Today was the sixty-second anniversary of the hiroshima atomic bomb drop. The bomb dropped and there was much heat, burns, the instant vanishing of quite a significant amount of living and non-living matter - several rock concert / football match / operas worth. A dead diana-turnout worth.
In three days nagasaki will also get a (slightly larger) bomb drop.
Here is a list of some good works in print related to atomic bombs and general apocalyptic situations that I have personally read:
non fiction:
- Robert Jungk Brighter Than a Thousand Suns, and Children of the Ashes
The former is about the Manhattan Project and the various scientific endeavours that led to the splitting of the atom and all that. Some good bits about eccentric scientists, one described falling over during a daily walk, calmly remaining face down until the particular equation he had been ruminating over was solved. And a good bit about a Manhattan Project scientist who saves Los Alamos by pushing some nuclear block thing as it is about to go critical mass-thingy, then naturally dies of severe radiation death. There is a film about it, and that scientist is played by that handsome actor (you know the one). And Oppenheimer is around and has arguments with his wife maybe, who is a good dancer (in the film). Children of the Ashes is about a little gang of Hiroshima children, surviving in the aftermath, and will make you cry. It had a good fold out map of Hiroshima and the various blast effects.
- John Hersey Hiroshima Follows the lives of 6 Hiroshima survivors, it is good. One of them is a German priest or vicar, I don't know the difference sorry.
- Kenzaburo Oe Hiroshima Notes He makes some notes every time he goes to Hiroshima over some decades. Written in a matter-of-fact tone, or at least I think so as it is a long lost book.
-There are obviously many books about all this, sorry for not being an electronic brain and knowing all about all of them.
-If you are wondering why Nagasaki is not mentioned much, I think it is down to the food not being that good and the hotels being expensive with lumpy mattresses and appalling service. (and not because there were sinister experimental surgeries going on and a sizeable army barracks-type zone hence implying it was a legitimate military target) (which is like murdering everyone in a small town because a serial killer is roaming its streets)
nice purple edition of Brighter than... in chinese we think
fiction:
- Russel Hoban's Riddley Walker Famous for being written in a de/re-constructed english, depicting a society living couple hundred years post nuclear apocalypse.
- Maggie Gee's The Burning Book Weird thing following three generations of a english family, children growing up, their relationships, their children growing up etc, only to face annihilation in nuclear war near the end, hence their histories vanish, etc. Has some greyed / blank pages now and then. Incredible lucid dream prose and constant tone of pain throughout, highly recommended
Please suggest your own apocalypse books/films/art/recipes, while filling the bath and taping up your windows.
When thinking of nuclear holocaust literature, Raymond Brigg's "When The Wind Blows" comes to mind : if "The Snowman" didn't traumatise one enough as a child, how about a graphic novel by the same artist, showing a cheery, quintessentially English old couple attempting to survive nuclear fallout in a makeshift home bunker, gradually falling victim to radiation sickness then dying.
ReplyDeleteThe animated version appears to have been uploaded to YouTube:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.metafilter.com/tags/whenthewindblows
do the japanese mark this day in any way? the rest of the world seems to ignore it.
ReplyDeletebbc4 is showing an interesting education/science series called 'atom', the last episode of which skirts around the development of the atom bomb.
a story from jungk's book which stays with me is the one about the mathmetician who was asked to calculate if a hydrogen bomb of a certain mass would cause a chain reaction that would destroy the world.
he calculated it would not, but became torn over the realisation that it might be better to keep this fact to himself.
would the us government have been mad enough to set it off anyway?
'heroes' is about a living nuclear bomb. it's quite good, in that slick manipulative american franchise way.
Yes, "when the wind blows" is good. Their nuclear bunker is a door and some cushions, and they leave it to wash the dishes.
ReplyDeleteBest film depiction is probably british movie "threads", set in birmingham I think. There is a scene where a half-burnt blonde boy arranges his star wars figure collection in the rubble.
- I am not a fan of heroes. Bit too straightforward and voiceovers are to be avoided, in the grand monolithic scheme of things.
- There was only brief mention of the day on the TV, compared to events surrounding our leaders the royal family, and sporting events like cricketers getting drunk on a double-decker bus, I thought it was a bit strange.
How is the holocaust "celebrated" these days? Didn't dick cheney turn up to an auschwitz memorial in hunting clothes?
Not forgetting The Road by Cor! Mac Macarthy. It's lovely.
ReplyDelete*I have returned.
ReplyDelete*(apologies for the cursory link, but I could think of no other way to get into the holocaust schtisk) - speaking of Roads, have you heard that Penguin are publishing the scroll of On The Road as a hardback edition with previously edited bits of gay sex, drug taking and real names re-inserted to mark the 50th anniversary? I will probably be suckered into buying it - for collection purposes. They also found a play he wrote too - dusty abandoned attic stuff - and they have published. Cash cow ahoy. I didn't realise they had a range of Kerouac clothing in America. Thoughts Mr Malale?
*Macarthy's book has received much coverage and many accolades. Posters all over the Tube. Best books of the year, etc etc - not bad for post- holocaust themed wanderings. Though I am yet to read it.
*History is good. It teaches us how pointless all current endeavours are.
*Also, dancing in a field is good - nice country air + narcotics. I bought A Confederacy of Dunces from underneath a tree from a man who was also selling Vinyl. I started reading it in various states of oblivion. Enjoyable book. Do you know the sad tale of its author's fortunes Mr Malale?
*The Smiths. I recently re-appraised Strangeways Here We Come. It is very good. Bar 3, I think. Which are not so good.
*Your parcel should be posted this week.
*Adieu
I wonder now if "Riddley Walker" and "the Road" are really about nuclear war or apocalypse in general. The situation arises from an apocalypse, but isn't concerned with it directly. Akira may be more about apocalypse than both those books.
ReplyDeleteRiddley Walker is and it isn't. Inevitably, because of the political climate at the time, everyone said "Alas! Tis a grave warning of what awaits us if we continue our stockpiling" etc, thus making it "about" nuclear apocolypse by default, but I can see that you might question whether that was Hoban's intention.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, if you did question it for long you would soon conclude that old Russell had put so much work into tantalising us with shards of the Apocalpyse Myth that he must have intended us to wonder what led up to the great Fall. You can't escape from it really.
In the case of The Road, though, you are surely correct. In order to make us see past the end-of-the-world specifics Macarthy plumps for a familiar, lights-on-the-horizon nuclear war scenario that he knows will be very familiar. We just take that bit as read and get on with it.
Perhaps it is like this : nuclear holocaust/apocalypse literature can show the survival or the gradual death , it can't suddenly wipe out things. There were artists like Jean Tinguely who made self destructing sculptures, but literature is stuck with its length and consequential linear nature. Or make a book with ink that fades. But that still isn't apocalyptic. It would have to explode and kill your mum.
ReplyDeleteSo "the burning book" takes the lead as most accurate portayal of nuclear obliteration thus far (there is not any chance of gradually dying)
-or there could be apocalypse as expression of utter violence . . .
all of this, the comments mainly require thought , i bookmark
ReplyDelete