Earth Abides (1949)

SPOILER ALERT: Huge spoilers ahead.

George Stewart's Earth Abides is a post-apocalyptic novel, set largely in San Francisco, between the years of approximately 1950 up to roughly 2010. Isherwood Williams is engaged in some fieldwork for his graduate studies in geography at the University of San Francisco. While out one day he finds an abandonned four-pound crack hammer, and shortly thereafter is bitten by a rattlesnake. He reaches the small cabin where he was staying, under primitive conditions, and manages to extract some of the snake venom with his snakebite kit, and spends several days' delirium poised between life and death. When he is sufficiently recovered, he emerges from the cabin to find that a plague has swept through the human population, leaving very few still alive. He returns to his parents' house, and then elects to set out and explore, to see what has become of the rest of the country. His explorations take him all the way back to New York City, but he returns alone despite having encountered a few survivors. Slowly, however, he falls in with others, including Emma, Ezra, George, and others, who become the foundation of "the Tribe", a group of survivors.

That, at least, is the setup to the book, accomplished in the first section. What is annoying is Stewart's decision - made repeatedly - to gloss over the sections which might have advanced the story dramatically, and instead favoring philosophical instances and discursions in Ish's mind. The details of the mechanics of the collapse of society appear to interest Stewart far less than philosophy. The sole dramatic tension in the book is created by the appearance of Charlie, a survivor from Los Angeles who threatens the balance of the group. But instead of using this tension for dramatic purposes, Charlie is summarily executed and buried in the space of a few words. The action, as it were, takes place entirely off-camera, with the result that the only thing impelling the reader to continue is sheer bloody-mindedness.

Ish is also a curiously incompetent "leader". Although he has youth working against him, he is seemingly unable to devise simple solutions to problems in the burgeoning community. Crows come and eat your crops? You have limitless supplies and some skilled manpower - why not build greenhouses? Children begin to run wild? Institute school from an early age, so they know nothing else, and devote one member of the community to curriculum. Maintenance and chores are an issue? Develop a rota, prioritize tasks. Leadership is a question or an issue? Form a simple government. For a philosophically-minded man, Stewart and his hero are woefully impractical, and as a result, the community will slide back into the bronze age in a matter of three generations.

And the rest of the book rather peters out from there. Ish gets older. All of the other original survivors die, and Ish is left with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, crossing into the 21st century without much heed being paid. The Golden Gate Bridge continues to stand as something of a symbol, but of constancy or decay Stewart can't seem to decide. Maybe Mount Tamelpais, mentioned by name only once, would be a better reference for constancy. Some notions of the story were interesting: the discussion with his great-grandson, for instance, about the faces which appeared on coins, appeared to indicate that the story was written about a decade before it was published (references to the "Buffalo" nickels, which ceased production in 1938 when they were replaced by Jefferson, and the "Mercury" dimes, which were discontinued in 1946 when they were replaced by the Roosevelt dime); also the noting of the fact that dimes, quarters, and halves were made of coin silver, rather than the mix that replaced them in 1964, was something which a casual numismatist might enjoy puzzling out.

I struggled to like this book, and finally decided that it was not all that it was cracked up to be. Stewart seems to have wanted to be both philosopher and storyteller, and as a result he accomplished neither with any particular degree of aplomb. I don't object to the philosophical angle of the novel, but rather the fact that Stewart allowed it and his ideas about what was important for survival to dominate the drama. Much better novels about the "end of the world" have been written, and some, like John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, tell similar stories without succumbing to these flaws, and even manage to make similar ecological and philosophical points. Unfortunately, although I enjoyed some elements and the San Francisco setting, there were too many weaknesses in this book for me to give it more than a middle-of-the-road rating. Two-and-a-half stars.

eBOOK NOTE: if you read the Kindle edition of this novel, be prepared for numerous errors resulting from sloppy editing of an OCR-scanned text. The first half of the book appears to have been proofed more thoroughly than the second, and if you're a careful reader, it will be hugely irritating. Say what you will, paper is often still better. ( )

