A fast apocalypse

[bibliogramma]

Continuing the project of re-reading sf novels I remember fondly, or at least with clarity, from my youth.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank is a "classic" novel written in the late 50s at the height of the Cold War frenzy, and it's one of those "the Russians/Americans have dropped nuclear bombs all over the world and what the hell will the poor suckers who survived the bombs do now" novels. The most well-known book of its kind from this era was probably Nevil Shute's On the Beach - which I also intend to reread one of these days.

There is much American patriotism and militarism and patriarchal sexism in the book, and the basic story is about how civilization as it is known in a small town in Florida deteriorates into chaos once the bombs fall, until a noble US military reserve officer decides to take matters into his own hands - duly authorised via a ham radio announcement from the Acting President of the US (we know how bad the situation is by the fact that the Acting Persident is the former Secretary of Health, and - gasp - a woman), who says that all reserve officers can create their own fiefdoms in whatever part of the US they happen to be surviving in, and use their rank to keep the American dream alive, because all US reserve officers are noble and would never misuse total authority and power were it to be given to them.

There are some very interesting gender and racial politics - before taking over what's left of his town, the hero creates for himself a little enclave in what was his upper-class family's home and citrus farm with a tribe (and I'm using that word deliberately) of women without husbands (including his widowed sister-in-law), blacks (all former servants of his or neighbouring families), two physically unthreatening older men (who, though retired, still have useful elder-type knowledge as a former admiral and a former industrialist who worked his way up from the machine shop) and a healer-shaman non-hero in the shape of the bespectacled and relatively pacifist town doctor.

There's even a mixed-race bad girl with a heart of gold who helps the hero take control of the town even though he doesn't want her as part of his tribe becasue he slept with her before the nice and very white girl he's chosen as "his" came along.

But we know our hero is a good man, because he treats "his" blacks and "his" women just as if they were real humans, just like him. Almost.

Interestingly enough, among the hero's first acts upon naming himself lord of the whole manor are:
1. to summarily execute three alleged "highwaymen" who beat up the doctor and stole his medical kit
2. to establish rules for formalizing and recording marriages and births

Civilization is restored once a man can protect his tribe by killing his enemies, and prove his ownership of the women and children.

So, basically, the politics just suck, totally.

But it's well-written, the characters and the plot are, within the limitations of the time and the cultual belifs of the author, interesting. It was as much fun to read as it was to tear apart. I guess that's an endorsement.

Comments

[sausconys-books.livejournal.com]

I had to read this book for social studies class in high school and I remember liking it well enough then- mostly because it was actually a fun book to read. I didn't even notice the gender and race politics in it then though.

[bibliogramma.livejournal.com]

That's actually part of why I'm rereading a lot of these older books - I want to see how the politics stands up, because I didn't see many of these things when I first read them, either. Cultural awareness of all of these issues has changed so much since these books were written, and even since I read them as a girl (it's been 30, even 40 years since I read some of these books), and it's fascinating seeing what I couldn't see then.