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Earth Abides by George R. Stewart Book Club
185 Plays1 year ago
Special guest Margaret joins us to talk about rebuilding civilization after collapse and what we lose when civilization ends. We ask if people are capable of radical change. In this book, our main character, Ish, builds a family that grows into a new community in the years after a pandemic wipes out most of humanity.
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Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
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Transcript
Introduction and Spoiler Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello listeners, this is your spoiler warning. We will be spoiling Earth Abides and any other book we have read this season. It was curious.
00:00:14
Speaker
Here they had been for 21 years merely using water that continued to flow and yet they had never given any real consideration to where the water came from. It had been a gift from the past as free as air like the cans of beans and bottles of ketchup that could be had just by walking into a store and taking them from the shelves.
00:00:34
Speaker
Ish, indeed, had vaguely thought about the matter sometimes, and wondered how long the water would continue to run, and even considered vaguely what they should do to develop another supply. But he had never got round to doing anything.
Podcast Introduction and Book Overview
00:00:50
Speaker
Welcome to the Book Club Podcast. Today we are discussing Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.
Character Analysis: Ish's Leadership and Challenges
00:00:56
Speaker
I'm Carly, and I was very frustrated with Ish's lack of action in this book, so maybe we'll talk a little bit about that, but that's my first thought about this. I'm Caroline, and I love this book because it takes the love
00:01:12
Speaker
for and respect for nature that we find in solar punk generally, but to the next level. And in my opinion, really puts humans in their place in regard to nature. And so I think in some ways it's a lot more solar than punk, which is an interesting contrast to the other books we've read. And today we have our friend Margaret joining us. Margaret is a good friend of ours who is a great reader and thinker, and we're very excited to have her with us today to talk about Earth Abides.
00:01:41
Speaker
Hi everyone, I'm Margaret and you'll hear more from me as this podcast goes on, but this book grew on me as I read it. Yeah, same. Okay. The story begins with a worldwide pandemic wiping out most of humanity. Our protagonist ish is out in the wilderness gathering research when he's bitten by a snake. And when he recovers, he returns to find that civilization is dead.
00:02:05
Speaker
He decides to drive across the country to observe how nature responds to the absence of humans. He finds other survivors but doesn't want to spend time with any of them. He returns to his childhood home in San Francisco and after a long period he gets tired of solitude and decides to find another person when he sees their fire in the distance.
Community Dynamics and Survival Strategies
00:02:25
Speaker
and that's where he finds M. They immediately like each other and soon decide to try to start a family. The two of them start to build a community called the tribe. In what he calls the quick years, the community grows quickly with seven adults who keep on having children. Then the second generation becomes old enough to marry and have children of their own. Ish worries about preserving civilization and teaching the children in a school, but most of them have no interest in learning how to read, except for Joey, Ish's youngest son.
00:02:54
Speaker
The tribe survives by scavenging canned food from stores, fishing, and slaughtering cattle. They don't make much of an effort to farm. After about 20 years, the city water system fails. Ish has the idea to send two of the teenage boys to explore the country and see how others live. And they return a few months later with a guest named Charlie, who Ish dislikes immensely and immediately.
00:03:18
Speaker
Over the course of his first few days with the tribe, Charlie makes his intentions known that he would like to sleep with Evie, a woman who lives in part of the tribe who has a mental disability. And when Ish confronts him about this, he defies him and says that he's going to do what he wants to do.
00:03:36
Speaker
So Ish and Em meet with two of the other men from the tribe, Ezra and George, to decide what to do with Charlie. Ezra tells them that Charlie has confessed to having multiple sexually transmitted diseases and because of his intentions to connect with Evie and because of the possibility of spreading those diseases, they decide to execute Charlie and to do it immediately.
Tragedy and Its Impact on the Tribe
00:04:00
Speaker
The tribe goes through an epidemic of typhoid and Joey, Ish's youngest son, dies. With that, Ish loses hope for the tribe to resurrect civilization. Ish comes up with a different method for teaching the children how to survive in the world when scavenging is no longer an option. He makes himself a bow and arrow, and the children take an interest, they make their own bows and arrows, and eventually one day Ish's 12-year-old son Walt takes the initiative to hunt a rabbit.
