| Title | : | The Death of Grass |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0722122977 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780722122976 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 222 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1956 |
In Britain, where green fields are fast turning brown, the Government lies to its citizens, devising secret plans to preserve the lives of a few at the expense of the many.
Getting wind of what's in store, John Custance and his family decide they must abandon their London home to head for the sanctuary of his brother's farm in a remote northern valley.
And so they begin the long trek across a country fast descending into barbarism, where the law of the gun prevails, and the civilized values they once took for granted become the price they must pay if they are to survive.
The Death of Grass Reviews
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”Pity always was a luxury. It’s all right if the tragedy’s a comfortable distance away--if you can watch it from a seat in the cinema. It’s different when you find it on your doorstep--on every doorstep.”
Red Rice Field
It was called the Chung-Li Virus and first appeared by destroying the rice crops in China.
"That is too bad, those poor Chinese."
"What did you think of the coffee today wasn’t it bold? It is from somewhere in Africa. We’ll have to get more of that."
"I hear the Americans are sending some cargo ships of food to China."
"Terrible about the rioting and the killing. I’ve heard as many as two million are dead already. "
"So are we still on for tennis tomorrow?"
"You don’t suppose that problem in China is going to become an issue for us?"
"The Americans say they have a line on it. Hopefully the whole frightful mess will be cleared up by spring."
"What did you think of that kid from Liverpool last night? That goal he made was nearly impossible."
”A long time ago. I came to the understanding that all men are friends by convenience and enemies by choice.”
When the grass turns brown you might think to yourself...damn my lawn looks like crap quickly followed by woohoo no more mowing...followed by wait don’t cows eat grass?...followed by, but I like cheeseburgers.
Of course as the landscape continues to turn brown you might start to become more educated about grass. It isn’t just the green stuff we cultivate all summer. In my case, due to frequent drought I water, cut, water, cut (sort of ridiculous if one gave it much thought), and I do this because green grass looks pretty. Grass happens to also be the stuff we eat. Rice, Wheat, Barley, and Corn all evolved from grass. Humans found these tiny seeds tasty. Instead of slogging all over the place and finding them by chance they decided to start growing these grains closer to where they lived. They kept the sweetest tasting kernels to plant the next year, slowly evolving each crop into the best grain to fit their palates. These grasses were not having to fight for survival any more. They had convinced humans to be their caretakers.
It was a fiendish plot of survival that worked extremely well.
Now there is a city girl getting prepared.
Eventually this all leads to more and more people having time to do other things instead of spending all day trying to find something to eat. This brings us to John and David, grandsons of a farmer. In the not so distant past both boys would have been needed on the farm. In fact it would have been helpful if their mother had conceived a brood instead of a duo. In 1956 only one is needed on the farm, and the other is allowed to pursue his dreams in London as an engineer.
The grass turns brown all over England and suddenly China isn’t this distant land with terrible problems. It is now on England’s doorstep. All the staple crops turn brown. Civilization, so carefully conceived from our brilliant nurturing of our food supply, teeters, and falls practically overnight. The powers-that-be, governments, police, elected officials only have power as long as we let them. Suddenly everyone is a government of one.
A grass virus is very, very bad.
So who do you save?
John has an ace in the hole. He still has direct ties to a farm. His brother David will take him and his family in, but who else? To reach the farm, John is going to need friends and form alliances with people he doesn’t know. He is going to have to make choices about who he will save and who he can not. He will have to do things he never even in his darkest nightmares ever thought he would have to do. As he amasses more and more people who turn out to be essential for actually achieving his goal of reaching the farm he is creating a new problem.
Too many mouths to feed.
So who do you save?
Wheat Field
I was watching this show the other day about this guy who bought this old cold war missile silo in the middle of Kansas. He has built a premium self-sufficient shelter against the next insert name disaster. He is selling suites of rooms in this structure for $2million each. He has a fence. He has state of the art filtration system. He has retired navy seals. He has hydroponics, but you better like fish...a lot. I came away with two questions.
First how are these A-Listers going to make it to Kansas to survive the next plague? This book explores that very concept and it turned out to be an excellent choice of reading after seeing this show.
Two, I personally am not sure that I want to survive the next epic disaster. Surviving for what? And what will I be forced to do to survive? Who will I become to survive?
Civilization, as creaky as it seems at times, is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
So when you shell out $2million for your deluxe apartment underground in Kansas you can bring nine people with you. If you really want to scare yourself sometime sit down and put together your list. Think about all the people you care about and also the people that you feel could be essential to your future survival. Weight and measure all of them and for just a moment play GOD.
Who do you save? Maybe the person you don’t save is yourself.
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It’s a depressing sack of sadness that this exceptional post-apocalyptic story is not more widely read…534 ratings as of the time of this review...a travesty. I’m going to try and spread some love and hopefully find this wonderful book some more friends with whom to spend the holidays.
The central theme of the novel: How delicate and fragile is the veneer of civilization and how quickly the survival instinct can subdue, handcuff and gag the better angels of our nature.
Written in the 1950’s, this novel contains one of the starkest depictions I’ve encountered of the rapid breakdown and collapse of societal norms and common decency in the wake of a global catastrophe. It’s portrayal of people struggling to survive in the aftermath of a world-wide calamity is exemplary and worthy of being granted status up with the big boys of the genre like
Earth Abides and
Alas, Babylon.
PLOT INTRO:
A virus originating in China attacks and destroys all grain-based crops. This includes everything from wheat, barley, rye, rice and all forms of grass (hence the appropriate title for this story). Despite thebestmostly best efforts of the world’s nations, no viable counter-virus can be produced and it quickly mutates and spreads to blanket the globe. What follow is a brief period (from the story narrative standpoint) of extreme (and often brutal) measures on the part of the fragile governments which include rationing, martial law and, finally, forced population reductions (i.e., mass executions). Eventually, the food scarcity becomes too pronounced and governmental control completes breaks down…
…this is where the proverbial Cah Cah bangs into the fan and things get serious.
The above all happens within the first 50 pages of the novel and provides the reader with a chance to get to know the main characters, John Custance and his friend Roger Buckley, together with their respective families. We get to see them in “normal” times and then as they witness the fall of civilization which allows us to peg them as good, decent people…just like us. This ability to relate to them makes the events they subsequently endure and, more importantly, their actions and decisions in response to such events, significantly more impactful and emotionally affecting to the reader.
THOUGHTS:
As mentioned above, the central premise of the story is to how our decency is fragile and quickly becomes burdensome baggage that we unload when faced with extreme circumstances. Put another way, the novel’s heart is showing us how quickly we rationalize losing the ability to use ours. The Death of Grass deeply unsettled me with how plausibly it portrayed this rapid ripping away of the layers of kindness, compassion and empathy from seemingly normal people once day-to-day survival becomes the primary motivator.
