On the Beach, and Krakatoa.

Sixty years or so ago I read the gripping novel 'On the Beach' by Nevil Shute. 
 
It was made into a movie in 1959, which was one of the first movies to have simultaneous premieres throughout the world, and was hailed by the press at the time as one of the greatest movies ever made. 
 

This is the dust-jacket blurb about the book:

After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path. Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life. On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.

I suspect that Shute's idea of a nuclear cloud gradually covering the earth and killing all life as it moved southwards might owe something to the real disaster of 1883 when the volcanic island of Krakatoa exploded in the South Pacific, causing the loudest noise ever heard in history -  a noise that circled the earth five times.  It created an ash cloud, which also gradually circled the earth. The result was that in the year following the 1883 Krakatoa eruption, average Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees C. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888. The Krakatoa eruption injected an unusually large amount of sulphur dioxide gas high into the stratosphere which was subsequently transported by high level winds all over the planet. The resulting increase in cloud reflectivity reflected more incoming light from the sun than usual, and cooled the entire planet. (Info from Wikipedia). It's interesting to think, in these days of global warming, that another such event could completely reverse the warming process.

 

When I read 'On the Beach' as a young man all those years ago, I was as impressed by it as most readers were. But there was one aspect which I felt was unrealistic. Faced with disaster and almost certain death, many people in his story adopted an attitude of 'let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die'.  I know it wasn't Shute's responsibility in a thriller to cover all possibilities, but I do remember thinking 'There's something missing here; there's no mention of the Church.'   In my blog entry of 19th September 2019 I mentioned Robert Harris's new apocalyptic novel 'The Second Sleep' in which, more realistically, it is the churches that provide the local centres where survivors congregate - at first for shelter and security, and gradually for spiritual support and a theological explanation of the tragedy.  This is in contrast to Shute's novel, and also in contrast to George Orwell's '1984' where the inevitable role of the church and its members is ignored too.  Novels, particularly thrillers, don't have to have a theological content, of course. Nevertheless true realism would recognise that people have a spiritual side to their characters, and in times of peril would turn to churches for practical and spiritual support. It's just one of the reasons why we should nurture, support and strengthen our church fellowships during the good times too.