eagre to be devour'd
February 1, 2025 5:40 AM Subscribe
"Lynskey allots space to all sorts of apocalypses, but, for the most part, Everything Must Go is doom without the gloom. His accounts of natural disasters are leavened not only by the imaginary disasters in his purview but also by his obvious enjoyment of them. Having to come to terms with this eventuality is the price we pay for being able to imagine it in the first place. And because we can, Lynskey’s darker forebodings become, in their own compendious way, almost heartening." Arthur Krystal, What We Learn About Our World By Imagining Its End, a book review and a meditation on our 4000-year obsession.
But also spend some time looking at the illustration for this piece! It's by Tim Enthoven, whose art I find strangely charming and weird.
But also spend some time looking at the illustration for this piece! It's by Tim Enthoven, whose art I find strangely charming and weird.
So, my book club focuses exclusively on post-apocalyptic fiction. I always get funny looks when I tell people this - but it's weirdly fascinating. (The club's been around for nearly 20 years, I've only been a member for 10.) The person currently running it has been doing a great job finding books that really stretch the genre:
1. During the pandemic (when the club moved from in-person to online), she swore that she would spend the whole year trying to find "funny apocalyptic books" and she actually found enough.
2. Other years she's tried focusing on all women authors, or all books by non-Western/European authors, or only recent books. And pulled it off (they've been cranking out post-apocalyptic books for DECADES).
3. She also has branched out into nonfiction, and also very local end-times scenarios. So we've also read Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise in Hell," which looks at how people actually tend to form grass-roots mutual aid in times of crisis, instead of chaotic looting the way that the authorities claim always happens; and "The World Without Us", that book from years ago that looked at "what would happen to the planet if we all instantly disappeared"; and there was also a book that was about the Norman conquest of the UK from the perspective of an Anglo-Saxon warrior.
...This has caused some really thought-provoking conversations about societal structure, language, gender roles, indigenous traditions vs. Western/European thinking, the environment, astronomy, and a huge and freewheeling range of other things. (It does also help that a post-apocalyptic focus has attracted a quirky bunch.) I'm also additionally fascinated that you can get a sense of the anxiety-of-the-time based on when the book was written, and that's another avenue of thought; these days the Thing That Ended The World tends to be either a pandemic or an environmental collapse, while in books from the late 20th-Century the TTETW was nukes. You have your eras where people worried about comets or aliens, or magnetic pole shift, or God finally wiping us out. You have your eras where how the world ended mattered less than "now how do we keep up civilization" or "how do we increase the population again" or "how do we reclaim that knowledge" or "since the last people can start over how can we do it better". It's starting to get to the point where I can guess when a book was written based on what it's about.
The leader has encouraged us to let her know if we come across a book on our own that we think the group should read - last I heard she has enough suggestions to last us about another decade.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:18 AM on February 1 [11 favorites]
1. During the pandemic (when the club moved from in-person to online), she swore that she would spend the whole year trying to find "funny apocalyptic books" and she actually found enough.
2. Other years she's tried focusing on all women authors, or all books by non-Western/European authors, or only recent books. And pulled it off (they've been cranking out post-apocalyptic books for DECADES).
3. She also has branched out into nonfiction, and also very local end-times scenarios. So we've also read Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise in Hell," which looks at how people actually tend to form grass-roots mutual aid in times of crisis, instead of chaotic looting the way that the authorities claim always happens; and "The World Without Us", that book from years ago that looked at "what would happen to the planet if we all instantly disappeared"; and there was also a book that was about the Norman conquest of the UK from the perspective of an Anglo-Saxon warrior.
...This has caused some really thought-provoking conversations about societal structure, language, gender roles, indigenous traditions vs. Western/European thinking, the environment, astronomy, and a huge and freewheeling range of other things. (It does also help that a post-apocalyptic focus has attracted a quirky bunch.) I'm also additionally fascinated that you can get a sense of the anxiety-of-the-time based on when the book was written, and that's another avenue of thought; these days the Thing That Ended The World tends to be either a pandemic or an environmental collapse, while in books from the late 20th-Century the TTETW was nukes. You have your eras where people worried about comets or aliens, or magnetic pole shift, or God finally wiping us out. You have your eras where how the world ended mattered less than "now how do we keep up civilization" or "how do we increase the population again" or "how do we reclaim that knowledge" or "since the last people can start over how can we do it better". It's starting to get to the point where I can guess when a book was written based on what it's about.
The leader has encouraged us to let her know if we come across a book on our own that we think the group should read - last I heard she has enough suggestions to last us about another decade.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:18 AM on February 1 [11 favorites]
"If you think there is a solution, you're part of the problem." — George Carlin (4m, 21m)
I always enjoy analogies, and deep analogy failures, between biological and cultural evolution, like consider how the Hayflick limit defines the organism making germline evolution possible. We've nothing so fascist in human culture of course, which seems interesitng.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:18 AM on February 1
I always enjoy analogies, and deep analogy failures, between biological and cultural evolution, like consider how the Hayflick limit defines the organism making germline evolution possible. We've nothing so fascist in human culture of course, which seems interesitng.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:18 AM on February 1
"Oh no, now the doomsday clock is standing on top of an icy cliff juggling chain saws." --@alizerin.bsky.social
posted by graywyvern at 10:32 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
posted by graywyvern at 10:32 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
The "There Will Come Soft Rains" *just* missed the Bradbury story.
posted by doctornemo at 12:54 PM on February 1
posted by doctornemo at 12:54 PM on February 1
So in grad school I spent a year reading a lot of literature about the end of the world, focused on the 1700s and 1800s. One night I stayed up all night reading and writing about Wordsworth, Byron, and Blake's visions of the end, only to hear a knock at the door. I strode over and found in the morning light two Jehovah's Witnesses.