John Christopher’s ability to authentically show this brutal and unvarnished view of humanity is what makes this story so effective and sets it apart from other books of its type. Despite the heinous and despicable actions of previously “good” individuals, I never found myself having “that couldn’t happen” thoughts as I read. That is what I found most unnerving.
At one point in the story, our survivors invade a home and kill a mother and father in front of their child in order to steal their food. I was watching these people that I previously related to suddenly thrust into situations where they would do something like that and I was confronted with that horrible hypothetical mirror questioning me saying “What would you do?”
This book left my emotions chapped and longing for something cozy and happy to replenish my parched faith in humanity. I can’t call this a “fun” read, but it is superbly written and a memorable experience.
4.0 stars. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
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“In a way, I think it would feel more right for the virus to win. For years now, we’ve treated the land as though it were a piggy-bank to be raided. And the land, after all, is life itself.”
This is quite scary quote considering our current circumstances, and it is a hugely significant statement to consider.
Why? Because it is true. Without the natural world we are nothing and if we destroy it completely then we will no longer be able to sustain ourselves. And one of the central themes here is human identity and how it defines itself and the individual character based upon the role we take in society and what we do the world. The text raises a powerful question here.
Would the world, ultimately, be better off without us in it?
The virus in The Death of Grass is of the crop killing type and it has been weaponised to starve enemies into surrender, ultimately destroying the opposing nation down to its last person. Like nuclear warfare, there is simply no turning back once the weapons have all been fired: the world is finished. And here all the weapons have been fired and the world has turned into an apocalypse, the survivors trek across the slowly disintegrating dregs of civilisation to find refuge in a hidden piece of nature – their salvation.
What follows is an exploration of human morality and society, demonstrating how easy standards and ethics are dropped to survive. Murder is no longer morally reprehensible. Killing is the law of the day. Otherwise normal people are stirred into beasts as everything breaks down. And what emerges is a harrowing vision off how easy it is to become deprived and brutal. It does not take much for man to lose all sense of brotherhood.
This is an exceptionally written novel that is stark and thought-provoking.
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If you take Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and place it at the start of a post-apocalyptic world rather than deep into one - so no cannibalism just yet, and no weary and sick folk dressed in rags wandering around in despair - and move from America to England, where civilized society has just collapsed, where looting is rife, where bands of marauders stalk the countryside, and throw in the odd grenade and a few shootouts - a lot more weaponry here - then up the travelling party from father & son to whole families, with a bunch of strays being picked up along the way, then John Christopher's The Death of Grass is not too far off.
It's funny, as I was reading this, just how much of it reminded me of life at the moment. All right, so this is a virus that attacks crop and not human lungs, and we are not, thank god, facing an end of the world famine like in the novel, but an Asian virus all the same. There are road blocks set up here, and this got me thinking of the Insulate Britain protesters who have recently been blocking some of London's busiest roads to make their point. And then there is the good old British government - who, just like in this novel, like to tell lies - advising the nation not to panic buy fuel as there is plenty to go around. So what do we do? The complete opposite of course! Not actually stealing fuel from cars like here, and stripping them of anything else useful, but some of the scenes I witnessed on TV and out on the roads myself only a few weeks ago, like fighting at the petrol pumps, making threats with knives, and bashing into other cars to try and jump the mile long queues waiting to fill up, one would think we are in some sort of catastrophic meltdown. So the novel very much stands the test of time, and feels more relevant today than ever, despite the language feeling a little dated now.
As Britain descends into chaos and mass violence, two men, John and Roger, and their families, along with a gun seller and his wife leave London for farmland up north owned by John's brother, believing it to be a safe haven, and their greatest chance of survival. What starts out as a journey by car soon turns to one on foot, and the further they get, the more dangerous and deadly their travels become, leading to some really gripping scenes and the tough decisions that have to be made regarding who to help and who not to. Kill or be killed is the order of the day, with one of them even shooting dead his own wife because she may be putting the group at risk - he just thinks 'oh well, it had to be done' - before carrying on like it never even happened.
Whilst bleak, disturbing and all so terrifyingly real like McCarthy's novel - including the rape of a mother and daughter and the odd gory scene - it was nowhere near as heart-rending. What's interesting most of all, is seeing how normal people who wouldn't ever think of killing, let alone hurting anyone, can instantly change as survival and predatorial instincts kick in. Reminded me a little of J. G. Ballard along with McCarthy, and also the political allegory of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later; just minus the Rage virus. -
The Death of Grass is not a feminist novel, but it can be read as one. It teaches a lesson that half the world already knows: When society breaks down, it’s going to be worse for you if you’re a woman. I don’t think John Christopher set out to make this point, but he made it anyway.
John Custance is the main character and the novel charts his growth as the leader of a little band of survivors trying to reach the safety of his brother’s farm. But it is not John who interests me. It is the women. His wife Ann and daughter Mary. The newly orphaned Jane. And even the sexually promiscuous Millicent.
**SPOILERS**
First there is Ann. She and Mary are kidnapped and raped. When they are rescued and the rapists lie wounded, it is Ann who takes a gun and finishes off one of the rapists. Not John. Ann.
“Ann released Mary gently, and got to her feet. She clenched her teeth against pain, and John went to help her. He still had the automatic strapped on his shoulder. He tried to stop her when she reached for it, but she pulled it from him” (103).
John will later find the stomach to kill when he shoots a woman in the face, a woman who was protecting her home and family. But the man who raped his wife and daughter he cannot bring himself to kill. Ann can and does. When the rapist pleads for mercy, she tells him it is not for her sake but for her daughter’s that she is killing him.
Jane is the daughter of the woman John killed. One of the women in John’s group persuades him to allow Jane to come along, for she would be unlikely to survive on her own. When one of the men, the valued sharpshooter Pirrie, desires her as his wife, John makes no objection.
Olivia, the woman who insisted on saving Jane, tries to argue, but John is adamant. Ann also expresses dismay at John’s refusal to protect Jane from Pirrie, but John explains his thinking.
“If there had been ten Janes and he had wanted them all, he could have had them. Pirrie’s worth more to us than they would be” (152).
The reason Pirrie is in need of a wife is that he just murdered his wife Millicent for trying to seduce John. Millicent was habitually unfaithful to him and he finally had enough of her infidelity. When the world was civilized, he could have officially divorced her, but he didn’t. In an uncivilized world, he could have unofficially divorced her, but he didn’t. He murdered her because in an uncivilized world, he could do what he wanted. And he wanted to murder her.
He also wanted Jane. Although he is about sixty years old, he has a penchant for women ‘on the younger side.’ And Jane is described as being in her “middle teens” (125). He calls her over to him the way one would call a dog.
“Come here, Jane” (150).
