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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An odd, but interesting, post-pocalyptic novel,
By
This review is from: This Is the Way the World Ends (Paperback)
Sandwiched between vignettes of Nostradamus, "This is the Way the World Ends" is the tale of George Paxton, and the five other remaining humans on Earth. Unfortunately for George, he and the others are being tried for war crimes stemming from the nuclear destruction of the planet by the "unadmitted"; basically unborn generations that have willed themselves into existence for a brief time in order to inquire why their potential will never be realized. Compounding George's dilemma is the fact that unlike his fellow defendants, who are all wizards of nuclear strategy, George is just a simple everyman (with the ironic profession of tomb stone carver) whose only "guilt" was in not carefully reading a sales contract for a free nuclear survival suit for his daughter.As one can tell from this brief synopsis of the plot, this is not your ordinary work of post-apocalyptic fiction. Or rather, it covers the same ground, but from a completely different angle. The Nostradamus bookends offer an air of inevitability to the narrative, and introduce a major plot device, and Morrow's description of a nuclear war's aftermath is highly engaging. Where this novel really shines, however, is in the trial. One might expect Morrow to be a staunch proponent of disarmament given the theme of his book, but that assumption is not entirely true. Through the mechanism of the trial, he rails against both the naiveté of the doves, and the hawks' disconnect from reality. As another reviewer so eloquently stated, he demolishes the generally accepted duality of nuclear politics, and demands the reader consider a third path of their own making. That's where George comes in; his real guilt is not in his action, but in his inaction. While much of "This is the Way the World Ends" is written in the language of 1980's Cold War rhetoric, and the threat of a massive nuclear exchange has, if not passed, certainly lessened immensely, the novel still offers great insight. First of all, Morrow's discussion of deterrence versus disarmament is fascinating; in fact (and I say this with the benefit of a degree in the subject) they would be more than adequate points of departure for any undergraduate course in international security. Particularly fascinating are his statements within ten pages that (paraphrased) 1. You can't have deterrence without strength and 2. Strength leads to escalation leads to instability. Morrow doesn't offer any answers, but he does frame some fascinating questions. Around those questions he has built a novel of intense emotion and beautiful characters; the last time a book's ending moved me so intensely was another classic of the genre, "On the Beach". And while I wouldn't place it in quite the same league as Nevil Shute's masterwork, it is nonetheless a remarkable book that is eminently worth reading. Enjoy!
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Even Bad Morrow Is Great Literature,
By
This review is from: This Is the Way the World Ends (Paperback)
"This is the Way the World Ends" is one of James Morrow's early works, and when comparing it (somewhat unfairly) with more recent novels, like the Towing Jehovah trilogy, it's easy to see his progression as a writer, both in terms of ideas and style. While remaining firmly in the `snooty intellectual' camp Morrow himself satirizes in his later books, "TITWTWE" is still a good read, and is a unique addition to the field of post-apocalyptic fiction.Sandwiched between bookends of Nostradamus, the plot revolves around main character George Paxton, an everyman who carves tombstones for a living and worries about his family. When his neighbor invents something called a "scopas suit" that promises to be the device to change the nuclear balance of power, by allowing its wearer to survive and thrive after a nuclear exchange, George finds he cannot afford one - but makes a deal with a strange shopkeeper to get one on the cheap. On his way home, World War III erupts and George is caught almost at Ground Zero as he watches his family die from intense radiation poisoning. That is just the setup for the meat of the book. George is rescued by a submarine and taken to Antarctica with five other survivors, to be put on trial for ending the human race. The judge, jury, and executioners? A race called "unadmitted humans," who came to be in the time-altering effects of the War. They bleed black blood and only live for a short time, but they nurse George to health so he can stand trial. Those familiar with "Blameless in Abaddon" will recognize the trial as a means for Morrow to tell his story, and the reader is intended to sympathize with those who created the nuclear conflict through lies like "mutual assured destruction," "deterrence," and so forth. It may be an artifact of the Reagan years, but Morrow's "TITWTWE" remains a solid piece of literature, even if it tapers off (as another review put it, the middle is a part you have to force yourself to get through). Morrow's prose flows easily, and the trial is a clear indictment of both the no-nukes crowd and those who rely on nuclear weapons instead of human intelligence to solve problems. As usual, Morrow neatly destroys the traditional dualism inherent in the nuclear debate, leaving the reader to formulate new conclusions after the two most popular choices have been proven wrong. It may not be his best work, but it's worth checking out, and it belongs on any post-apocalyptic aficionado's shelf.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Satirizing Nuclear Warriors,
By
This review is from: This Is the Way the World Ends (Paperback)
As he does in his other books, Morrow here uses fantastical elements for maximum satirical effect. The question is whether these elements detract from the story's satirical force, which is what Beth Ann Mills' Library Journal review above suggests. This isn't just a question of the reader's ability to suspend disbelief, since the author obviously has some responsibility to make the story plausible. Mills, though, doesn't appreciate that far from conflicting with the book's satirical power, Morrow's satire depends on the novel's fantastic parts.
