Post Apocalyptic Childrens Books Living in the eighties it was impossible to ignore the possibility of nuclear war. Being a child the situation seemed even more dire, as I had little understanding of what nuclear war was, other than it wiped out absolutely everything. I was hungry for information on this very real seeming threat, and thus read as many books upon the topic as I could. Lucky for me, the young adult section of the library included quite a few substantial post apocalyptic gems for me to broaden my knowledge. Nuclear fear was at its height in the eighties. I remember when The Day After was shown on television, a special screening without the interruption of ads. I took this as reputable proof that a nuclear attack was imminent; the movie was shown to educate us. The night it was on my parents viewed it solemnly, and only allowed my sister and I occasional glimpses. The only scene I remember was a heap of smouldering rubble, out of which a denim leg was poking askew. “Don't worry,” mother said, “It's not a real leg. It's made of polystyrene.” If only the threat of nuclear apocalypse had been so insubstantial. I still fear nuclear obliteration, my fascination with the topic never really went away. Any prominent world disaster brings it back with force, and I find myself ranting about childhood nuclear disaster fantasies. I like to assess people's character by asking them what their ideal situation would be, in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. Would they: 1. Want to be immediately destroyed? I decided to re-read key post apocalyptic novels from my youth, to investigate the kindling for my substantial obsession.
The valley in which Anne's family lived was spared the effects of nuclear war. Anne lives there alone after the other family members drive out to look for other people in the nearby area and never return. We assume they were overcome by radiation. Anne takes this unappealing thought fairly well, and leads a quiet, self sufficient life in the valley. She grows vegetables and keeps chickens and goes for occasional raids on Mr Klein's store in the village. She is a decent, moral girl, who still attends the empty church on Sundays; she has a well established routine. This is until the man in the strange plastic suit arrives, dragging a wagon. Anne sees him from afar and hides in her secret cave on the mountain. She watches him killing a chicken by shooting it and disapproves, but other than that she is cautiously excited that she isn't the only person left alive. She wonders if she should put on a dress to look more presentable, but decides since she can't climb a tree well in a skirt she should stay like she is. At first the man in the plastic suit, Mr Loomis, appears to be an ally. He owns the only radiation proof suit in the world, and has good ideas about farming and other practical matters. Anne nurses him through his radiation sickness, reading to him and playing the piano in the hope he will be soothed into recovery. As Mr Loomis regains strength his nasty streak surfaces. He makes vague advances to Anne, and thinks that he should be in charge. A few pages down the track he is staking her out, riding a tractor around the valley with a gun on his lap. Throughout his convalescence Mr Loomis reveals his dark past through his particularly vocal dreams. When not asleep he is unsentimental, revealing nothing of his former life but the basics of his job making the radiation suit. At night Mr Loomis is tormented by the terrible fight he had to gain the suit, and through his sleep talking Anne is alerted to his sinister side. It is a good thing he did talk in his sleep, otherwise Anne would have been rapidly deflowered and bullied into a life as Mr Loomis' slave. When I read I create an image in my mind of the story's setting. Often books are based on real places I have been to, but others are imaginative constructions. I was amused to realise that the mental setting I gave to this book was the same mental setting I used for “And the Ass saw the Angel” '94 by Nick Cave. This mental setting was created first when I read “Heaven” by Virginia Andrews when I was thirteen. The setting is my generic shack with mountain above it image. The thought of all these stories meeting at the same place is surreal and exciting; I imagine them battling to the death, the best storyline and characters winning. As a post apocalyptic novel this story is solid. The deserted, radioactive conditions beyond the valley enforce Anne's isolation, and her sad, reflective musings about the past give us the feeling that we should not take anything for granted. Anne had wanted to be an English teacher, and to one day get married and all the simple, normal things a young lady may wish for. Now she is hiding from a maniac rapist in a cave, eating cold food out of a can. As the cover blurb reads: Will the last man on earth help her...or kill her? The canine character, Faro, is a likeable enough animal, who is unfortunately lacking in loyalty. Under the hand of Mr Loomis Faro is made to betray Anne. Mr Loomis uses Faro's canine compliancy and love of food to train him into an efficient tracker. Heartbreakingly Anne has to decide between her own life and that of her doggy pal. Post apocalyptic books always have a couple of tricks to net sympathy. In this one it is Anne's love of books. I found this amusing, because I thought about the type of bookish young adults who would be reading Z for Zachariah . The deprivation of books is made to seem as bad or not worse than the deprivation of her family. It made me think how I would survive if I only had ten books for the rest of my life. Anne had read Pride and Prejudice so many times that she had almost memorised the beginning. I imagine reading Jane Austen in a post apocalyptic world would be even more depressing than never being able to eat ice cream again.