“Come here, Jane” (151).
“Jane! Come with me” (151).
Eventually she acquiesces.
Ann is justifiably nervous about Pirrie. John is the leader, but with Pirrie’s skills as a gunman and his ability to kill without remorse, there is nothing to stop him if he chooses to reject John’s leadership. But John is not concerned. He is the leader by common consent. He says: “It doesn’t matter whether that consent is inspired by fear or not, as long as it holds” (152).
Reading this immediately after the scene where Pirrie takes a frightened teenage girl as his wife is revealing. Her consent is also motivated by fear. I wonder how many women give consent to men out of fear. I say it does matter if consent is inspired by fear. I say consent inspired by fear is not true consent.
At one point it starts to rain and John orders the few raincoats to be given to the women. By “women” he means Ann, Olivia, Jane, and Mary. Referring to Jane and Mary as women in this context would not be an issue if it weren’t clear that he actually regarded them as adults. Shortly after the rape of Ann and Mary, he started thinking of Mary as an actual adult.
“John realized that he no longer counted Mary as one of the children” (116).
While the ages of the girls are never stated, Jane is described as being in her “middle teens” (125) and “two or three years older than Mary” (133). If middle teens means about sixteen, then Mary is about thirteen or fourteen. In other words, they’re not women! They’re children! Sexually abused and traumatized children!
But in a lawless world, no girl child is safe. In a world of law and order, a sixty-something man who sexually exploits teenage girls would ... I want to write—would go to prison for the rest of his life—but that remains to be seen.
I do not think John Christopher was trying to make a statement about the deplorable treatment of women and girls in the so-called civilized world. I think he was simply depicting the violence that would ensue during a global famine. But it’s impossible not to notice that of the five female characters in this novel, two are raped, one is murdered, and one is handed over to a pedophile.
There is also a touching scene involving one of the three little boys in the group. Ten year old Steve, the son of Olivia and Roger, begins limping and it is discovered that his heel is blistered.
“His sobs were not the ordinary sobs of childhood, but those in which experience beyond a child’s range was released from its confinement” (154).
When asked why he didn’t say something about it, he explains: “If I couldn’t walk—I thought you might leave me” (154).
No better criticism could be made about the behavior of these ordinary civilized people than that their own children do not feel protected and safe. Moreover, the solicitude rendered by Olivia and Roger when their son expressed this complete lack of faith in adults should also have been offered to the girl children. But it was not. A fourteen year old rape victim was simply declared an adult and that was that. A sixteen year old whose parents were just murdered is declared an adult because it’s more convenient to keep a powerful man satisfied.
**END OF SPOILERS**
The Death of Grass is a valuable book for many reasons. It is a realistic environmental catastrophe. It shows just how precarious life on this planet really is. How quickly it could all go to ruin. And it shows what people are really like. How ordinary law-abiding citizens can resort to violence when their survival is at stake. But it is especially valuable for highlighting the additional hardships that women and girls would face. And this is so valuable because women and girls already face these hardships in the civilized world.
It’s enough to make one question whether we’re as civilized as we think we are. -
Another post-apocalyptic novel. The story is always the same, some agent, natural, military or even super-natural, causes the end of civilization-as-we-know-it. People in the know have stockpiled supplies, guns and a remote place that is hopefully impregnable by the starving hoardes. There is always at least one person with some technical knowledge. Finer feelings disappear, violence, theft, rape reappear. Men dominate, women cook. In the group the book identities as heroes, they are always disturbed and sad, at least at first, that they have to kill, the hoardes are much more ruthless and always include one or two people, usually girls who will defect to 'our' side. The man with technical knowledge is killed.
The story always ends with the group now much enlarged, being led by a 'decent' man who will elect a committee to run things in the tribe. They will plant, chop, spin with their own hands and look to build a future through living in the traditional way. There is a feeling of hope that the purity of this life will lead to a better future.
If the plot and main characters are always the same, the only real difference can be the writing - how the characters are drawn, the weight given to various elements of the story, how the writer can lead from one element to the next with some feeling of surprise rather than inevitability. There are no real surprises in these stories and therein lies the problem - the ending is likely to be disappointing because it's more or less the same one in every book.
I enjoyed this book, the apocalyptic factor a virus that kills all grass and cereal crops was quite a good one, but there is no getting away from it, there was nothing original about it at all. So three stars, a good read. -
I don't know who it was that said we're only ever three meals away from revolution but this book brings that phrase to life by showing that, no matter how civilized we think we are, however stable our society seems to be, we are never that far away from barbarity.
This book may have been more aptly named had it been called "The Death of Civilization". Yes, a virus does emerge that attacks all forms of grass and spreads virulently across the globe defying mankind's attempts to halt it in its tracks but really that is just a vehicle for the author's exploration of how quickly and completely civilization might collapse and how completely previously mild natured and morally scrupulous people my be forced to change.
At the start I could not help but compare John Christopher to John Wyndham as another British writer writing about 1950's Britain facing apocalypse and focusing on middle class protagonists. But as the story developed, a clear difference began to emerge. Wyndham has been accused of writing "cosy catastrophes" and this story is anything but. Horrible and harsh things happen to the protagonists that are quickly forced to set aside their qualms in order to survive. It is one thing to deliberate on rights and wrongs and genteel behaviour when one is far removed the threat of annihilation. Although they agonise over whether the ends justify the means, they are forced to confront the fact that only those that say they do have a chance of being around to discuss it afterwards.
A short novel at less than 200 pages but it doesn't feel rushed. I felt it was perfectly paced in fact. The narrative style felt a little dry and stuffy initially but no longer felt that way when the story really took off. Not far short of being a masterpiece in my opinion. -
One of the most terrifying books I’ve ever read, all the more so because the events portrayed could be just around the corner. A decidedly chilling book for my last novel of 2019.
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The world-famous novel of the ultimate famine!
The Death of Grass by
John Christopher
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
Essential Must-Read Seemingly Forgotten Dystopian Classic
Blurb: The Death of Grass is an entirely original kind of science-fiction - it is not about space-travel, time-travel, or mechanical men. It recounts the terrifying changes on the face of the earth when the balance of nature is upset - and it takes place not in the future but now.
The characters are middle class people who live serenely until the grass begins to die - upon which their personalities begin imperceptibly to change with the changes that creep over the landscape. The fearful national policies and immediate personal dangers they are faced with are horrible in their impact, and in the dangerous obstacle race for safety (and for life itself) the reader feels himself to be personally and desperately involved.
Thoughts: Recommended to me by the Goodreads recommendations engine during one of the brief periods when it was working, I was initially drawn to the wonderful premise of a simple "what if" science fiction question, namely in this case "what if a virus kills all forms of grass worldwide?" Grass meaning wheat et al not just the wonderful stuff used as a playing surface for tennis, cricket and croquet. It's a premise that would also later go on to form the basis of the brilliant award winning dystopian post-(post?)-cyberpunk thriller
The Windup Girl.
