"Martin Schuh" <[e-mail]>

Review of Nevil Shute’s On the beach




This books’ story takes place in Southern Australia. It tells us about our earth
after a nuclear war. A war that lasted for a few weeks only, but destroyed or
will destroy all mankind. The whole Northern Hemisphere is dead, the only hu-
man beings still alive are the Australians.

But their ‘happiness’ will only last for a few months – it’s the wind that spreads
the radioactivity towards them. And everybody knows that the radioactivity will
cause radiation sickness, which will kill the little rest of the human race within
a few days.

Peter Holmes is on the lucky side, too. He works for the Australian Navy and
lives together with his wife Mary and his very young daughter. One day, he is
asked to go on a cruise with an American Submarine with the other main cha-
racter, John Osborne. The goal of the cruise is to watch out if there is still any-
body alive in the Northern Hemisphere or – not. And it is the bitter truth: They
even find cities with no damage at all – but radiation sickness has killed every-
thing.

‘On the beach’ tells little stories about the young lady Moira Davidson who
drinks a lot to stand what happens; about John Osborne, who starts practising
in really dangerous car racing and about Peters wife Mary, who just doesn’t
want to believe what happens and tries to live like she used to do before.

Nevil Shute made me think about life and its end again. What’s the sense of
our life? To play ‘the game’? To start an own business, to succeed in making
money? Nobody can give a general answer, valid for everyone.