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: It's Better than "The Long Emergency"
Summary: 2 Stars
... because it's in the fiction section. That's no small distinction.
However, it has pretty much the exact same problem that "TLE" has: halfway through the book, things start sliding downhill, and by the end, you wonder what the hell happened.
Things start off pretty well. It's a funny hybrid between historical fiction and sci-fi, but hey, I'm usually up for something new. The descriptions of food and food economy are great.
But... why do the musicians play music I've never heard of, and hate "Smells Like Teen Spirit," when it seems like they'd be from my generation or even younger? (I'm 30, and still seeing teenagers in Nirvana tshirts.) How does the water still work without electricity? (Yes, I know it's gravity fed- I live in a town with 19th century gravity fed water, and guess what, when the power goes out here, so does the water.)
The questions just get weirder. Why do the women and laborers accept second class status without even a peep, as if egalitarian democracy just never existed? Why did Brother Jobe and his lakeys forcibly shave the townspeople? Why did Minor and Karp die from identical wounds? Why is it important that Robert Earle was born Erlich and really Jewish? Why did Loren get tortured, literally, when Robert just got doused in poo?
And WHAT is the deal with the Queen Bee? None of these questions get answered, and, more to the point, the reader is left asking why they got asked in the first place, as they don't seem to add anything to the story.
It's disappointing, because this book had some momentum going before things started to get really out there. I was interested in thinking about daily life without wheat, and with hens in everyone's backyard. But I was left numbed by how... well, how dumb everything got. It's like he was in a terrible rush to finish, and just stopped writing rather than actually bothering to complete the story.
Book Review: Apocalypse Lite
Summary: 4 Stars
In this book of a post-collapse America, the author achieves an unlikely balance, portraying the good and bad of a remade world. He deftly avoids getting bogged down in the specifics of the collapse, instead choosing to focus on the myriad and sometimes mundane details of the forced simplicity of a world without electricity, oil, advanced medical care, or trade between communities. He cleverly intertwines the lives of people from four different social models: the conventional (and now failing) small American town, the religious extremists, the outlaws, and a modern feudal society. Of the four, ironically the feudal society seems to work best if 'best' is measured by the number of human comforts it produces.
The author has literary gifts, and his character development, descriptions, dialogue, and pacing are as good or better than you would expect to read in many popular thrillers. A comparison to Cormac McCarthy's The Road is probably unfair. Virtually no modern writer is the equal to McCarthy.
This book contains many surprises, among them the unexpected spiritual gifts that flow from the forced slow-down caused by the collapse. Gone are the hollow diversions of TVs and video games, and the stark necessities of intelligence, risk-taking and hard labor reveal the extraordinary frivolity of our current era. The author seems to take great pleasure in pointing out that the field laborers of the future used to be the leaders in their country clubs and professional organizations. A strangely humbling inversion occurs after the collapse, and it has suprising entertainment value.
All in all a very good read that doesn't shy away from issues involving violence, sex, and death. Yet at the same time, amid the hardship are rediscovered simple pleasures, a world made by hand emerges as one that is more beautiful and authentic than one made by machines.
Book Review: Problematic, but couldn't put it down
Summary: 4 Stars
First, I loved this book and could not put it down. I think the author did an excellent job with the narrator. Also, much was cedible about a post petrol future, including many things that I would not have thought of. I do think that it is very likely that communities would lose contact with each other, and that people may be not be sure what happened in the rest of the country. I like the idea that people would become more self sufficient, but from what I see around me in my law office, I think it is unlikely. I also think the lawlessness, and "strongman" governments would likely take over.
However, I do have three complaints. First, the events of this novel take place YEARS after the apocalypic events, yet most of the people in the book keep chiming back to the times before. Although some people might, I think most would accept that this is their life now, and would accept it. Now, I think it is very believable when the narrator, Mr. Earle, thinks back when things remind him of his life and family in times past; but people wouldn't talk about it all the time. Second, the novel takes place in upstate New York, yet all the people have a "country twang" in their voices. King in The Stand did that with his characters also, and just because people live closer to the earth, doesn't mean that their accents change in a few years. Last, I thought the supernatural aspect to the deaths at the end of the novel and the leader of the religious group came from nowhere, and was jarring in the context of the novel.
Still, a great read, and I was surprised that there was no strong position on religion or religions in the novel. There is no moralizing about how people should live. The only morality in the novel is how we live now, and what to do to prevent futures such as that portrayed in the novel. I couldn't put it down. Enjoy.
Book Review: Little House on the Prarie meets Peak Oil
Summary: 5 Stars
Having read all of Kunstler's non-fiction, but none of his fiction, I eagerly awaited "World Made By Hand". I was not disappointed. This is a great read that fills a pressing need. It's not enough to talk about peak oil, resource depletion, deindustrialization, global warming, etc. in mere technical or economic terms. These are not floating abstractions. Human beings are going want to go on living through these crises, and it's helpful to know how we might do it. Watching fictionalized characters cope with an unpleasant reality that was thrust upon them allows us to more fully comprehend and accept how we might exist in this strange and frightening world.
Kunstler's characters are likeable and emotionally accessible. Their quandaries (material and spiritual) are comparable to what we might experience in similar situations. Kunstler is kind to his characters without being obsequious. Some, as might be expected, can't cope anymore and exit this world. Those who remain and thrive do so by discarding their illusions. Thankfully, humor has survived and love, loyalty, friendship and meaning are still possible.
There is no explicit ideological agenda here - just ordinary people trying to survive and make sense of their losses. One senses that ideology itself has become just another useless vestige of the Industrial Age. Religion reasserts itself as a source of meaning and order. However, it does not dominate and Enlightenment values persist.
I'm not looking forward to living in the "world made by hand" described in this book. However, my personal preferences with respect to the future are practically irrelevant. We may not have ordained or wished for Kunstler's "world", but it is the logical consequence of the choices we are making today.
Book Review: Our Imminent Future
Summary: 5 Stars
For readers who do not already know about the impending end of the Petroleum Era, I recommend first reading Kunstler's previous book, "The Long Emergency," or Richard Heinberg's books, "Power Down" and "The Party's Over." These books set the stage for Kuntsler's novel, "World Made by Hand." In this story, Kuntsler speculates what kind of a world we will all be inhabiting within fifteen or twenty years. The loss of petroleum will plunge all industrialized societies into chaos, as people fight over the last remaining drops, and we all have to learn to make things by hand again. In some ways this drastic change in the way we live may, in the long run, introduce an element of sanity back into our lives -- after all, the Petroleum Era will appear as only a blip in the entire history of humankind -- but the transition back to sanity will cause the same kind of suffering as withdrawal from any other addiction does. Kunstler documents both the suffering and the renewal from the viewpoint of a small New England town and its survivors, who are having to learn to live without electricity, motor vehicles, super markets, antibiotics, and the myriad other products we have come to take for granted. In the process, Kunstler substantiates his long-advocated assertion that we humans need to return to living in small, self-sufficient communities, rather than far-flung suburbs of huge metropolises. The life style of the past century has only been made possible by fossil fuels, which are running out. It astonishes me that our government did not begin preparing us for the coming crisis thirty years ago, when we still might have begun making the requisite transitions relatively painlessly. But, as always, humankind waits until the last minute, then does what needs doing the hard way.