00:04:26
Speaker
Ish lives a very long time until he is the last person who remembers the world before civilization collapsed. His great grandson Jack takes care of him and the tribe treats him like a sacred oracle. His hammer has become a symbol of his knowledge and leadership. At the end of the book, a wildfire burns through his neighborhood and Jack and a few other men bring Ish across the Bay Bridge to where the tribe will form a new settlement.
00:04:50
Speaker
Ish observes how they interact with a mountain lion and how they ignore the roads and railroad. He notices the hills and wonder if all his efforts to build a society matter. He notices that those same hills look like a woman's breasts
00:05:03
Speaker
And he thinks about Im's courage and how the actions of man mean so little when Earth abides.
Leadership and Legacy: Ish's Journey
00:05:10
Speaker
So to transition to an opening question for this podcast, I would like to ask why Ish? And so the book focuses very closely on Ish and his perspectives and what he thinks about the world and his travels.
00:05:24
Speaker
And I thought a lot as I was reading that this would be a very different book if instead of focusing on Ish, the author had focused on Em, Ish's wife or Ezra or George, the other two men mentioned earlier, or even Evie or Charlie.
00:05:41
Speaker
and what that book would look like and how that book would be different. And so why do we choose Ish as the focus of the story? And why does that focus on Ish make this story what it is?
00:05:55
Speaker
I think one of the things that is relevant is that the narrator says that Ish is an educated man and he seems to take great pride in that and identify with that. So I think, especially compared to the other characters, he has more of an emotional connection to civilization, whatever that means. I think because of the focus on this character, we get to see the sadness of that loss a little more clearly.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, his preoccupation with civilization is what distinguishes him from the other characters. And he does make some sort of disturbing comparisons about the other members of the tribe and how they just seem willing to just do what they want every day and how I wonder if that's supposed to make them seem like they integrate into nature more naturally, like we've talked about in Solarpunk.
00:06:51
Speaker
how man is separate from nature and there's a desire to sort of reconnect and be part of the natural cycles but there is this separation between man and nature and Ish warns that separation a lot and the return to nature that the rest of the tribe seems to have no trouble just embracing. The interesting thing though is that Ish is kind of a weak man as well you know despite being chosen as the leader and despite having this enormous love for
00:07:21
Speaker
civilization, again, you know, using a broad term, which is what he does. He doesn't take the steps to really preserve it. You know, they try to teach the kids to read, but it's never really a hit. They never really get any sort of school going with any regularity, which I think some of that is his fault. And some of it just emphasizes how hard it would be to keep that going. I mean, if you are the one person among seven adults who cares that people continue to know
00:07:49
Speaker
history and chemistry and all these products of civilization. First of all, how would you do that without buy-in? And then even if there was a path, it would require something like unremitting effort for decades, right? And you would never know if it really bore fruit or not. So all that being said, he was facing some difficulties, but he was also kind of a weak man because he didn't try that hard, did he?
00:08:14
Speaker
issues hanging on to society contrasted with the way other folks hang on to society, like y'all were talking about how
00:08:22
Speaker
Like he wants to hang on to society, but I immediately thought of George and George's wife, is George's wife, Maureen, I believe. So George and Maureen doesn't think they're very smart, but George is very good at building things and assembling things. And he's always making sure that their houses have like fresh coats of paint and that if anything is falling apart, things are put back together, things like that.
00:08:46
Speaker
And so you have George who's going through and making sure that the houses still look beautiful and Maureen who is going through and making sure that everything inside her house is well kept and they purchase or they don't purchase because there's no money but they they go out and they acquire all of these things that they would have had in a nice middle class house.
00:09:06
Speaker
had society not fallen. And so they have like the perfect lampshades and the perfect record player. And none of the things actually work. We have them and they're hanging on to them because they have vested that these things are important and we want to have these things.
