, scholar and loner, has never really felt comfortable with people. He has developed a habit of retreating into the Southwestern deserts for periods of time. On just such a jaunt, we find him climbing a rock face when he is bitten by a rattler. Returning to his cabin, he falls into a delirium, and lies near coma for unmeasured time.
Isherwood recovers enough to drive to town, but there is no-one there. As he wanders through the empty town he pieces together the story......whilst he lay on his sickbed, a pandemic infection has rapidly killed off the human population of the planet. Everybody is gone.
Shocked, but resilient, since his nature was always to be alone, Isherwood begins to wander the streets. Then the state. Then the entire United States, seeking answers, others, in fact anything that can reassure him that mankind has not entirely vanished, leaving him utterly alone.
He finds little to bring solace. The odd wandering imbecile, struck dumb in one way or another by what they have seen, isolated survivors, unlikely to get through the coming winter season. He can find no remnant of order, of society, of civilization.
Returning to his family home in California, he slowly finds folk who are kind, happy and decent. They tie their fortunes together in a small community, and we watch down the years as their group becomes families, and then the families become a tribe.
All the while Isherwood has tried to preserve the learning of the fallen race, but struggles even to persuade the next generation to literacy. He sees always into the future, when canned goods are exhausted, and man must fend for himself once more. As electricity and running water and automobiles become ghosts of the past, the new culture rises. Isherwood finds himself the last remnant of rationalism, an anachronistic icon, and a source of humor to the younger ones. He is torn between fascinated observation of the rebirth of man, and deep frustration at a second fall of man. In his final days, he is part god and legend, and truly, the last American.
....and what a sensationally good read it makes. This book is rich, with complex embedded layers of meaning, like a fine wine. George Stewart is a very clever writer. Of course, all those who enjoy such speculative fiction as this love the question "What if......?", and this is an exploration of "what if...?" on a grand scale.
The reader cannot help but be morbidly fascinated by such a vivid portrait of our world, stripped only of its human inhabitants, lying empty like a great movie set. The author not only does us the courtesy of giving us a guided tour of this world, from one coast of the Americas to the other, but then goes on to illustrate how man might come back together over time. What a journey I have been on with this book!
Many intelligent considerations enrich the story....plagues, for example... as mans' hand of husbandry releases mother nature, and a new balance must be achieved amongst the flora and fauna. I never considered it, but of course, just such a thing would undoubtedly be so.
There is much to be said for a vivid imagination conjuring unreal worlds for us. Quite another thing is this work. George Stewart shows us instead a world which could so surely be real, it can chill the reader.
"Oh what a fragile shell is that which we call man"
The writing is also sensitive and touching. Actually, Stewart writes of Isherwoods' old age with such insight, I was surprised to discover he was not himself a pensioner when he wrote this. My job as a nurse has long since taught me that understanding of the lives of the very elderly are poorly understood by the young. This demonstration of the understanding nature of the author further elevated the book in my estimations.
You'll love this book. Watch, as man goes from living out of unlimited cans, and trusting in rationalism, to rediscovering the bow and arrow, wearing bearskins, and falling back on superstition and legend as his only source of knowledge. What a ride, what a ride!
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