But this is very definitely a post-atomic approach towards the genre, with a message that could be picked up by Greenpeace and hippies the world over even today and used as a warning against the way we are destroying our planet. This novel recounts the terrifying changes on the face of the earth when the balance of nature is upset - not at some nebulous date in the future but right now or the now of 1956 at least. Perhaps a re-issue from Al Gore on 200% recycled paper is required?
The story starts off with a global disaster and slowly becomes more and more personal, with a denouement focussing on one barricaded village and a handful of people. The characters are normal people, described in the blurb as middle class, with peaceful lives until the virus begins to take hold and food becomes scarce. In the beginning they make a point of being proud of the British attitude towards hardship, the famous Dunkirk spirit etc, but the predicament slowly changes all of them in irrevocable ways. They must undertake a journey of ever increasing hardships as society falls apart thanks to weak governments (things haven't changed much since 1956 huh?) and the panic of the masses leading to riots (as seen in London just last year but with the desire for new shoes and TVs replaced by a need for food.) And as a reader you can't help but take the journey alongside them thanks to the quality of the writing. Sure it's easy to judge these people for the decisions they make but there's a power at work in Christopher's writing that puts you in the band of survivors and suddenly it's harder to disagree with the man leading you to safety.
I'm not sure how much it actually helped me to enjoy the book but Brief Encounter is one of my favourite movies of all time, being able to imagine Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson as the protagonist Johnny and his wife Ann was an excellent bonus, even if just as a way to understand the speech patterns peculiar to the British middle classes of the era.
It's easy to imagine the stark landscape shorn of all grass, not least because of the volume of post-apocalyptic movies that have been released in recent years. The Book of Eli has an overall colour tone perfectly suited to a grass-free planet but features human attrocities in explicit detail, something Christopher only hints at in this book. It's much better for that too, bad things happen but the prose only really "arrives" in the aftermath and studies the reactions of these ordinary decent people to extraordinary events.
I'm left thinking about
The Road and how bleak it was, John Christpher comes close but without being so overt and rubbing your well-fed, happy face in to it. In comparison you don't need to feel bad for being content and living a peaceful existence after putting this book down.
Powerful, thought provoking stuff, despite its content a highly enjoyable read and at under 200 pages not bloated, not rushed but perfectly paced. I give this book my highest recommendation. And shall finish with a transcription from the blurb on the front of my beautiful 1st edition Penguin:
An unusual and absorbing piece of science-fiction about the relentless transformation of England when the balance of nature is upset.
'The Death of Grass sticks with commendable perserverance to the surface of the earth we know...John Christopher has constructed an unusually dramatic and exciting tale.' DAILY MAIL
Originally posted at blahblahblahgay -
At first this book was amusing, then it quickly descended into absolute filth.
If you have a list of classics aging badly, this book should take the crown. What was the point?
John Christopher: Humans are morally reprehensible creatures. Not giving Mother Nature her due
Reader: Well Yes but...
JC: TERRIBLE TERRIBLE I SAY!! Hmm should write a book about this.
Reader: John your characters seem to have no nuance. Everyone is just terrible for the sake of being terrible
JC: HUMANS ARE DESPICABLE CREATURES. SEE MY BOOK EXPLAINS IT.
Reader: But why are they...
JC: HUMANS ARE TERRIBLE...KILL KILL KILL. RAPE THE WOMEN.
Reader: I don't think...
JC: Ok ok i'll add some thought provoking quotes to make everything more palatable. *clears throat*
Pity was always a luxury. It's all right if the tragedy's a comfortable distance away. If you can watch it from the seat in a cinema. It's different when you find it on your doorstep- on every doorstep.
Reader: 😐😐😐😐😐😐
JC: No? okay okay hear me out *clears throat*
"Nature was wiping a cloth across the slate of human history, leaving it empty for the pathetic scrawls of those few who here and there over the face of the globe, would survive."
Reader: 😐😐😐😐😐😐 I don't....
JC: HUMANS ARE TERRIBLE!!!!
My gripe with this book is that from the go, it felt like the author had decided humans were morally reprehensible and without any redeeming factor. We've seen that to be false in reality anyways, people step up even when they have nothing to gain from it. So obviously bull shit on whatever this author is spinning here. I mean the characters are presented with a moral issue and they don't even try to do the right thing, instead we're given given trite quotable platitudes that ask you to believe that these horrible despicable decisions after horrible despicable decisions are justifiable and for what? shock value?
Anyways,
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A number of people have remarked at this novel's similarity to the novels of John Wyndham and I would agree up to a point. I have always loved the novels of Wyndham and all his chilling elements run rife here. That sense of ' Good grief, this could happen if such and such took place'. The disaster arising out of ordinary lives, the horrifying realization that this is happening to people who are only divided from me by a few decades, that it is therefore my society which is being torn apart not some foreign land or fantasy kingdom or distant planet or parallel universe, not orcs or vampires or superthugs or talking bears but normal, ordinary, happy, sad, whiney, moaney brits.
The arrogant dismissal by the powers that be of the virus which is killing off all the grasses of the world and therefore plummeting the whole of the planet into starvation and vicious life and death struggles is a very apposite and relevant one as our world inevitably has to face up to if not the imminent disaster of vegetation extniction then at least the reality of growing populations and the provision of adequate food and water. Thus as i read this book I was continually hearing distant echoes of questions being asked by our societies but not being answered. Of Governments of the world sticking their collective finger into the dam whilst new cracks and dangerous bulges signalled their appearance. It is a sobering book because it made me think not so much about the brutal nature of humanity losing its slight veneer of goodness and nobility in a future disaster but rather because it made me ask myself why do i not say more about the already massive difference in the scales of wealth and poverty, surfeit or absence.
The cold and unemotional account of a society's collapse into anarchy and ruin is extraordinary and the swift onset of marauding bands of brutalized murderers and petrified travellers is believable up to a point. However my difficulty was that Christopher appeared to equate might with right. Wyndham's characters fight for survival and kill when attacked, John Custance, Christopher's hero, leaps into violence and never seems to try to put a brake on it. The violence is constant and seemingly unthinking and I cannot help but wonder how those who make it through to their sanctuary will ever be able to step back from what they have done.
Wyndham's stories are about men and women fighting for survival in a hostile environment but ever keeping their eyes on the longed for prize of victory which restores humanity to a place of truth perhaps challenged and sobered but still recognizably caring and compassionate for the vulnerable. Christopher's human tribe has cast off not just suburban respectability but any semblance of collective responsibility for the weak or needy. Innocents are snuffed out simply because they live in a farm house, brash oafs and unfaithful wives haven't a hope. At one point one of the young boys collapses with an horrific blister having hobbled bravely for far longer than he ought without telling anyone. His reasoning when asked was ' If i couldn't walk - i thought you might leave me'. The irony of this statement is he is the son of the only couple who come out of the story with, it seems to me, the best chance of moving on into a new life where they will still be able to sleep.