Yanki, profundamente yanki (todo pasa en EEUU), la novelita plantea algo similar a lo que había leído hacía poco en "El día de los trífidos": sociedad postapocalíptica, casi todos muertos (en este caso por un virus) que debe volver a organizarse. A partir de allí, el protagonista Ish intenta volver al esplendor de la civilización antigua. La referencia obvia, con la que el libro juega, es -al menos al comienzo- Robinson Crusoe. Mientras en Robinson se entiende que un hombre contiene en sí mismo a toda la civilización, en la obra de Stewart esto no parece ser tan así. El libro juega, entonces, durante toda una larga segunda parte con una situación de laboratorio: 3 parejas y una retrasada mental que deben repoblar la tierra. Se ponen a ello, en pocos años superan la treintena y surgen algunos problemas. Viven de la rapiña de la civilización pasada, comen latas de conserva, etc. Surgen algunos problemas cuando se viaja, aparece un nuevo integrante y se abre un sistema judicial, en fin, el protagonista envejece, la tierra se repuebla con la naturaleza, vuelven a aparecer cuestiones primitivas, cosas así. Parece ser que la novela cuenta con muchos fans (Javi, que me la prestó y la considera poesía pura, el primero), sin embargo a mí no terminó de convencerme por cuestiones estrictamente literarias. Parece una novela más preocupada en el devenir que en lo que está contando (en eso se parece un poco a su personaje), la sucesión de acciones rara vez se detiene en el detalle que enriquecería, creo yo, enormemente la narración de este mundo que se asume más que otra cosa. A su vez, se busca un tono melancólico, se entrecruzan parlamentos que no se entienden si son de Stewart, de Ish o de algún otro personaje (en el episodio de las clases es evidente que está desde la perspectiva de un alumno, en otro algún vocativo señala que es alguien cercano a otro personaje, en fin, fluctúa o no lo entendí bien). En definitiva, se deja leer, por momentos se me hizo larga y me pareció de inferior ejecución a Los trífidos (que ya no consideraba una gran obra) y a otras novelas postapocalípticas (Soy leyenda, claro). ( )

More than speculative disaster fiction, Earth Abides is a post-apocalyptic novel about human civilization after a planet wide cataclysm. As revelatory narrative, it is not only sweeping and thoughtful, but also elemental and philosophical enough to show how futile were the backyard fallout shelters of the1950’s, and also the gasoline hoarding, food-stuffed lairs of 21st century doomsday preppers now. Author George R. Stewart travels beyond such temporary human stopgaps to illuminate the depth and breadth of a calamity affecting generations of humans.

Set in the San Francisco East Bay Area, not only does his novel introduce and follow individual men and women characters who grow, develop, and decay across their life spans; but also he makes Nature (weather, climate, season, fire, water, birth, growth, regression and succession, population collapse, death, and pandemic) and the Planet Earth brilliant primary characters that drive this tale. Stewart wrote about what he knew: including great 20th century Bay Area icons---the Golden Gate and Bay Bridge, and the colossal Doe Library (built 1910) at the University of California, Berkeley. All play roles as physical links to possibility, connection, and knowledge in Earth Abides, as Stewart attempts to discover what is essential, and what of civilization will or will not atrophy or survive. All three were very familiar to Stewart, who was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Words like “staggering” and “heroic” describe the progress of this work. The result is amazing, considering Stewart’s novel was published in1949, before personal computers, satellites, and spacecraft. In this book he recreates the sympathetic and sobering tone of the prayer, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” from the Book of Common Prayer, itself derived from Genesis 3:19, and combines it with the poetic perspective of Ecclesiastes. In fact Earth Abides owes much of its point-of-view, including its title, to the voice of the “teacher” Koheleth at the heart of Ecclesiastes, who investigates and ponders the gravity, moral purpose, and meaning of human life. But, this novel is no religious tract. Instead it develops a logical and spiritual consideration of what a devastated humanity set into a fragile landscape, can be or become. Both yesterday’s earthbound, and today’s orbiting, see-all humans can empathize with the hope and sorrow inherent in such an enterprise. As always Mankind’s character must bear the result, whether joy or blame in the end. Either way, no reader of Earth Abides will fail to be moved by the journey.___Val Morehouse, Reviewer. ( )

Instead of a real review, I’ve decided to post random comments from and about the story.

Economics professor: “The trouble you are expecting never happens; it’s always something that sneaks up the other way.”

Coyote loping along the highway in daylight: “Strange how soon it had known the world had changed, and that it could take new freedoms.”

“Drink-blackness. Drink-blackness.” New will to live. To observe.

People who are left: alcoholic, running teenage girl, territorial man with woman

“His weakness had become his strength.” Not social. Able to endure lack of conversation.