00:09:22
Speaker
and have this importance in our house. And so everyone is hanging on to symbols, but they're doing it in different ways. And the symbols that Ish clings to most dearly like school, like reading, like knowledge, may not be as shared by those other people. Or probably the better way to put it is that they think of, I don't know, they conceptualize knowledge in different ways. He talks about, you know, at one point how Maureen goes off to clean the house rather than wanting to celebrate it a new year. And I'm just like,
00:09:52
Speaker
I wish I could be that dedicated to keeping my house clean. I don't know. I feel like something else I want to make sure that we bring in is that because we're centering on Ish and we're centering on what he thinks is important, that that doesn't mean George's commitment to a well-maintained home isn't important, that Maureen's commitment to a well-maintained home isn't important.
00:10:15
Speaker
And so just wanted to think about that. It's not that they aren't smart. It's that Ish doesn't appraise them as smart and they have different ways of thinking about things. So I don't know. No, I definitely think that's fair. But I think Ish, I don't know how much.
00:10:31
Speaker
he contributes. Like in a healthy society, you have people bring their strengths to the group and then that mitigates their weaknesses and Ish's strength is to observe and study how things are in nature and respond. And I do really enjoy in the book the sort of interludes, I think it's supposed to be from an omniscient narrator of like
00:10:53
Speaker
Here's what happens to the dogs, which is all very sad. Or like we learned the reason the water failed, Ish never figures, or I guess maybe they do figure it out, but we get this interlude explaining like this pipe was misaligned and then it led to a leak and then that led, you know, and the chain reaction that led to the water system to fail.
00:11:11
Speaker
And Ish has the ability to observe these things and make the connections on a higher level, not just the ability, the interest in doing this, of understanding how the infrastructure has worked and now is failing and what would need to be done to maintain
Practicality vs. Idealism in Survival
00:11:28
Speaker
it. But he doesn't really, this is my frustration with him, he doesn't take the action to make sure that the tribe is taken care of, right?
00:11:36
Speaker
And that's what I find super frustrating. The people we've seen in Solarpunk are so forward thinking and systems thinking. And in this book, we get a different example, which is fascinating, but I found it extremely frustrating. If you know these things, why don't you put your knowledge to use to make sure that your family and your tribe is provided for?
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think even specifically with the water example, he really prides himself that he has the capacity for thought to think about and wonder about how this happened. And he cites that as making him different from others, which it seems to. It seems like the others just accept that and make the adjustments they have to make without wondering why.
00:12:18
Speaker
But he wonders why and then doesn't do anything that would get him to how to get him to anything useful but he's very proud of that ability.
00:12:29
Speaker
And I do almost feel like, and granted, at some point Ish is injured and getting around is trouble for him. But at some point you would have said, hey George, let's take a walk and see what the water system looks like. And I bet you that George would have seen that pipe and been like, that is a leak, I would like to fix it.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, right? If you would put George in the right spot, he would have fixed it. Yeah. And the value-ish would have provided, would have been thinking to put George in the right spot, but they didn't even do that. Yeah. There's, to me, a connection between this passivity on Ish's part and the relationship to the past, which is also very different from the other Solarpunk books. So here, civilization was great, right? There was no collapse that was caused by anything humans did.
00:13:18
Speaker
So there's none of that dynamic of having to second guess and reassess who we are as people and what we do. But then also they just live off the past for decades, right? It was so bountiful and so well done, so abundant that they just live off the past. And there seems to me to be a relationship between that and how passive they are really at their heart, but I can't quite connect it.
00:13:45
Speaker
there just is a store full of food and there just is water coming out of the tap. And I feel like to a certain extent, that is how I feel about life now. Like, you know, I get my curbside order and I go, oh, bummer, they're out of sage this week. And then I just don't cook with sage or I send my spouse to a different HEB to see if they have sage after work or something like that. And
00:14:11
Speaker
How am I any different from them other than the fact that there is a supply chain working to make sure that I have, I don't know, sage and lemons and milk and things like that? Well, I think just knowing that there's a supply chain, all of us are aware of how much more fragile it is than maybe we thought four years ago, but there seems value just in that awareness that you don't take it for granted.
