Earth Abides
by George R. Stewart
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Book Summary Information
Author: George R. StewartEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-03-28
ISBN: 0345487133
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of Earth Abides
Book Review: Addressing complaints about characters' lassitude and passivity.
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a great book, but not an action-filled book. It is a book to generate ideas, not to get the adrenaline flowing. If it ever comes to a survival situation as posited in the book, life won't be glamorous. It will be mundane, a matter of getting food and having a dry place to sleep. Stewart gives us good reasons for why this is so.
I wrote the following this morning, trying to sort out why Ish is the leader for the group:
In reading the complaints of those who don't like Earth Abides, it seemed to me that many were disappointed that George R. Stewart did not create a group of super-humans to rebuild society. Why didn't they plan better? Why didn't they show more interest, more creativity? The author chose a group of ordinary people, who were used to living in a civilization doing everything for them, from providing their food, to thinking and planning.
One of the points that is frequently missed for those reading "Earth Abides" is the way humans behave. As long as their needs are taken care of, many people tend to let the rest of life come as it will. Making plans takes mental effort, and that is where only Ish has any experience. The energy to think ahead, and to make others see what is coming, that is what makes a leader great.
Ish is a scholar--he's well on the way to becoming a professor. That path makes him a professional thinker and ponderer and not a man of action. His career makes him one who watches from the sidelines without getting involved, and even if that were not the case, his personality pushes him in that direction. He is not a people person--he's a loner, uncomfortable in the company of others. He's a geek, more interested in privacy and private pursuits than in being a leader. Ish has half of the great leader equation; he has the energy to think ahead. What he lacks is the ability to convey what he sees to others.
When he thinks of himself as a leader by default, he is being realistic; of his band of seven adults, no other shows any sign of talent for leading. The one person in the group with strong social abilities, Ezra, defers to Ish. George is "dull," a man of craft who's job as plumber involves rushing to fix broken things; he is accustomed to reacting, not to making plans. George's wife's main concern is domestic tasks, and in this, she is a product of her age. Of Ezra's two wives, neither shows any signs of interest in planning for the group. Of all of the group, only Em leads when Ish cannot. Where he is the geek, timid and unable to marshal people, she is the one with backbone, who gets people moving when she sees a need. She lets Ish plan, perhaps, because she lives in the here and now, and only leads when she sees a clear cut need or threat in the immediate future. She doesn't worry about the future, because for the present, all the needs are taken care of.
This is the group that survived the Great Disaster in Berkeley; seven ordinary people, products of a country that has professional leaders, so that the people don't have to think.
There are also a number of complaints about the main character, Ish. People who disliked the book tended to write negative comments about him. In fairness, Ish is not a leader; he is a geek, one interested in private pursuits. He is introverted. Unfortunately for his social tastes, he is the sole person left in the Berkeley area who was accustomed to thinking and judging on a daily basis. This makes him the one who others turn to for ideas, the leader. As the leader, his decisions come out of his non-charismatic, introverted self. He is not a natural teacher (and in spite of this he is the only one to attempt to teach). These social weaknesses, however, are tied to his intellectual strengths. A different main character could have had different strengths, but then the reader would not have been treated to Ish's unique views as to what happened to the world after the fall of civilization.
About Ish's attitude: Reviewers have accused him of acting as if others are too emotional, too black)--I think these opinions about how Ish interacts with his world ignore Ish's nature. He isn't judgmental, he is professionally distanced. In a state resembling shock, he turns a scientific eye upon the world, as if the world means nothing to him. He's lost his country and family and everything but his life's work (which was ecologist, one studying the interactions of living things and environment). If he hides behind his life's work in a time of crisis and shock, he isn't the first. Journalists do this all the time. Work now, think about yourself later.
About the racist elements: Ish never really shows signs of being racist (but he was living in a racist society--segregation was the law of the land in 1949. And mixed marriages were illegal in many states). He is a product of that society. But in looking at the rural black people, his tone is almost admiration--THEY will survive when all the rest can't.
Summary of Earth Abides
A disease of unparalleled destructive force has sprung up almost simultaneously in every corner of the globe, all but destroying the human race. One survivor, strangely immune to the effects of the epidemic, ventures forward to experience a world without man. What he ultimately discovers will prove far more astonishing than anything he'd either dreaded or hoped for.From the Paperback edition.
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