The 'hero' is a complex and unattractive character but I think it is his wife who i find the most difficult to fathom. She encounters appalling hardship and suffering and some of her actions are perfectly understandable in their context but it is her reactions in the closing pages of the novel which i found most peculiar. Her mood changes and suddenly from nowhere she appears as a pale imitation of Lady Macbeth, not exactly egging on but justifying and standardizing the violence and refusing to take the responsibility for herself or her husband which might have signalled some sort of redemption.
The sequel, now that would be a book worth reading. The questions left unanswered in this story were too huge to be left unanswered. The leaders of this little band who had fought its way through to this sanctuary was far too bloodsoaked and had made far too many horrifying decisions or at least assumptions to be able to sink into rest and stability. The violence and bloodshed are a ticking bomb and it remains only superficially buried in the Cumbrian valley and it is this which negates Christopher's story and moves it to a 3.5 rather than a 4.
The book made me think and question and cringe and sharply breathe in and in a novel purporting to be exciting that cannot be bad. Violence and tyranny, questions of responsibility and the implications of leadership, the balance of Nature and the arrogance of misplaced science and human limitation. All good stuff and all wrapped up in a very exciting narrative. Well worth a read.
ps. Another character called Skelton. Adds to the shelf -
There's a good introduction in this edition that discusses, among other things, how this work compares with John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids and William Golding's Lord of the Flies. In that analysis Day off the Triffids comes of badly.
The reason for the comparison is obvious: both are apocalyptic SF novels where plants are at the root of the problem ( Ducks flying rotting vegetables in response to that pun. Oops, another one slipped out...) set in Britain by British authors writing in the same period of the 20th Century. The introduction is very dismissive of Wyndham's effort, basically because the book is more optimistic than Christopher's, which is unremittingly grim, right up to the last sentence. However, my feeling is that there is not much difference in their view points about what would happen in the case of the total break down of society; in Wyndham's case there just happens to be a place where that hasn't happened. The conversations characters have about women, work, education and marriage reherse exactly the same arguments and attitudes, but Wyndham's heroine has the most progressive attitude of any of the people in either book. She was a gal ahead of her time.
Where Christopher is more successful than Wyndham is in his basic scenario, plot construction and braver characterisation. The idea that a virus could wipe out all species of grass is a lot more plausible than that of herds of sentient, mobile plants on the loose...the journey to re-unite family and find a safe refuge in the face of national or world disaster is now the stock of an entire sub-genre of Holywood films...but neither Wyndham, nor Holywood (most of the time, anyway), takes as protagonist a man who is willing to consider any action in order to save his family, or what real psychological pressures of that kind might do to him when he adopts a leadership role. This latter is what really makes The Death of Grass stand out - and what calls to mind Lord of the Flies. The difference there is that Lord of the Flies examines the process of establishing leadership by contrasting two characters; one the most likely to get everyone through their ordeal safely, the other, the naturally charismatic leader with a will to power. Christopher instead shows an evolution of character in his main protagonist from Piggy to Lead Choirboy (whose name I can't recall).(This analogy works in approximate terms, only.)
The book is well thought out, well constructed, well written, has a good ending and takes an interesting, not oft examined approach to moral questions that puts me in mind of Roger Zelazny's more extreme character arcs in Jack of Shadows and Changeling and...J.G. Ballard. It is perhaps this latter that makes me give The Death of Grass only three stars instead of four: I recently read Rushing to Paradise, which also examines the breakdown of society but is, somehow, a much more thrilling, frightening and gripping read. -
This was a little bit of a slow starter but once I could see where things were heading every sentence was laden with a sense of dread and impending doom.
A widow leaves a dreary London behind and returns to her girlhood home along with her sons. She is anxious to reunite and repair her strained relationship with her dad and share the joy of a hillside surrounded by lush green pasture with her boys.
25 years later John has taken to life in the city and fathered two children; David has devoted his life to the farm and remained a bachelor. All seems idyllic but then they start speaking of the rabbit plagues in Australia and a virus attacking rice crops in Hong Kong and millions starving and resorting to cannibalism. When David removes a patch of pesky rice grass and discovers it is diseased things start to take on bleak outlook and he tells John to return to the farm before things get desperate. John returns to his life in the city unwisely waiting far too long as things begin to take a turn towards the bleak.
Thus begins a nicely detailed onset of the apocalypse and a tale of greed, morality and the breakdown of civilization. The most disturbing thing about this story was just how quickly the darker instincts bubbled to the surface of the characters when they were faced with their own mortality and forced to protect those they loved.
This book focuses strongly on the breakdown of society and it is effectively chilling in its portrayal of the desperation for all involved. It truly is survival of the fittest and gets pretty brutal, pretty quickly. Our stubborn city boy is now on a road trip through hell with his young family and some friends, picking up guns and stragglers to strengthen their numbers and attempt to find safe haven. But, really, will anywhere be safe?
This was very disturbing read considering the background for this apocalypse, that it affects major food systems and that when the story takes place half the food consumed was imported from other countries. It would be so simple to have a food breakdown nowadays. How many of us are even somewhat self-sufficient? Where would we begin?
Some of the most blood chilling quotes for me:
“Things will be hard, but it may not be a bad life. It will be up to us what we make of it. At least, we shall be our masters. It will no longer be a matter of living on the sufferance of a State that cheats and bullies and swindles its citizens and, at last, when they become a burden, murders them.”
“The country’s food position is desperate. No more grain, meat, foodstuffs of any kind, are being sent from overseas. We have nothing to eat but what we can grow out of our own soil, or fish from our own coasts.”
Shudder, I don’t want to ponder on this too long when I should be building my chicken coop out back! -
This was not good. This was, in fact, dreadful. The writing was crap, the characters were all unlikable, it was racist and misogynist, and the plot was incredibly boring. That's right, a book about people trying to survive an apocalypse was boring.
So, I guess, good job on that, John Christopher. You wrote a shitty, boring book about an apocalypse, which is kind of difficult to do.
ETA: I think what makes me the most angry about this book is that there are plenty of ways to write about how thin the veneer of civilization is and how quickly man would turn to monster in the event of a world-wide food shortage and facing imminent starvation. There are plenty of ways to show a person making that descent. And everyone told me this book was a classic so I was really excited to read it!