00:14:37
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think I've talked a little bit about how Solarpunk feels very reflective of my own life, my recent life decisions of like where I live. Caroline, you had asked us before we recorded to think about that.
00:14:52
Speaker
reaction to the loss of civilization and I don't know maybe I've just I've loved dystopia apocalyptic fiction for a really long time and be like just personally being involved with like intentional community
00:15:09
Speaker
and people who are very cognizant of the idea that the grid could fail. So I have solar panels on my house, and I collect rainwater, and I am... I don't know how conscientious it was, but I feel more prepared. If civilization collapsed, I know which of my neighbors have good gardens and where their rain barrels are. I feel prepared for it, and I have been preparing for it even before COVID shut things down in the supply chain.
00:15:39
Speaker
problems became very widely known. So like you don't have that same experience or was it different for you when the civilization collapsed in this book? So for me the difference between what you're describing and what I found most affecting in the book was in the book there was a loss not just of conveniences but of certain ways of thinking and being that can only probably can only exist on top of a civilization that is that complex. Like a lot of what we are doing right now
00:16:09
Speaker
is both provided for by the technology, because we're not in the same room as we do this. But then also, the fact that we have a sufficient education and free time to spend on just really unnecessary intellectual endeavors, I think that would go away. And that would be the loss to me, or a big part of the loss, right? Because if you go back to anything like subsistence living, there was a lot of labor.
00:16:36
Speaker
required for that, right? You did not have extra time and energy for something like a book club. But we don't see people doing that labor in this book. Yeah, that's true. But we do see the same loss. They just seems to be that the loss comes down to maybe the sort of personality that likes intellectual endeavors was never really that common.
The Role of M: Community's Pillar
00:16:58
Speaker
And then when you have a huge disaster where there's only a dozen people remaining in the Bay Area and only one of them is an intellectual,
00:17:06
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's not gonna continue, right? Like maybe you just need thousands and millions of people because it's not a society-wide inclination.
00:17:15
Speaker
I'm even thinking about how as your systems get more complex, your needs get more complex. So like I'm thinking about getting a little bit into what I do when I'm not being a guest on a podcast, I'm writing a dissertation. And part of the reason I'm doing it is because I felt like there was a gap in the knowledge that we needed to better understand something in order for a system that a lot of people use and a lot of people depend on to work well for those people.
00:17:43
Speaker
But if you don't have any people, you don't have a university. So you don't need somebody to come in and say, well, here are some systemic issues within the university. How do we improve those things? So it feels like a need. But if all of a sudden there were no universities, it would be a little bit ridiculous to keep thinking about it.
00:18:03
Speaker
And I think it's interesting that I feel like I share that perspective that Ish has. I would want people to be reading. I would want people to be thinking about things. I would want to, you know, to save some knowledge just in case, like, people built themselves back up to give those many generations down the line, like, you know, information about how, okay, this is how you run a system well, so they don't have to, like, I don't know, try feudalism and see it fail or something like that. Sure.
00:18:33
Speaker
So, like, then it becomes a matter of, there ain't no point in me writing this dissertation about university systems, but what do I do to make it so that when people think, hey, we all ought to go to school, that they have a good setup to do it in the future.
00:18:49
Speaker
Well, I think so Ish kind of notices the taboos that have built up in the tribe, which I think is interesting, like instead of this conscientious like planning of what the values of the community will be after 20 years, he notices what values have emerged.
00:19:04
Speaker
And the taboos are really interesting. And he notices that it's because it started out with parents, seven adults who became parents, that authority was established in that parental relationship. And it continued for a long time.
00:19:20
Speaker
I think well until Ish is a great grandfather and I thought that was an interesting observation and the taboo of marital fidelity. In the other Solar Punk books we saw a more open approach to sexual relationship, an openness that people would
00:19:37
Speaker
have sexual relationships and move on or have polyamorous relationships. And in this book, it's marital fidelity. And it was, I think it started with that intention of M and Ish, that we're going to start a family and start populating the earth again. So having kids and having kids within committed relationship.
