Cecily’s Reviews > On the Beach > Status Update
Cecily
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Stunning. Heart-breaking and not. Acceptance is key.
As the epigraph says:
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
(The final lines of TS Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”)
Review to come.
— Jul 13, 2025 10:12AM
As the epigraph says:
“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”
(The final lines of TS Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”)
Review to come.
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Jan-Maat
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Jul 13, 2025 10:37AM
I thought that you had already read this cecily?
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Nope. Until a fortnight ago, I'd conflated it with Alex Garland's The Beach, which I thought was some sort of soppy romance. An excellent, four-part documentary about sci-fi, on Sky Arts, included it, and sent me scurrying to read it. The series is called "Wonderland: Science Fiction in the Atomic Age".
Is this Shute's best book?
I've no idea, as it's the first of his I've read.
I thought it was excellent, too. It's both of its time, yet timeless.
It was nothing like I had I assumed it to be for many years: understated, existential apocalyptic fiction. Not really plot or character-based (except for one character who really does develop), but situational.