And he managed to take all of those interesting things and suck all of the interesting out of them to make it a dry, boring, incredibly shitty book. It could have been so good. And it just wasn't. -
There's a sense in which all post-apocalyptic novels feel the same. In all of them, we see society collapsing, torn apart by the pressure of finding a way to survive. The Death of Grass is no different, but it's very well written and well structured. There's a Chekhov's gun or two, a good structure which takes us from calm gentility to the feudal need to survive terrifyingly believably, terribly fast. It's horrible, but you can understand the characters, understand their decisions.
And if you can read it and say with assurance that you'd never even think of doing those things, I think you're probably lying to yourself. Personally, I doubt I'm capable of such ruthlessness, but I can't swear I wouldn't allow someone else -- say, my father -- to do it for me. It's easy to wring your hands and call your protector a tyrant, but not so easy to walk away from that protection.
So, yeah, well-written and definitely worth a read if post-apocalypse worlds or human nature are your interest. -
Great premise: grass dying and hence our food, and a famine leads to the unravelling of society. It’s been compared to Lord of the Flies and just like with Lord of the Flies I wasn’t a fan of the execution.
It’s a male power fantasy. Once laws are a thing of the past, the man is in charge and can kill his wife then take a teenager as his new wife the next day. Okay?
Everyone suddenly felt the need to randomly (and unnecessarily) rape and kill. Basically over night. I do believe society can unravel in days but I do think average people would try and hold onto “being good” for a bit longer than this book suggests. -
How many pages are absolutely necessary to tell a gripping, frightening story? 50? 200? 400? 1200, in case your editor died? Editors are extinct anyways.
My favorite is the shortest science fiction story written by
Fredric Brown called “The Knock”, only two sentences long and as it happens; has fewer words than this paragraph. Here it is, in its entirety:
“The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door….”
17 words. And yet it implies toward innumerable possibilities, each and every one of them terrifying. The deeper you think, the chillier it gets.
Of course, Fredric Brown explained his
story.
The Death of Grass, even though just about 200 pages long, packs a real punch which it delivers right to the reader's gut. This is not one of your cozy catastrophes but is in fact the darkest, grimiest post-apocalyptic fiction you will ever come across. It’s really sad that this book is not mentioned in the same vein as other grim PA books of the era and is generally ignored and forgotten.
Human empathy flourishes only as long as the civilization prevails. Once the norms are changed, only one thing matters – survival. At all costs. The book is unapologetic, brutal and devoid of any conscience. One thing you might have noticed in most PA fiction is that that despite facing myriad of odds, the protagonists remain self-conscious. Not in this case.
And that’s what makes this book different and in some ways, better than other post-apocalyptic novels.
Read this work, ye mighty, and despair! -
I absolutely adored this book from the 1950s. Basically a virus called Chung-li has originated in China and savaged crops (how interesting to read in the time of Covid) and a party in the UK leave London and try to get to their leader John Custance’s brother’s farm in the north for safety as society collapses into barbarism, with the government manipulating the food crisis to plan secretly to wipe out the majority of the population (interesting to read at a time when Putin is posturing with nuclear weapons over Ukraine). It’s a sort of Hobbesian omnia contra omnes text reminiscent of Lord of the Flies or J G Ballard where it is shown that the veneer of civilisation is very thin and brutality reigns below, with only a few events required to trigger the descent into brutal self-preservation. I found it full of suspense, a beautifully enjoyable page turner, and rank it up there with Golding’s more famous dystopian work.
-
I am so angry with this book. I was drawn into the story, the first half was probably some of the more terrifying end of the world stuff I have read. Leave it to the English and the whole stiff upper lip and tightening of the belts. THEN it changed. I get things were going to get rough. But I began to have some major issues with how things were proceeding. I kept trying to say, Jennifer it was published in the 50's, but that just didn't work. I could not forgive it. I shall list the reasons why.
Those are but a few reasons why I am angry. I don't care how good or important this is considered. -
What? Only three stars?
Am I sure? Did I give this rating by mistake?
Yes, yes. And no, I'm afraid.
Don't get me wrong, folks.
For 'The Death of Grass' is a good novel. Well, actually a very good novel. And I do believe that you should give this book a chance and read through it from page 1 to page 194.
It won't take that long. You won't get bored. But, nonetheless...
Oh well, I don't want to spoil your expectations any longer.
This book was out of print for many years, but the Penguin fellows have recently reprinted it. In a paperback edition. With a fancy gloomy cover. And even a foreword.
So, what are you waiting for?
Go and get it.
See you later for the review.
--------------------------------------------
Got it? Did you read it?
All very well.
Now, tell me, did you really like this?
Becuase I did and yet I did not.
Let me explain this, if you don't mind.
Unlike other British sci-fi novelists (Shiel, Wyndham), the author here does a good job investigating on the psychology of the main characters, wondering about the moral dilemmas they have to face when struggling for survival.
The novel does have a slow kick off, but then it starts rolling smoothly without unnecessary detours and with a clear goal to reach: an almost mythical dale.
An Eden valley protected by a well manned and gun-machined palisade where a less wild bunch of human beings is likely to survive starvation thanks to potatoes, beetroots and unlimited fresh water supply.
The road trip of our heroes from London to the north of England, where the dale is located is hard and bleak enough, but left me with the impression that John Christopher forgot some practical details.
Ok, all grasses belonging to the graminae family are suddenly dead. The soil is bare and the land is brown. And yet, what happened to the fruit trees and to the wildberries?
The death of grass struck England on springtime, but the author never mentions the possibility that people could scrap a living from fruits and berries. Where have they gone?
Or am I the ignorant one who needs to check if fruit trees do after all belong to the graminae family?
Then Christopher tells us that all trains stopped running. Again, why?
Does coal belong to the graminae family too? Oh wait, I bet it's just a sign (and an effect) of the social turmoil bringing England to its knees. All the same, the train empasse hasn't quite convinced me.
And don't let me even start with the way the author treats women in this novel: backwardish even for the 1950s standards.
The fight for survival bits here are convincing enough and quite realistic in their basic roughness.
I can summarize Christopher's post-apocalyptical gatherings with a quotation from the movie 'A Fistful of Dollars':
''When a man with a .45 meets a man with a rifle, the man with a pistol will be a dead man''.
Aw, Charlton Heston and his lot would have loved this.
Not that this fire armed philosophy happens to be very different in, say, 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy.
At least Christopher's survivors are still able to speak proper English in all of its local and class variations. And, to me, that's a very strong point. Okay? -
A muchas personas, legos en la ciencia ficción, podría parecerles que la serie The Walking Dead es tremendamente original. Pero no. El recrudecimiento de la convivencia, la vuelta al salvajismo, eso de que el auténtico peligro en una situación apocalíptica viene dado por los otros, lo lleva trabajando y presentando el género desde hace mucho, mucho tiempo. De hecho, suele ser el pilar principal de los dos que sustentan la estética de la rama postapocalíptica. Llevar las conclusiones de Hobbes a sus últimas consecuencias es el objetivo que suele alimentar a una narración de este tipo.
