EARTH ABIDES

'''Earth Abides''', a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Berkeley English professor George R. Stewart, won the inaugural International Fantasy Award in 1951. In November 1950, ''Earth Abides'' was adapted for the CBS radio program ''Escape'' as a two-part drama starring John Dehner.
With a theme of man vs. nature, the story opens as the protagonist Isherwood Williams returns from a trip into the California mountains and learns that civilization is crumbling after a plague has wiped out most of Earth's population. He sets out to find other survivors.
Stewart's choice of the name Isherwood (or Ish as he calls him) for his main character is an anthropological reference to Ishi, a Yahi Indian (a subset of the Yana) who emerged from the California wilderness in 1911, when his people were all but extinct; he was the last member of his tribe. Stewart might also have been referring to the Hebrew word Ish, meaning "person" or "man."
The book earned much praise from James Sallis, writing in the ''Boston Globe'':
:This is a book, mind you, that I'd place not only among the greatest science fiction but among our very best novels. Each time I read it, I'm profoundly affected, affected in a way only the greatest art — Ulysses, Matisse or Beethoven symphonies, say — affects me. Epic in sweep, centering on the person of Isherwood Williams, ''Earth Abides'' proves a kind of antihistory, relating the story of humankind backwards, from ever-more-abstract civilization to stone-age primitivism. Everything passes — everything. Writers' reputations. The ripe experience of a book in which we find ourselves immersed. Star systems, worlds, states, individual lives. Humankind. Few of us get to read our own eulogies, but here is mankind's. Making ''Earth Abides'' a novel for which words like elegiac and transcendent come easily to mind, a novel bearing, in critic Adam-Troy Castro's words, "a great dark beauty." ^[1]
An homage to the book is found in the episode "Emancipation" of the dystopian sci-fi series '', where "Earth Abides" became the name of a political group.^[2]

Contents

Plot summary

Analysis

Reference

Listen to

External links

Plot summary

The storyline follows the life of Ish after the plague, chronicling his attempts to rebuild human civilization with the few remaining survivors. Many of Ish's observations center on the effect humanity's absence has on the ecosystem. Though there are many short-term effects (such as rapid increase and then precipitous decline in the rat population), in the long term, the Earth endures without the "benefit" of human civilization. Ish and the few other survivors he's encountered form a small tribe in San Francisco and live off the city's remaining supplies. He knows these supplies won't last forever, so he tries to teach the children science, math, and even literacy, but the children are uninterested because they've grown up in a world where such things are unnecessary.
Just as the Native American Ishi left the wilderness as the last carrier of his tribe's culture, by the end of ''Earth Abides'', the reader understands that Ish is the last carrier of American civilization since Stewart refers to Ish as "the last American." At the end, Ish is an old man, the last remaining person who lived in the old times. The other members of his tribe have become efficient hunter-gatherers who treat him as something of a god; superstition has set in, despite Ish's efforts to teach against it. But Ish wonders if the new world is that much worse off than the old world, and finds himself hoping that the new world will not rebuild civilization and its mistakes. As he dies, Ish knows the others will commit his body to the Earth, but he also knows that in a way, people have always been committed to the Earth.

Analysis

While the "post-apocalyptic" literary sub-genre of Science Fiction is now quite common, ''Earth Abides'' distinctly predates similar well-known novels including Pat Frank's ''Alas, Babylon'' and William Brinkley's ''The Last Ship''. The book explores such issues as family structure, education, the meaning and purpose of civilization, and the basic nature of humankind -- especially in regard to religion, superstition, and custom.
''Earth Abides'' was published in 1949, four years after the end of World War II and in the earliest stages of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. As such, it lacks some of the common post-apocalyptic conventions found in later novels: There is no fear of atomic weapons or radiation; there there are no warlords or biker gangs. There are not even shortages of food, shelter or supplies.
One interpretation of the novel is that it is a dirge for the end of society and the supremacy of humankind. At the same time, the novel questions the value of our "Civilization" and is fundamentally hopeful of the future, as humanity gets a second chance to develop. Images of emptiness and decay (water seeping into houses and rotting carpets; vegetation destroying the roads; rust eating away at the mighty bridges) contrast with images of growth and new life.

Reference

1. Sallis, James."''Earth Abides'': Stewart's dark eulogy for humankind," ''Boston Globe'', February 16. 2003.
2. Episode recap

Listen to

★ ''Escape'' "Earth Abides" Part One (November 5, 1950)

★ ''Escape'' "Earth Abides" Part Two (November 12, 1950)

External links

★ ''Boston Globe'' review by James Sallis

★ Review by Rich Cross at Survivors: A World Away