I’m sure there were people fleeing South, but Shute focuses on the people who stay in Melbourne. I would guess that the book would have been more fulfilling for them if a pocket of those people had found a way to survive thus leaving them with some hope that they too could be among the survivors. They wanted people clinging to every last drop of their remaining existence. The people who didn’t like this book were looking for the standard apocalyptic novel with desperate people fleeing in front of the radiation (zombies, tidal wave, Ebola etc) hoping to live days longer or maybe even hoping for a reprieve. I glanced through some other reviews of this book. So those countries that were not involved in World War III, are fully involved in the dying part of the war. All of this nuclear infused with cobalt to insure the maximum amount of radiation fallout. The Soviets bomb China because of Chinese attacks on their border. NATO bombed the Soviet Union because the planes used by the Egyptians were Soviet made. Egypt then bombed the United States and the United Kingdom. Ok.so, Nevil Shute has the world ending with Albania attacking Italy. Gathered on this beach of the tumid river… I could dig around a bit and probably discover her birth date, but then that wouldn’t be very sporting of me now would it?

My bellwether librarian agreed that she remembered how difficult it was for everyone to go about their regular business with the oppressive presence of the eminent demise of civilization looming over their lives. My Father has always said he has never been more afraid of the World Ending than in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Luckily she bailed me out and told me she read the book much later, but still while we were up to our eyeballs in the Cold War. I wanted to ask what it was like to have read this book in 1957, but that is a rather delicate question to a woman of an indeterminate age. When I checked this book out of the library, the librarian, the same one who gave me such good material for my In Cold Blood review, said that this book terrified her, not because of the horrifying circumstances in the book, but the plodding calmness of the characters. Those years between 1957-1963 proved to be tumultuous years indeed.

On the Beach was published in 1957, but the novel is set in what was then the near future of 1963. I dare say it will get along all right without us.”Īn Instructional Manual from 1951 on what to do in the event of an A-Bomb attack. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. “It's not the end of the world at all,' he said.

Shute nevil on the beach