Aquí se erige como prueba "La muerte de la hierba", cuya epopeya de tres días desvela la fea cara que esconde el barniz de la civilización con una crudeza inesperada. Hay violaciones, asesinatos y una recuperación de los modos feudales mostrada con una convicción que asusta. Y es precisamente esta última característica de la narración lo que me ha sorprendido. Porque, lejos de parecerme increíble tal caída en el abismo en tan corto espacio de tiempo, la he aceptado como si la hubiera leído en los diarios.
Junto a esa capacidad de parecer veraz, lo que más destaca en la narración es cómo está construida, con una preponderancia absoluta del diálogo, mediante la relación entre personajes a priori sencillos, cercanos, cuya transformación parece casi inevitable. Todo ello transmite una fluidez y un ritmo al texto que transforman la lectura en algo adictivo. La sensación de estar inmerso en la trama es enorme, y a pesar de no contar con grandes pasajes descriptivos, traslada al lector a la Inglaterra apocalíptica descrita con mucha fuerza. Dos sentadas me ha durado esta maravillosa novela que, escrita hace más de medio siglo, podría pasar por precuela argumental de La carretera. -
The republishing in the UK of this classic, long out of print, is an unexpectedly good read, though its content is very, very bleak. Now perhaps in these days of global warming, Asian bird flu and genetically modified crops, it is perhaps time for a revaluation.
The story begins with the announcement of a virus, the Chung-Li virus, appearing in Asia wiping out grass and members of the grass family species. Though the announcements are made, little change is noticeable to John Custance and his family in London. Food supplies still appear from the British colonies and life pretty much goes on as normal with a slight tightening of belts and that British philosophy of ‘making do’. But then, when the virus appears in England, it is realised that the extent of the problems in Asia have not been fully explained. The consequential breaking down of society leads to John being involved in a struggle to escape to safety, to his brothers’ farm in the Lake District.
Reading this book was a shock. Originally published at about the same time as John Wyndham’s much more famous novel, The Day of the Triffids, The Death of Grass looks at similar catastrophic themes to Wyndham, but with a much bleaker outcome.
Strangely, though over 50 years old, I found that many of the themes are prescient to today’s society, the reliance on other countries for food, the ‘carry on as normal against adversity’ attitude, though there are important differences. There are, perhaps less surprisingly, elements of the novel that are in tune with the society of the 1950’s yet strikingly out of step with today. Perhaps most anachronistic is the role of women portrayed here, with the female characters very much taking a backseat whilst the men sort things out. It is a surprise what Christopher managed to pass by the publishers in the straight-laced context of the day, however. Rape is implied here, though without too much detail, unlike the surprises of murder, revenge killing and mercy killing reflected here. The book is shockingly logical and cold in its portrayal of such horrific events and that makes its effects so much the more effective.
But before we get too carried away in emphasising the books prescience, there are places that bring us down to earth and remind us that this is a product of half-a-century ago. Because this book’s context is the England of the 1950’s, there are societal differences that remind us that there are differences between now and then. Most obviously, communication is not what it is today. In Death of Grass, people predominantly listen to the radio for information, rather than watch the television. Perhaps more noticeably different, radio news broadcasts by the BBC are trusted by the masses (at least initially) as logical, sensible and unbiased. (How different from some of the views of today!)
Similarly, entertainment has clearly changed. In Death of Grass, it is a little jarring to find that an evening’s jollity depends upon the middle classes playing bridge for entertainment rather than trawl the Internet, slump in front of the gogglebox or play on the Wii. On a wider scale, travelling between countries is more by boat than by aeroplane. Diplomacy between countries reflects this limitation in communication also. As the Cold War was distinctly chilly at this point, the problems are made worse by countries refusing to talk to each other until it is perhaps too late. (And perhaps that is another situation that has come around again to bite us.)
The book also reflects some of its contemporary concerns - a nation with its adults coming to terms in the aftermath of war, with the need for rationing accepted for the good of all suddenly reverting to a ‘what’s mine is mine’ philosophy when the situation becomes critical.
What is perhaps most shocking is, once it does happen, how quickly normal life deteriorates. Within the space of days, the characters go from upright members of the middle-classes (civil servant, ex-military soldier) to civilians shooting policemen, doling justice to criminals and killing people who get in their way in their escape from the big city. This must have been an eye-opener in the disciplined 1950’s.
Less convincing, though perhaps understandable in the context of the times, are the actions of the politicians in the tale. Clearly reflecting both the lure and the fear of technology in a globe firmly entrenched in a Cold War in the 1950’s, the government’s final solution is that in order to avoid the future horror of overpopulation (in the light of rapidly reducing food resources) they must order the atom bombing of Britain’s big cities, so that the survivors have enough to live on/with. They also then, rather conveniently, leave to set up a provisional government in Canada (not too far-fetched, that, as would the British government had the Germans invaded England in World War Two.) This seems a little too incredulous today, yet understandable when compared with the Australian rabbit-proof fence policy or the farming analogy of wiping out all traces of disease in order to ensure the survival of the main plant.
What struck me most about this book was that if elements of the book are shocking now, in the context of when it was first published, this must have been an appalling book. More than his contemporary John Wyndham’s ‘cosy catastrophe’, this is a catastrophe clearly on the edge. Written in a lean style, pared to the bone, the story is exposed as even more shocking in its matter-of-fact delivery. There are no safe answers here, no truly happy ending, though the last words are weakly optimistic. What this book does is highlight to the reader of 2009 that, if nothing else, the breakdown of society it portrays is perhaps more relevant and more possible today.
On finishing the book, I realised that, if anything, we are less self-sufficient as a nation now than we were in the 1950’s. And that is a frightening thought, in these days of global corporations and universal credit crunches.
Recommended: though easy to scorn fifty years on, The Death of Grass is a sharp reminder of how thought-provoking British 1950’s SF could be. -
The premise of this book is interesting (a grass-killing bacteria destroys grass-based crops and civilization collapses), though it would no longer work today and...really didn't feel that well-thought out. Like, I realize grains/grass is a large part of our diet even now, but there are plenty of other foods out there (according to the book, only potatoes and beets are worthwhile crops) and farmers are not so stupid that they're going to keep raising the same failing grass crop three years in a row. Those that could transition would and they would be enough. Also, meat animals do not all need to be raised on grain. With grass dying, other weeds (and, uh, legumes) would spring up, some of which goats, at least, would be able to thrive on and smaller meat animals would still be available. So the actual situation the book is set on is unbelievable to me.
Then other things happen like the main character John's confrontation with Perry and his wife M-something who has just tried to seduce him.
