World Made by Hand: A Novel
by James Howard Kunstler
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Book Reviews of World Made by Hand: A Novel
Book Review: Halfway World.
Summary: 2 Stars
I really love post apocalyptic novels, and in "World Made by Hand" by James Howard Kunstler the world as we know it ends by way of nuclear weapons, loss of oil production and sickness. The worlds economy collapses as does any communication, and many communities are stuck fending for themselves. There are surges of electricity but they are unpredictable, families are broken up by way of death or distance and there is no way of knowing if a relative in california is still alive, much less predict down the road if you will survive. Towns start growing gardens, sharing produce and livestock (chickens, cows, fish), people learn to go without in terms of what they were used to in the way of creature comforts, or day to day Conveniences. Money is still used but the value of a dollar has gone way down, and most people just write out an IOU falsely believing that life as they knew it will come back and they can repay then.
This book follows Robert Earle a widower on his own, a simple carpenter who now shares his best friends wife carnally because hey, thats what you do when the world goes to pot. Robert is a likable, fair minded, trustworthy man and I thought the Author did a good job with the character development and I was truly interested in the day to day living and more importantly how this town worked together to survive. HOWEVER he lost me halfway by bringing in politics, and having Robert go on some quest to find some lost men down a river and run into trouble. He also lost me with how misogynistic the story was. According to Kunstler all women are good for is to cook, to clean, to bed , and to have children with. There are no women on any committees, no strong women in the town, and apparantly no educated women to be found on earth after its breakdown. I suppose men are natural leaders, but to have this "world made by hand" being made entirely by womens hands and by mens brains was just ridiculous.
It could have been a great book, unfortunately it lost me halfway. I dont recommend this to anyone who reads this type of subject matter. A better book would be One Second After
Book Review: at what point do we serve technology rather than have technology serve us?
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm not much a fan of apocalyptic fiction. However a colleague of mine, noticing my reluctance to join the 21st century and purchase a cell phone, recommended this book to me. I was pleasantly suprised. Set in the early 21st century in up-state New York, Kunstler imagines a world where our technology has become obsolete, the result of a cascade of tradgies, war and plague. In its place is literally a world made by hand - one that is very similar to the early 19th century with a healty dose Europe after the slow implosion of the Roman Empire, say circa 600.
In Kunstler's description of this world, two things struck me: one was his attention to detail around the pace of life. Without the constant electronic distractions (cell phones, computers, radio, television) and the speed of life from fossil fuels (airplanes, autos, trains) life slows, and perhaps this is not a bad thing. His characters notice details that have been lost; they are healthier given the demanding physical labour, and while things are not as comfortable in a material sense, Kunslter emphasizes that the trade-off is that people are much more connected to each other. (Of course, this also means that people can - and often times do - take advantage of one another.)
The other was the similarity of his imagined world to the collapse of the "civilized world" after the collapse of Rome. With the loss of a centralized state and economy, the world becomes a very small place, and people are largely left to their own devices to feed, provide shelter and protect themselves. (In fact, it is just these issues that drive the plot of the story.) It certainly gave me pause to consider just what "marketable skills" I would have in just such a world. Perhaps this is part of his intent.
I won't go into the broader plot or story line - other reviewers have done a great job of providing those details. I will say that I found the book both entertaining and terribly thought-provoking. Recommended.
Book Review: post-apocolyptic dreaming
Summary: 4 Stars
If you're familiar with Kuntsler's other works, particularly on the urban planning/peak oil questions, you probably have a good idea of what his ideal world would look like. The Geography of Nowhere, a book that has become a popular classic on urban design, was, in many ways, just a long rant against cars. His work on Peak Oil, The Long Emergency, is THE introductionary text on the topic. Why is this relevent to this book? Because this is his fictional what-if of the ideas from these earlier books.
What if Peak Oil is true? What if all the cars stopped running? What happens when the power turns off?
Valid criticism that I've seen in other reviews:
The 19th century speech patterns are a bit odd.
Invlaid criticism I've seen in other reviews:
Lack of homosexuals. You don't know the sexual orientation of but a handful of characters- if one of them was homosexual, that would be odd and a political imposition that the lack of a homosexual is not.
No strong women in political roles. The leader of the queen bee cult is, the queen bee woman. There's one. Other than that, in a world ruled by violence and force, men will naturally end up in charge. That's just a matter of biology. Dudes are bigger.
The Queen Bee Cult- I don't have a problem with it. It's a novel. Weird things are allowed to happen. Weird things happen in real life. Let it go. His explanation that the noise of modern life distracts us from these things is plausible enough for a novel. I've often settled for less.
I'll read anything by Kuntsler, and will watch a documentary if he's in it- everything he does is worth watching/reading because he leaves you with loads to think about for along time after you're done. This book is no exception- go ahead and order it.
Book Review: Dissapointing
Summary: 3 Stars
I appreciate Kunstler's analysis of our built environment and our over-dependance on fossil fules, as his other work deals with. However,in his novel I fear he spent more time imagining the buildings of a post-apocalyptic society - who would have the time and energy to build structures (?!?!?!) - than he did the plot and characters. Nobody struggling to survive has time for the architectural criticisms he is constantly injecting into his characters' thoughts and words.
Also, I was rather disappointed in the author's treatment of existant social hegemonies: women are portrayed as passive and dependant, racial diversity is a threat, and working-class people - and their culture - are despicable and villanous. Sadly Kunstler comes across pretty chauvanist. The author envisions a post-collapse future where comfortably educated and upper middle class white men are still somehow in charge of everything, and where their wise leadership is the only thing keeping dangerous social misfits from running amok. The book is shot through with flagrant stereotypes - including a hellish trailer park, murderous ex-bikers, and a cultish evangelical sect from the South. In the characters' dialogue Kunstler has the bad guys speaking with broken grammer and awkwardly-handled colloquialisms. Arguably, his intent is to use such as signifiers of Otherness and danger. I got the feeling Kusntler hasn't spent much time around people who actually speak that way.
And finally, I am really not convinced that former P.R. executives and real estate agents would be better equipped to grow their own food and salvage for life's necessaries than the less affluent that Kunstler employs as apishly-portrayed bad guys.
Book Review: Down With America?
Summary: 2 Stars
What happens after technology fails? This Luddite fantasy starts with an idea of such promise. Add to that good writing and compelling characters and you have a recipe for a good novel. Well, maybe not.
The story is predicated upon twin pillars of bad science: peak oil and man-made global warming. Neither premise gets much elaboration; it is just tacitly assumed that the world will inevitably retrogress because of man's stupidity. No mention is made of just how everything could go so wrong so fast. The way the story glosses over this necessary detail haunts the reader until it becomes a distraction to the story itself.
Knowing who the author is and the nature of his pseudo-science cum religion, we might be able to forgive his reliance on abysmal science. But we discover something that is even more disturbing: the author clearly ENJOYS that his home state of New York--and the rest of America--has been brought down to the level of a third-world country. His many gleeful descriptions of corporate America in ruins betray his hate-America-first political bias so thoroughly that the distraction is complete. The reader wants very much to root for these struggling people in the terrible circumstance that they find themselves in, but the Liberal fantasy keeps intruding.
Just in case you get past all of the above and are still enjoying the story, the introduction of the queen bee freak and elements of magic at the abruptly-ending story were pointless and completely gratuitous tangents. Disappointing.