The Lake at the End of the World
The Lake at the End of the World has some similarities to Z for Zachariah; a valley spared from the holocaust, a young girl with a diary, a canine character with a major role. The story is made more complex with the inclusion of an underground commune in which people had been living for decades, sheltering from radiation. The story begins when Hector, an underground dweller, manages with the help of his Basset Hound to make his way to the surface through the maze which separates the caves from the exterior. The underground world is creepy and austere, under the control of an aged autocrat (The Counsellor). His followers have to wear embroidered tunics and speak in whispers. When Hector finds himself outside for the first time in his life he sees what he believes to be a beautiful bird, which is actually Diana in her hanglider. He makes numerous excursions outside until the Counsellor discovers his defection and banishes him. Hector and Diana begins a slow, grudging friendship in the outside world. Diana still lives with her parents, and there are a hundred and two people living underground, so the loneliness of living in a post apocalyptic world doesn't seem as acute. Every night she attempts to make contact with other settlements over the radio, although she has not received a reply for a long time. The hope that other people may have survived is a constant pressure. As with Z for Zachariah , the radio provides heartbreaking evidence that there is really nothing left. I picture the poisoned, radioactive world as very grey, everything the white grey colour of ash in a fireplace, and enjoy imagining the deserted, decaying cities. Unsurprisingly I enjoy reading these novels because I imagine myself in the position of the characters. I used to do this a lot when reading as a child, now I do it much less often, if at all. I was pleased upon re-reading to again be able to put my cynical mid-twenties persona into the fresh shell of teenagers attempting to survive in a reduced world. My greatest worry is that I would not have the smarts to grow vegetables. In fact I believe that I would be so overwhelmed with the pressure of carrying on the human race that I would sit inside eating from cans and reading over the few books I had left. I know I don't have the resourcefulness to survive in a post apocalyptic world. The female characters are necessarily tomboyish and matter of fact, and these are two traits I definitely do not possess. The lake plays a mystical role in the story, it is inferred that Diana's father, a borderline psychotic birdwatcher confined to a wheelchair, has some kind of spiritual link with it. In the end, when the underground community wishes to destroy the lake forever, there is a real sense of urgency and impending tragedy. The moral issue is the destruction of nature, whereas with Z for Zachariah it is Anne's virginity. Will the lake be stolen from Diana and her family? The answer is of course not. This is a young adult novel, and nothing ever goes too badly. It is as if the authors can't bring themselves to betray their readers by providing a hopeless future. Post apocalyptic novels appeal to a sense of ingeniousness and individuality. It is exciting to imagine being one of the only people left on earth, to have been chosen somehow. The suffering of the majority of the world's population is merely the background.
The pleasure I gained from reading Taronga was in part due to its descriptions of a post apocalyptic Sydney. Gaunt figures swarm from the Harbour Bridge toll booths, high rise buildings fall into ruins. Enough road and place names are mentioned for me to feel proud of my specific knowledge; that out of all the books readers, I know the locations exactly. As he penetrated deeper and deeper into what was left of suburban Sydney, the atmosphere of madness grew even stronger. Hysterical voices, more bird-like than human screeched at him as he passed; thin wasted figures, dressed in a weird variety of looted clothing, hobbled after him, cursing or pleading with him to stop. The beginning of the novel sees Ben and a scruffy dog travelling on a bicycle towards the city, in search of the house where he lived with his parents before the Last Days. I was again pleased to note the inclusion of a canine character, in this story the dog (Ben refuses to give it a name, believing it is not wise to become too attached to it) casts Ben into a moral dilemma. Throughout the story the memory of the dog keeps Ben honest, reminding him to use his talents for good. Ben has the power to communicate telepathically with animals, the power to control their actions by sending out ‘The Call'. This power enables him to survive when the band of toll booth crazies push him through the fence of Taronga Zoo, to be eaten by tigers. I was somewhat confused by this, but managed to work out that Taronga Zoo had somehow been spared the terrible ravages of the rest of the city, and the animals roamed about the grounds unaware of the devastation that existed outside the walls. At first the Zoo seems safe, but Ben realises otherwise after encountering the people in control of the park; a toughie called Molly and her trigger happy partner Steve. They give him little reason to be optimistic about his future there. At first I wasn't sure about the mixture of post apocalyptic world, giant carnivorous cats and heavy artillery. Some of the descriptions are fairly gory, and I had to read over them quickly before I had too clear a picture of tigers slurping at human intestines. I have a lack of interest in giant cats, and some of the mental wrangling between Ben and Raja the tiger did get a little tiresome. However there was enough in Taronga to hold my interest. After reading two fairly similar post apocalyptic novels this book did impress me with the originality of its ideas. It had a primitive, spiritual undertone to it underneath the main story, which rises up at the end to give it a strong but open conclusion. I found a copy of this book in a box on the pavement in North Fitzroy, along with The Lake at the End of the World. My obsession with these books was meant to be! I was hoping for Children of the Dust to be in the box as well, but I was not that lucky.
