Books about the end of the world, January 20, 2000, Icon

If things had gone wrong, this piece never would have been published. See, I was asked to do a roundup of books dealing with the end of the world for a December issue as part of the run-up to the potential disaster of Y2K. The piece didn’t make it into a December issue, however. Fortunately (whew!), the world didn’t end, and the folks at Icon asked me to rewrite the lede so it could be published in January. By then, the urgency was gone, so the piece didn’t even run until January 20.

Dirty little secret: I’d only read some of the books in this roundup: the Dick, the King (long version), and the Gaiman/Pratchett. I have no idea on what grounds I suggested that the Keller book was “surprisingly readable.” Oh, well. It wasn’t the end of the world.

This piece ran under the headline and subhead “Waiting for the end of the world: Doomsday books to read as we venture into the next millennium.”

OK, so the start of the year 2000 turned out to be the biggest non-event on record. After months of build up, the world neither ended nor experienced great degrees of chaos. Instead, celebrations worldwide went off without a hitch, leaving doomsday  fanatics a bit disillusioned and wondering what to do next. For those still seeking some apocalyptic excitement, here are a few suggestions that might fill that empty feeling left by the Y2K rollover.

On the Beach by Nevil Shute–A Cold War classic, Shute’s 1957 novel tells the story of a group of men and women in Australia patiently waiting for the nuclear fallout from a distant confrontation to come and kill them. Refusing to let panic ruin what is left of their lives, Shute’s characters continue to live and love until the deadly rains approach the continent–either an example of the triumph of the human spirit or an example at how stress detaches folks from reality, depending on your point of view.

Dr. Bloodmoney by Phillip K. Dick–Subtitled  How We Got Along After the Bomb, Dick’s 1965 novel also follows the lives of nuclear war survivors. Full of classic Dickian themes and plot points–including the handyman who saves the girl with her twin brother growing inside her and the world–Dr. Bloodmoney, like Dick’s better known works  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and The Man in the High Castle, establishes the late author as one of the more creative and daring of American writers.

End of the Age by Pat Robertson–Perhaps a nuclear war isn’t all we have to fear. Indeed the back cover of Robertson’s 1996 novel announces, “Pat Robertson and Hollywood agree–the sudden impact of a meteor will usher in Armageddon.” Robertson, erstwhile presidential candidate and host of the Christian television program “The 700 Club,” draws on the biblical book of Revelation to weave a tale of the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ.

The Left Behind Series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins–Also drawing on biblical prophecy, this widely popular series, which has been dubbed “King James Bond” by  Civilization magazine, tells the story of the Tribulation, a seven-year period following the Rapture of Christians and preceding the return of Christ. Who would have thought the Anti-Christ would earn People magazines’ “Sexiest Man Alive” moniker? A companion series for children is also available, providing apocalyptic thrills for the whole family.

The Stand by Stephen King–A worldwide plague sparked by a computer error leaves the Earth’s population devastated and sets the stage for an epic battle between good, represented by 108-year-old Mother Abagail, and evil, in the person of Randall Flagg. Originally published in 1978, The Stand was reissued in 1990 with more than 150,000 words restored to the text, giving today’s reader the choice between the author’s original 1,100-page vision and the somewhat smaller edited version. Either provides readers with a heap of King’s standard scary fare.

Portent by James Herbert–Following the appearance of strange lights that seem to emanate from the very heart of the Earth, the planet is wracked by as series of horrible natural disasters in Herbert’s 1992 novel. As the death count mounts, climatologist James Rivers discovers there is more behind the upheaval than really bad weather.

The Millennium Quartet by Charles Grant–Best known for penning the “X-Files” novels, Grant embarked on a four-book look at the end of the world in 1997. The first book in the series, Symphony, introduces the reader to Casey, a small-town preacher thrust into the battle against evil when he discovers he can perform miracles. In the Mood, published in 1998, tells the story of John, a man who can sense violence and prevent it. Two more Horseman of the Apocalypse (Death and Famine are treated in the first two books) await Grant’s pen.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett–The acclaimed author of The Sandman graphic novels and the mind behind the Discworld series that came together in 1990 to pen this hilarious novel that opens with the caveat: “Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be  dangerous. Do not attempt it in your own home.” The Anti-Christ has been misplaced, it turns out, and the rush toward the end of the world becomes a cosmic battle to set things straight.

Apocalypse Wow! by James Finn Garner–The man who brought us Politically Correct Bedtime Stories turns his attention to the apocalypse in this “Memoir for the End of Time.” Take the Doomsday Final Exam, read up on cephlomancy, tyromancy, and scarpomancy, and have “Fun with Fundamentalism” in this irreverent look at all things apocalyptic.