"Would you like the talk about the end of the world?" one asked.
I blinked far too rapidly. "By all means," I eventually replied, and led them to my living room.
posted by doctornemo at 12:56 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]
"Would you like the talk about the end of the world?" one asked.
I blinked far too rapidly. "By all means," I eventually replied, and led them to my living room.
posted by doctornemo at 12:56 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]
So in grad school I spent a year reading a lot of literature about the end of the world, focused on the 1700s and 1800s.
Ooh, any titles you can suggest?
And did you read THE PURPLE CLOUD at all? Very early 20th Century and it fell apart halfway through, but the first half fascinated me - it was the first time I'd seen a Last Man On Earth narrator not go the whole Stoic Route - this English guy who was on an Arctic expedition and that's why he survived. He makes his way home to figure out what to do, passing through desolation the whole way - and when he gets to his estate, the first thing he sees is a portrait of himself in full Victorian Gentleman garb, and he thinks - "wow, I look stupid. But now that it's just me, I can wear whatever!....and hey, i can also DO whatever!" And he goes a little nuts and starts on this worldwide journey where he burns all the other cities dressed un, like, a turban and Hammer pants.
It's the only time I saw the main character flip their shit in a work like this and somehow that feels accurate.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:28 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Ooh, any titles you can suggest?
And did you read THE PURPLE CLOUD at all? Very early 20th Century and it fell apart halfway through, but the first half fascinated me - it was the first time I'd seen a Last Man On Earth narrator not go the whole Stoic Route - this English guy who was on an Arctic expedition and that's why he survived. He makes his way home to figure out what to do, passing through desolation the whole way - and when he gets to his estate, the first thing he sees is a portrait of himself in full Victorian Gentleman garb, and he thinks - "wow, I look stupid. But now that it's just me, I can wear whatever!....and hey, i can also DO whatever!" And he goes a little nuts and starts on this worldwide journey where he burns all the other cities dressed un, like, a turban and Hammer pants.
It's the only time I saw the main character flip their shit in a work like this and somehow that feels accurate.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:28 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
But now that it's just me, I can wear whatever!
Which reminds me of The Quiet Earth!
posted by mittens at 3:55 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
Which reminds me of The Quiet Earth!
posted by mittens at 3:55 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos, I'd recommend some mentioned already: Byron's "Darkness," Mary Shelley's The Last Man, nearly every Blake prophetic work (including Milton, which features an angel descending into the poet's back yard), Percy Shelley's "Masque of Anarchy."
Here are some more suggestions and still more.
And here's a famous bit from Wordsworth's The Prelude:
The melancholy slackening that ensued
Upon those tidings by the peasant given
Was soon dislodged. Downwards we hurried fast,
And, with the half-shaped road which we had missed,
Entered a narrow chasm. The brook and road
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow pace. The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
And in the narrow rent at every turn
Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
As if a voice were in them, the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light—
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree;
Characters of the great Apocalypse,
The types and symbols of Eternity,
Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.
posted by doctornemo at 5:03 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
Here are some more suggestions and still more.
And here's a famous bit from Wordsworth's The Prelude:
The melancholy slackening that ensued
Upon those tidings by the peasant given
Was soon dislodged. Downwards we hurried fast,
And, with the half-shaped road which we had missed,
Entered a narrow chasm. The brook and road
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait,
And with them did we journey several hours
At a slow pace. The immeasurable height
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,
The stationary blasts of waterfalls,
And in the narrow rent at every turn
Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
As if a voice were in them, the sick sight
And giddy prospect of the raving stream,
The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens,
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light—
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree;
Characters of the great Apocalypse,
The types and symbols of Eternity,
Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.
posted by doctornemo at 5:03 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]
The Purple Cloud: I love the utterly bonkers thing. There are moments of brilliant power, like the discovery at the north pole. And the sheer repetitiveness of the middle part, where he keeps finding death and ruin, is decadent stuff.
posted by doctornemo at 5:04 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 5:04 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
last I heard she has enough suggestions to last us about another decade.
Is there maybe a list of what the club has read in the past? Because that list would be very exciting to see.
posted by mittens at 4:04 AM on February 2
Is there maybe a list of what the club has read in the past? Because that list would be very exciting to see.
posted by mittens at 4:04 AM on February 2
I don't think there is a complete list, but it's on Meetup so you can pull up some "past meettings" data there.
I can tell you there's one book, LIMBO, that was so universally hated it is still a bit of a group touchstone (bring it up and st least one or two of us will groan "oh God, THAT").
We're an online group, so new members can be from anywhere; most of us are in NYC, but one dude in Canada has become a new regular. If anyone does join, Memail me so I can alert our leader (we have had some pranksters Zoom-hijack us once or twice so she's cautious about new names).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:18 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]
I can tell you there's one book, LIMBO, that was so universally hated it is still a bit of a group touchstone (bring it up and st least one or two of us will groan "oh God, THAT").
We're an online group, so new members can be from anywhere; most of us are in NYC, but one dude in Canada has become a new regular. If anyone does join, Memail me so I can alert our leader (we have had some pranksters Zoom-hijack us once or twice so she's cautious about new names).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:18 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One (apparently mis-posted?) comment deleted. Checking with the poster.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:16 PM on February 3
posted by taz (staff) at 11:16 PM on February 3
I just had a meeting of the club, and apparently there IS a list of books we have read - if anyone is interested memail me.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:19 PM on February 20
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:19 PM on February 20
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posted by mittens at 5:44 AM on February 1