Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
I made the mistake of re-reading “Alas Babylon” last night. Why was it a mistake? Because about 2/3 of the way through the book I got out of bed, retrieved a notepad and pen, got back into bed, and resumed my reading while making some notes. That is, arguably, the hallmark of good literature – it makes you think.
“Alas, Babylon” was written in 1959 by Harry Hart under the pen name Pat Frank. It is probaly one of the best known end-of-the-world books and for many people their first introduction to the genre. Although its dated in many ways (esp. its portrayal of racial issues) its premise, characters and situations are still excellent reading.
If you haven’t read it, its about life in a small Florida town after a US-Soviet nuclear exchange. The small community is isolated from the rest of the world and life tries to go on amidst food shortages, medical emergencies, epidemics, looters and people’s personal demons. Theres nothing spectacular or fantastic in the book, and for the most part its very well grounded with what day-to-day existence might be like after a nuclear shooting match.
The book, as I said, was written in 1959 which is pretty much around the early/middle part of the Cold War when nuclear war (or ‘atomic war’, if you prefer) was not entirely an unthinkable proposition. Other books covered the same subject but, as far as I know, Frank’s was the first that was not a ‘we’re-all-going-to-die’ defeatist story. The notion that when the bombs fell ‘the living would envy the dead’ is probably largely responsible for the dismal Civil Defense programs this country had. (I have nothing to back that up with, I just think that too many people were willing to throw up their hands and assume everyone would die rather than make an effort to deal with an uncomfortable issue like preparing for the horror of a nuclear war.) Historically, we only have a few occasions where people were actually nuked. (While hundreds of nukes have gone off in the last 60 years only a few have gone off with people under them.) Obviously, the Japanese experience is the standard by which we still judge nuclear exchanges (as evidenced by statements like “a thousand times more powerful than the bomb at Hiroshima” used when describing current nuclear threats). However, many people don’t know that people in close proximity to the blast, as close as a few hundred yards, survived. These people were in sheltered locations such as heavy concrete/stone buildings, air raid shelters, etc. (Admittedly, overpressure made many of the shelter dwellers into corpses but the shelters themselves withstood the blast.)
In fact, theres a remarkably unlucky (and very small) group of people who have the distinction of being nuked twice…once at Hiroshima and then at the place they were evacuated to – Nagasaki.
The notion that when the bombs fly we’re all as good as dead certainly may have played into the reluctance of government (federal and local..esp. local) to do anything proactive in regard to civil defense. I believe that attitude has changed. Todays civil defense (which is now usually called something like ‘emergency management’) tends to focus on smaller, more likely, disasters…hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. Some places (Texas, most notably) still keeps their dosimeters and chargers current and well-maintained but by and large the task of preparing against nuclear war has fallen to the wayside in favor of preparing for more likely, more manageable, more ‘survivable’ disasters.
My personal belief is that while a full-out ICBM-launching nuclear war in the classic sense is extremely unlikely, the possibility of a nuclear attack is still extremely possible. Those small ‘backpack nukes’ we’re told do, don’t, do, don’t exist; nuclear artillery shells smuggled out of former Soviet countries, etc, etc. A nuclear attack doesn’t have to be a humongous mushroom cloud…a 1991 Toyota Camry with a ‘tactical battlefield nuke’ can take out a nice chunk of metropolis and render even more of it unsafe.
But..back to Alas Babylon…
When I first watched Jericho I thought ‘Cool..its “Alas baylon: The Series”’. And while I think ‘Jericho’ was a good series, I don’t think its nearly as motivational as Alas Babylon. I attribute this mostly to the characters in the book, by virtue of the medium, having more depth and allowing the reader to relate to them more. That said, there are episodes of ‘Jericho’ that do wonders for kicking my motivation back up a notch or two.
Does the book have some flaws? Well, in my opinion, yes. You have to keep in mind that when the book was written things were a bit more..how shall we say…genteel. Even for a subject like nuclear war, theres a few things missing from this book. First and foremost, the violence that we’ve seen in other disasters is largely absent. Theres one episode of classic post-holocaust predators but other than that people, even the ‘lower class’ people, tend to isolate themselves or cooperate for a better tomorrow. Secondly, this book takes place in the south where you still have White Merchants Associations, ‘colored’ housekeepers, and folks that run around saying ‘Yessuh, I’s reckon we does.” I cant imagine that in a post-collaspe situation there wouldn’t be a certain amount of racial violence. Sorry, just not seeing it.
Largely, it’s a somewhat sanitized version of how things might be. Radiation victims have skin lesions and hair falling out. Not a lot of description of vomiting blood, wailing and thrashing from injuries, etc, etc. It’s a PG-13 nuclear war. But…that’s the era this book was written in.
Frank believed in strong national defense and civil defense. Although its not mentioned elsewhere I don’t think he wrote the book as a ‘how to’ manual with a fiction disguise. I think he wrote it as an account of how Joe Average would respond and prepare, correctly and incorrectly, for a nuclear disaster. Im sure he hoped it would make the reader more interested in pushing for a stronger Civil Defense program.
It’s a good book and I do recommend it for those who haven’t read it. Like most of the works in this genre, its good for playing ‘what if…’ and making one think ‘outside the box’, that is to say, making the reader consider things they may not have thought of on their own.
As an aside, I remember the first time I read this book. It was in 1980 when I read it for an extra credit book report assignment. It and Ahern’s pulp ‘Surivalist’ series are probably the two books that most got me pushed in this direction.
