Written (or rather, first published) in 1953, six years before Chandler'sdeath, The Long Goodbye travels so far beyond the boundaries of the standard "mystery genre" novel that to pigeonhole it as such is to fall in line behind the deathkultur goon squad marching lock-step into the abyss of the braindead. Digest, please, this excerpt from the mouth of one of the white, upper class suburban neurotics forever summoning Phillip Marlowe to their well-appointed inner sanctums for tough guy banter:

You can't expect quality from people whose lives are a subjection to a lack of quality. You can't have quality with mass production. You don't want it because it lasts too long. So you substitute styling, which is a commercial swindle intended to produce artificial obsolescence. Mass production couldn't sell its goods next year unless it made what it sold this year look unfashionable a year from now. We have the whitest kitchens and the most shining bathrooms in the world. But in the lovely white kitchen the average American house<->wife can't produce a meal fit to eat, and the lovely shining bathroom is mostly a receptacle for deodorants, laxatives, sleeping pills, and the products of that confidence racket called the cosmetic industry. We make the finest packages in the world, Mr. Marlowe. The stuff inside is mostly junk.

(first appeared in Reign of Toads #3)

Best known for his popular "Tripods Trilogy" of juvenile science fiction books, John Christopher also wrote a handful of novels for adults, No Blade of Grass (1956) being his most significant. A cool, precise writer with a keen, analytical eye for human behavior and motivation, Christopher seems fascinated by "what if" scenarios that thrust ordinary people into extraordinary situations. While his juvenile books promote anti-authoritarian subtexts, No Blade of Grass has no such agenda. Rather, it details the seemingly inevitable descent of humanity into neo-feudalism following the collapse of society when a plague that attacks all grasses (wheat, rice, etc.) devastates the planet's food supply.

Roger, a government bureaucrat in London, gets wind that martial law is about to be declared and a bombing strike ordered to destroy the major urban centers of England, thus surgically depopulating the country and stretching the meager food supply to feed the survivors. He informs his friend, John Custance, a middle-class architect, and they flee with their families, as planned in advance, in an attempt to reach an enclosed, defensible valley where Custance's brother owns a farm and, hence, a chance for survival. En route, they acquire an impromptu ally: Pirrie--a pawn shop owner who decides to bring his wife and join up with the group when they unsuccessfully attempt to rob his store for weapons. Custance is elected leader, a position that soon becomes quite serious as their journey, which at first seems simple, soon becomes nearly impossible as the group is robbed of its automobiles and the landscape of England rapidly degnerates into savagery. Pirrie, an older man who initially appears to be a burden, becomes essential to the survival of the group; his marksmanlike skill with a rifle, moral ambiguity and apparent pleasure in the new, primitive way of life creating a dangerous, but necessary ally.

Christopher is most successful at validating his apocalyptic vision when working at the micro-level. The early parts of the book, describing the international reaction to the problem of the plague, are less convincing, but once the collapse of society is established, his delineation of the human reaction to sudden anarchy--spontaneous formation of gangs, alliances and overlords--is utterly believable. When Custance and his group storm a lone farmhouse and murder a man and his wife for food and supplies, only to discover the daughter of the inhabitants cowering upstairs, it is a chilling but truthful moment foreshadowed by the increasing violence and brutality of the countryside.

Christopher's sustained and consistent commentary on human nature is sobering, suggesting that the unguarded border between civilization and savagery is only one of convenience in a time of plenty, and that the very existence of society is owed to the base needs and fears of its people. (The Ray Milland film Panic in the Year Zero is loosely based on this novel.) --K.S.

(review date: 5/16/97)

last update 7/30/97


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