Apocalypse Now and Then by Catherine Keller–Billed as “A Feminist Guide to the End of the World,” this scholarly endeavor traces “how the myth of the apocalypse has shaped our basic habits of text, time, place, community, and gender.” Surprisingly readable, the book focuses on the cultural repercussions of biblical exegesis.

The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh, January 13, 2000, Icon

What I remember best about reviewing this book is the heft of it in my hand, its odd texture and odor, and my relief at how bad the “Juvenilia” section turned out to be. I hardly felt qualified to offer up criticism on the work of Evelyn Waugh, but the editors of this collection did me a tremendous favor. I particularly like phrase,”which are at least gathered together where they can be easily ignored.”

This review ran under the headline and subhead “Complete Waugh a little too complete: New volume of Evelyn Waugh’s work even includes stories the author wrote as a child.”

At its best, The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh, published this fall by Little, Brown and Company as part of its Back Bay imprint’s repackaging of Waugh’s novels, delights the reader with the sharp satire and crisp writing to which fans of the late English author’s works are accustomed. At its worst, the collection offers up extremely early stories and sketches that most readers would have happily had left out of the book.

Bright spots in the collection, and there are many, include “The Man Who Licked Dickens,” “An Englishman’s Home,” and “Scott-King’s Modern Europe.” The last is in many ways similar to Waugh’s wonderful novel, Scoop, in which a freelance garden writer for a London paper quite amazingly finds himself chief war correspondent reporting on a bizarre war in Africa. The title character in “Scott-King’s Modern Europe” is a scholar whose life work deals with a hopelessly obscure country. The story traces his adventures after he accepts an invitation to visit the country to celebrate the work of the long-dead writer. In both the novel and story, Waugh’s gift for satire shines through as he relates the bizarre customs and labyrinthine bureaucracies of the counties in which the main characters find themselves.

Two chapters from the unfinished novel Work Suspended are another high point. Titled “My Father’s House” and “Lucy Simmonds,” the chapters begin the story  of a successful mystery writer whose work comes to a halt upon the death of his father. In the second chapter he falls in love with Lucy Simmonds, the pregnant wife of a writer friend–he also comes face to face, in a number of bizarre settings, with the man responsible for his father’s death. The opening paragraphs of the first chapter set a wry tone: “In three weeks I should pack (my latest novel) up for the typist, perhaps sooner, for I had nearly passed that heavy middle period where less conscientious writers introduce their second corpse.” But the two chapters are full of poignant moments as well, particularly after the birth of Lucy’s child.

The chapters are quite successful and one wonders why Waugh abandoned the project. Unfortunately, The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh is devoid of quality notes. While the book does contain bibliographic information about the stories, the book’s introduction is scanty and does not address the stories in any detail.

Readers unfamiliar with the social and political landscape of the England Waugh describes may also struggle with some of the stories, including “Charles Ryder’s Schooldays,” which provides a glimpse into the early days of the narrator of Brideshead Revisited, Waugh’s most famous book. The story revolves around the internal politics of the student body at Ryder’s school, and the American reader of the late 20th century may not be armed with the necessary knowledge of such a school’s hierarchy to glean all the piece offers. The story that opens the collection, “The Balance,” offers similar challenges, as well as an unusual narrative style that might put off readers not familiar with the bulk of Waugh’s work.

The reader is not left entirely without signposts, however, as there are a couple of divisions made in the text. The first section of the book, which contains the stories mentioned above, is labeled “The stories of Evelyn Waugh,” followed by sections called “Juvenilia” and “Oxford Stories.” While the stories in the last section may be of some passing interest to devoted fans of Waugh’s work, the juvenilia section might have been better left out. It contains stories Waugh wrote as a child and preserves not only the text of those stories but of all the various writing errors a young author makes. Witness this first chapter of “The Curse of the Horse Race”:

“I bet you 500 pounds I’ll win. The speaker was Rupert a man of about 25 he had a dark busy mistarsh and flashing eyes.

I shouldn’t trust to much on your horse said Tom for ineed he had not the sum to spear.

The race was to take place at ten the following moring.”

These stories offer little to the casual reader of Waugh’s work; indeed, it is difficult to see what they offer any reader save, perhaps, the most serious of Waugh scholars. Though the collection would have been less “complete” without them, it would have been more consistently enjoyable.

Aside from these pieces, which are at least gathered together where they can easily be ignored, The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh brings together an assortment of fine writing by one of Britain’s top talents of this century. Fans of Waugh, as well as all those who enjoy deftly constructed satire, will be pleased with the collection.