And here is a quick plot synopsis for those who are curious, but should be spared actually reading this book. The vitriol is mine, but everything happens in the book:
tldr: If you want to read a book where the entire population of earth is too stupid to live and women are bossed about, raped as a matter of course, and thank the men for it afterward, this PoS is your book. -
Quanto ci metterebbe una civiltà a crollare in seguito a un evento apocalittico? Sembra questa la domanda principale che si pone questo libro. All'inizio mi aveva stupito il cinismo subitaneo che coinvolge i protagonisti; ma alcuni sentimenti sembrano prendere il sopravvento immediatamente: l'istinto di sopravvivenza, il bisogno di legarsi a un capo forte che garantisca protezione, l'amoralità di un mondo senza più regole o leggi, la paura della morte che spinge le persone a vivere in modo adrenalinico (un po' come succede in tempo di guerra)... Il mutamento è impressionante e ci riporta indietro nel tempo di secoli, con l'avvento di un nuovo feudalesimo. Questo libro potrebbe essere il prequel di una saga medioevale ambientata nel futuro, dove la Terra sarebbe una specie di Darkover ma senza poteri mentali.
Questo libro è il capostipite del suo genere e il legame con i suoi discendenti è davvero evidente. -
Very good post-apocalyptic novel that realistically depicts the break-down of society in the wake of a global disaster. In this 1956 obscure but classic sci-fi thriller, the breakdown is caused by a virus that annihilates all grasses on earth. But while civilization devolves into dog-eat-dog, I couldn't help thinking how our protagonists were so damn polite about it. Every time they took a savage reaction they would verbally explain it to others. I guess that's the British for you. But seriously, I think we would have a compulsion to explain ourselves even in the midst of catastrophe. After all, civilization may go down fast but it doesn't go down easy.
Nonetheless, this is one of the earlier and best of the 50s post-apocalyptic novels. highly recommended. Three and a half stars. -
Romanzo di fantascienza apocalittica (un virus distrugge tutte le colture erbacee della Terra ed il mondo ricade nella barbarie) che si legge piacevolmente, però il passaggio da una vita normale alla barbarie (e relative psicologie dei personaggi) è troppo repentino, gli stessi personaggi cambiano troppo rapidamente carattere, diventando duri e sordi ad ogni pietà umana.
Vale la pena di leggerlo, specialmente in questi giorni in cui assistiamo alla migrazione di tante popolazioni perseguitate dalle guerre e dalla fame, le cui sofferenze vengono spesso ignorate se non addirittura osteggiate, per ricordarci che tutti potremmo trovarci in una situazione simile. -
A disturbing and at times deeply depressing novel about how quickly the veneer of civilisation disappears when a catastrophe strikes. This book is widely regarded as a classic and is often compared with novels such as
Day of the Triffids (which I read last year) and
Lord of the Flies (which I really must get around to reading soon). However, I felt it also had a resonance with the recent film Interstellar - this is the part that the film never really got around to exploring, being too busy travelling in space and time (don't get me wrong, I loved the film). This then is the story of how our world dies and how we as people react to that death, given that we will likely die alongside that world.
The answer, according to this book, is not very well. While there is a slow build-up with the grass killing virus devastating the far east first, it takes a very short space of time when it hits the West (in the form of the UK) for our civilisation to collapse into murder, rape, looting and anarchy. Chief culprits seem to be our "heroic" band as they attempt to reach a possible safe haven, a farm in the Yorkshire Dales. There is a certain amount of racism in the first part of the book, as our end of Empire heroes criticise the less civilised countries (like China and India) who cannot beat the virus. This is wholly justified as it lays out in the latter parts of the book that we are no better than our yellow, brown and black cousins when it comes to eliminating a virus that kills the most important food crops on the planet, thus causing millions to starve to death.
The sexism in the novel is harder to stomach. Written as it is in the 1950s, women have yet to enjoy many of the freedoms of the sexual revolution in this story, yet even these limited freedoms are quickly swept away as people rapidly revert to a more primitive state of being, one which regards women as chattel. It might have helped if there was a strong female character to protest these changes more strongly, but the only woman who might have fit this bill, a sexually liberated woman is .
This is a book that I must have read as a young teenager though I can't remember any details about it, except one. In an idle moment, when thinking about a catastrophe befalling us and how I might survive, my mind tends to drift towards a farm in an isolated valley somewhere in the Northern fells, with steep cliffs all round and a narrow entrance that can easily be defended. It seems that this novel is where I got that image from, and it's a powerful one to have survived nearly 40 years in my mind. -
AKA No Blade of Grass (in the USA), this book is on a lot of lists -
Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels : An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984 by David Pringle (which I want to read everything on) and the
further reading list from
Wastelands compiled and edited by John Joseph Adams (a list I've been working through for 4 years!). We discussed it on the
SFF Audio podcast.
This story revolves around a virus that kills rice in China first, then rapidly morphs into a resilient virus that takes out most grains worldwide. This leads to famine and chaos. A small band of people are trying to make it to one person's brother's home in northern England, where they plan to live on pork and root vegetables.
The Death of Grass was published in 1956 and it shows in some ways. The Chinese crisis is dismissed (and several racist terms are used), and the familial structure quickly morphs into male-dominated gun-slinging. Other elements of the book made it just as relevant now - the world still struggles with plant disease leading to famine, and there is an element of distrust of government preparation for actual disaster..
I still hold that a smarter group would have migrated to the coast - it is closer and doesn't have the danger of plant viruses wiping it out. Hindsight, I suppose.
This book has themes of suffering, desperate measures, and government vs. private security. It also has some great one-liners that I will include here:
“The time throws up the man.” (31)
“Cake disappeared in England.” (24)
“Who is going to have the power to protect the potato fields against the roaming mob?” (33)
Roger: ‘There’s no such thing as public safety any longer. It’s all private now.’ His fingernails tapped the steering wheel. ‘So is vengeance.’ (58)
It’s force that counts now. (69) -
Shows what happens in an apocalypse when all grass is dead and everyone has to fight for the leftover potatoes. Unfortunately the cattle live on grass so they die out too. (Wait, don't the factory farms feed them corn and soymeal)? Moral lines become fuzzy, hell they're obliterated. Not exactly a light, breezy read, but well done. Short and dialog driven, 'Scalzi-an'?, works well as an audiobook, if you can find it. Goodreads says it's only 200 pages. Who writes novels that short these days? I hear the movie adaption from the 70s is terrible. I just discussed this with Jesse & Jenny on Sffaudio. What's the Cain and Enoch reference? Excuse me while I listen to my gramophone.
It's in David Pringle's list of 100 best sf novels:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54...
Sffaudio podcast spoilerific discussion and shownotes:
http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=43132 -
Introduction
--The Death of Grass