Morrow typically begins with a fantastic premise that provides the perfect setting in which to skewer his targets. Take his book, Towing Jehovah. God's gigantic body drops dead from the sky. God is clearly now dead, but this means he was once alive. This is a rich starting point for showing that both atheists and theists (but especially theists) are ridiculously wrong. In the case of his satire on nuclear war, TITWTWE, Morrow mixes realism with fantasy. The nuclear war itself is described in horrifying detail. The arguments for and against nuclear deterrence are examined in a concrete way. Contrary to Mills, the giant prehistoric bird is explained in ordinary biological terms and is therefore, strictly speaking, science fictional not fantastic. The flying tailor shop is also science fictional. This isn't to say that a prehistoric bird and a flying tailor shop aren't fantastic in a less technical sense. Even if we put to one side its genuine fantastic themes, TITWTWE still wouldn't be a straightforward novel. This is to that even speculative science fictional ideas are fantastic in the sense that they're highly unusual. Perhaps the overall strangeness of Morrow's novel detracts from the serious points he may want to make. My point, though, is that Morrow's extreme kind of satire depends precisely on the plot's strangeness. I'll show this below in the spoiler alert paragraph. The book's main fantastic idea has to do with the nature of the people who conduct the trial of the nuclear holocaust's survivors. The reason these people are genuinely fantastic is that Morrow doesn't even attempt to explain in realistic terms how they come to be or what rules govern their abilities. He says that they're a strange consequence of a species extinction event, and that they "gain the continent." But the explanation Morrow does give establishes the book's satirical thrust. Contrary to Mills, these people are not aliens. If they were simply aliens, they would be science fictional not fantastic. Indeed, Morrow has a character say at one point that aliens might be observing the trial, and I would have been satisfied if they had turned out to be aliens or the work of aliens. ***Spoiler alert. Don't read further in this paragraph if you haven't yet read TITWTWE. The "unadmitted" people are simply the humans from the future that would have lived had there been no nuclear war. They come from the possible world that would have been actualized. So they're not aliens; granted, they have some strange powers, such as their shape-changing black blood and their inability to live past a year, but these powers clearly support the satirical point Morrow wants to make. (Their blood is black because they're outraged that they won't be "admitted" and their lifespan is short because their anger brings them into existence briefly, but they can't escape the overriding damage done by the war. Incidentally, the reason the flying tailor shop isn't properly fantastic is that the shop comes from the future.) Morrow shows that a nuclear war wouldn't be a crime just against the peace or against present humanity, but would be a crime also against the future, because the whole species might be rendered extinct. So why not have the future (somehow) visit the present to rage against those who could have tried harder to stop the war but didn't? Morrow could have made their presence realistic by appealing to extraterrestrials, but he doesn't do so. Now my main point is that even if the novel's strangeness allows a reader to get distracted, there would be no way to engage in Morrow's extreme level of satire without having the survivors literally confront the worst consequence of their inaction, which is the extinction of the species. Morrow makes this confrontation literal by having the future humans arrive in the present to take their revenge. There simply is a level of satire that depends on a strange plot. End of spoiler alert.*** Besides allowing him to ridicule those who would justify a buildup of nuclear weapons, Morrow's fantastic premise allows for some tear-jerking, bittersweet moments, especially near the end. As I was reading the book, I found myself hoping that Morrow would eventually explain in realistic terms the people conducting the trial. What Morrow does instead is use the bluntness of the fantasy to focus on the gut wrenching consequences of the end of the world. The book's ending is very sad indeed and would have been diluted with a science fiction-style explanation having to do with aliens. Another reviewer, Robert Beveridge thinks Morrow was going for comedy. The book isn't simply a comedy, but Morrow uses humour in two ways. There is gallows humour which makes the best of an untenable situation. More importantly, some of the humour is meant to ridicule and to shame the satire's targets. The humour is bitter not lighthearted, so it surely makes no sense to fault the book for burying the humour under the "political message." The book is primarily satirical, and the humour as well as the fantasy serve the purpose of satirizing, which is to say ridiculing certain targets. The targets aren't just political (George the hero is an everyman), so neither is the book's message. But the political arguments are hardly one-sided. Both sides have their say in the trial. Morrow does come down against a nuclear weapons buildup, but mainly because of a single argument, which is the arrogance of booby-trapping the planet despite the likelihood of unintended consequences, accidents, and human error. I mostly agree with the reviewer Michael Battaglia except I don't think inconsistency is a problem when Morrow switches from dark humour to honest emotion. The aftermath of a nuclear holocaust would be multifaceted, and the sad ending is so effectively handled--especially one particular chapter--that I think the reader can be absorbed by it without being distracted by the earlier amusing parts. At worst the book is inconsistent in some academic sense.
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