Shute

• Eliot’s The Hollow Men (1925), concludes:
  This is the way the world ends
  Not with a bang but a whimper.
• This is the way the world ends
  Not with a bang but a whimper.
• Indeed, Nevil Shute’s classic novel of nuclear annihilation, On the Beach, published in June 1957, used Eliot’s famous lines as an epigraph.

‘Australia’s most important novel’

• Journalist Gideon Haigh calls On the Beach “arguably Australia’s most important novel – important in the sense of confronting a mass international audience with the defining issue of the age”.
• In this last of meeting places
  We grope together
  And avoid speech
  Gathered on this beach of the tumid river.
• This comes to the fore in the following passage, which focuses on a dinner party hosted by Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes of the Royal Australian Navy.
• The atmosphere is both claustrophobic and delirious:
  For three hours they danced and drank together, sedulously avoiding any serious topic of conversation.
• The reason why the guests at Peter’s party are so keen to avoid serious talk is both simple and depressing.
• This is the way Shute’s novel of nuclear extinction ends: not with a bang but with a whimper.
• Released at the height of the Cold War, On the Beach struck a chord with millions of concerned readers.

Usefully entertaining

• A copy had found its way to the desk of John F. Kennedy, the next president of the United States.
• Shute famously detested the movie, which received decidedly mixed reviews.
• Her husband’s reply is revealing:
  ‘I don’t know […] Some kinds of silliness you just can’t stop,’ he said.
• While the science in the novel was somewhat flawed, Shute’s cautionary tale undoubtedly spoke to the collective zeitgeist.
• Read more:
  Friday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to 'the worst war ever', what should Australia do?

Enduring influence

• The influence of Shute’s novel, which was remade in 2000 as a film for Australian television, can be observed in various post-apocalyptic works, including George Miller’s Mad Max franchise and the late Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
• It seems increasingly likely the world as we know it is coming to an end – if it hasn’t already.
• On The Beach runs at the Sydney Theatre Company 24 July to 12 August 2023, with previews 18–21 July.