When I read this as a child I found the first section terrifying. It begins with Sarah running home through a bright summer's day, looking around her and knowing all she could see is about to be destroyed. The bombs are due to fall at any second. She has to spend weeks in a sealed up kitchen with her siblings and stepmother, with the smell of ‘excrement and stale stew', and the constant fear of incipient radiation sickness. Buster, the canine character, is dealt with in a matter of fact way, and there is little sadness at his demise. The story is told through three generations, giving the story a clever, puzzle piece plot. My favourite is the first section that deals with the bomb and its aftermath. The other novels were set a few years after the holocaust, and remained in a fairly static time frame. What I am most interested in is not the cultivation of vegetables and plundering new Levis from the local store, but with the actual substance of the explosion and the ruined world that results. The sections I re-read over and over describe the impact of the bombs, the waves of intense thunder that smash against the house. Afterwards, when Sarah ventures outside wearing a suit made of garbage bags, she describes the crepuscular atmosphere, dust silently falling, covering everything in a poisonous grey shroud. The rest of the story is split between two ways of life: existence in a military bunker, and life on the outside. The superiority of life outside is laid on thickly, with some sections becoming so preachy that I pictured the writing style as someone slapping giant trowel loads of mortar on top of a line of bricks. The people who had struggled to survive on the outside and adapted had reverted to a more primitive, spiritual way of life. They have telepathic and psycho kinetic powers, and a great respect and relationship with the land. All this aside, the really interesting part is that they are covered in white fur and have white eyes with tiny pin prick pupils. I immediately wondered how I would look with white fur and tiny pin prick pupils, and long white hair. I have a fascination with albinos, and reading about a world in which the human race has evolved into furry albinos with super mental powers was very exciting. Children of the Dust is well researched, and includes many interesting facts about the post nuclear world. Unfortunately the trowel-applied condemnations of the foolish greedy human race that allowed a nuclear war to happen, and the overbearing references to God become a bit much by the end of the story. It is a complex, and fairly ambitious book for its kind, yet reinforces that continuation of the human race relies on a few necessary items. Canned food, seeds with which to grow vegetables, rationed petrol and sensibly used weapons. I have already thought about creating a stockpile of canned goods in my basement, just in case. This isn't a children's book, but I feel I must include Douglas Coupland. He is the champion of encapsulating the fear and fantasy of a post apocalyptic world. In Life After God there are a set of short short stories about the moment when the bomb hits, from the point of view of people in different, twentieth century settings: the mall, an office, a hairdressers. Reading these I felt excited that somebody else shared my fascination with nuclear disasters. It didn't take long to realise that everyone who was young in the eighties has at least a small obsession with the topic. As usual though, I thought I was the only one who still thought about such things. Whereas some people read the Bible for comfort, I prefer to read Douglas Coupland. He is so smart and sharp that even the novels of his that I don't like that much still charm me with their style. In Girlfriend in a Coma the post apocalyptic world is described with signature attention to detail, and references to familiar consumer objects. Douglas Coupland's post apocalyptic world is a tender one, the decay of the structures once taken for granted has dignity. His characters do the kind of things I fantasise about, rather than concentrate on raising vegetables: raid safety deposit boxes in banks, the contents like stuff you'd expect to find left over after a garage sale, binge on drugs whilst sitting inside showroom Mercedes Benzes , snoop in the diaries of old friends, visit the decaying supermarkets to find a hot oil hair treatment. Instead of a nuclear accident, in Girlfriend in a Coma everyone in the world except the main group of characters simply falls asleep. The story is far more complex than the post apocalyptic descriptions, it has a strange spirituality to it which I am not sure works. The Ancient Mariner ending is too neat and easy for my liking, but despite these flaws, I found many of the images from this book persisted. It is good to realise that it is not necessary to totally like something for it to be important. As everyone fell asleep without warning, factories continued running until they burnt themselves out, resulting in explosions and fires the world over. This detail intrigued me, and I loved the idea of factories exploding, seen by no one, chemicals running amok once liberated from human control. This post apocalyptic world is well constructed to satisfy my disaster fantasies. Apart from the post apocalyptic stuff, this book included a trademark Coupland fact. Each of his books contains one very specific, secret fact that sticks in my head. This time it is that the only smell which will mask that of advanced decay, if for example a person dies in a house or a flat and is not found for weeks, is artificial cinnamon. This fact has been hanging around in my mind ever since, and visiting rental properties I am on the alert for any sweet scents to clue me into the fact that a rotting body had once been in residence.
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