Dog. “Found himself building a wall against more attachments which must end only with death.”

National Monument Cliff Dwellers Superintendent’s home already starting to deteriorate - eventually like cliff dwellers’ homes

“Men come and go, but earth abides.” ( )

Post-apocalyptic stories typically come in two flavours. There’s the type which follows survivors through the catastrophe itself and covers their attempts to stay alive, scrabbling for resources in an emptied world, eating out of cans and scavenging vehicles and firearms. Then there’s the type which takes place generations after the collapse, in which society has reverted to a tribal state, cities are crumbling and overgrown with vegetation, and the artifacts of the past are revered or treated with superstition.

Earth Abides, one of the earlier example of post-apocalyptic science fiction (it was published in 1949), is an interesting novel because it bridges the gap between these two societies. Isherwood Williams is a university student in his early 20s who is bitten by a rattlesnake while hiking in the mountains outside San Francisco. Spending a few days delirious with poison in a mountain cabin, he emerges to find that virtually the entire human race has been wiped out by a deadly plague.

Stewart handwaves the plague itself; all the evidence Ish finds of the disaster suggests that people quietly and orderly died in bed or in hospitals. Earth Abides is very much a post-apocalyptic novel rather an an apocalyptic novel. Ish drives all over the United States in the aftermath of the disaster, exploring and examining, before eventually returning to San Francisco. He finds a woman and settles down, and before long they gather a few other survivors and begin having children. The book is divided into three parts: the first in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the second 22 years later when a new generation has grown up but the old generation still remembers the past, and the third when Ish is a an old and partly senile man, after “the Tribe” has lost track of the date, which probably takes place around about now. The central part of the book is probably the most critical, as Ish worries about the development of his children and grandchildren and the way they treat the world. Literacy, for example, disappears because the children aren’t interested in learning it. The adults themselves grow too complacent living in the ruins of a great civilisation, where everything is there for the taking, to worry about learning important skills themselves and passing them down through the generations – when the water stops running due to failed pipes, twenty-two years after the disaster, nobody has any idea how to repair them, and they settle for drinking from creeks and building outdoor latrines. Ish often blames the disinterest of the children or the “stupidity” of his fellow-aged survivors, but he’s just as guilty of complacency as the others.

In terms of the style, Earth Abides has elements of both the straight dope, expository science fiction form, and the old-school style you find in a lot of books by authors born in the 19th century – think John Wyndham, though a bit more poetic. It can be odd to adjust to if you go straight from reading something else, but it’s consistent and distinctive, and easy to grow accustomed to. Stewart does a good job of delineating the writing style in the three phases of Ish’s life: first as a man in his early 20s (since I’m also in my early 20s I can consider this to be standard, or default, right?), then as a man in his late 40s who is starting to get crotchety at the ways of the younger generation, and finally as an old man who has difficulty remembering things and slips in and out of lucidity. I also liked the way Ish’s story is intercut, often between paragraphs, with short vignettes describing the way the earth is returning to nature. Apparently Stewart’s examination of ecology in these pieces was quite new at the time, though now, of course, environmentalism is much more a part of the zeitgeist. If there’s a piece of the novel that’s particularly dated, apart from the writing style and dialogue, it’s Stewart’s bright and shining 1940s optimism in technology – the electricity keeps running, unmanned, for several months after the disaster, and even twenty-two years later Ish and his sons manage to get a car running just by replacing the battery, the oil and the tyres. (Something that always bugs me about post-apocalyptic fiction is the use of cars more than a few months after the diaster – petrol goes off within months, and I doubt many survivors would have the foresight to immediately mix a vast quantity of it with preservative. I thought it might be a 1940s leaded petrol thing, before remembering that I first learned that petrol goes off from Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids, published in 1951.)

A final note to mention is the real life parallel Stewart draws with another last member of a great civilisation – that of Ishi, generally thought to be the last Native American to live a totally traditional lifestyle, who emerged from Yosemite National Park in 1911. The main character’s name, and the location for most of the novel, are certainly no accident; just as Ishi lived out his days in an unrecognisable world, the last man who remembered anything of his people and their history, so does Isherwood Williams. Civilisations come and go – only the earth abides.

Earth Abides is a very good science fiction novel, quite readable, and examining an area of the genre that, as far as I’m aware, no other book has done since. Despite its age, it remains well worth reading, and will endure as a classic of science fiction.