00:19:55
Speaker
I know the one about Evie is a taboo that none of the, that Evie is essentially not a partner and that's kind of enforced with the young marriages. There's one other, it's the hammer. The kids have developed this mythology around the hammer and the library and it's related to Ish. Like somehow he's been trying so hard to share knowledge. And what has happened is that the kids view the knowledge as this special
00:20:25
Speaker
resource that only Ish has access to, even though he's desperately trying to share it. Right. Gosh, it feels like, I don't know, it sounds like you're describing being the token nerdy kid in a rural community. Not that I've known anything about that. Oh, no, me neither. No. Yeah.
00:20:43
Speaker
I hope I'm not derailing us too much, but you really reminded me of Ish and his whole succession question and the problem of, okay, my skill set is not something that as needed as it was. What do I do now to make sure that whoever's leading is doing the right thing? And Ish really hones in on that idea of his son, Joey, being the person to take over.
00:21:07
Speaker
because he sees so much of himself in Joey. And he thinks about how Joey is, you know, he's curious about the world around him. He's asking questions. There's the example where they're trying to outfit a Jeep for two of his other sons to go on a tour and see what civilization is doing in other pockets around the country. And Joey comes up with the idea of all the tires are flat except the tires that are already on the backs of the other Jeeps at the Jeep Depot.
00:21:33
Speaker
And so they take tires off of the backs of four Jeeps and suddenly have operating tires for the one that they're planning to take out. And so Ish puts all of this investment into Joey and thinking Joey is going to be the person to take over.
00:21:46
Speaker
And then Joey dies in the typhoid fever and he just has this hopelessness. And part of me, like the whole time I was reading was like, Sir, you don't quite fit in this world. Why is a person like you the best person to lead this world? And, you know, even as he goes through everybody on the list and he says,
00:22:06
Speaker
Well, Ezra's great at talking to people, but he's not enough like me. And George is really great at building things, but he's not enough like me. And like literally every woman in the tribe is great, but they've had so many babies, haven't they just given enough? I was like, um, really, I do think Emma's in charge here, good sir.
00:22:27
Speaker
I had that impression too. M is wonderful. Now, M is truly the hero of the story and I really want to read this book, but with her as the central character to it. Just because I think of her so much as the glue that holds the community to the get together for its first several decades. And Ish, considering the book is centered on Ish, Ish clearly loves her very much. She is the center of his world. He calls her the mother of nations half the time.
00:22:56
Speaker
And he talks about her in such reverent terms, but you can really tell the rest of the community respects her very much. And she just seems like she is just very strong and very brave and very capable. And she is the one who says, you know, we got to get some more humans in here, and there's only one way to do that. And he's off.
00:23:16
Speaker
in the library at the university, like trying to read about obstetrics and getting distracted. And she's like, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, there's a comedic element to this story that I'm not sure was intentional. But you could very much read it as Im is the hero and Ish has no idea. He thinks he's the leader and everyone just tolerates him because he's attached to Im. Yeah, that's definitely how I read it.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, well, there's one moment where M really engages in sort of a philosophical discussion. It's like when Ish is recovering from typhoid and he learns that Joey has died and he's really struggling and mourning and he asks M
00:24:01
Speaker
you know, is this punishment for executing Charlie. And Em says, no, let's not bring back the mean God. And I thought that was really fascinating. Like, first of all, the idea that like, we bring God into the world or we, you know, it's us. And she's like, no, we're not going to bring back that God. And that sets a foundation for the community, right? Like they tried church, it didn't quite take.
00:24:27
Speaker
Just the idea that that's a conscientious choice, that we're not going to accept this as a cause and effect in our world. And I think it goes back to that idea of what do you pass on when you know that a society very different from your own is going to come. And Ish is here like, we've got to teach everyone chemistry.
00:24:46
Speaker
and about American democracy. We got to make them feel like they're Americans. Someone will figure out chemistry-ish, but it would be very, very helpful to just in big bold letters say, no mean God or something along those lines so that we don't revisit a lot of the things that happen when
00:25:08
Speaker
you know, God's punish you and God's are mean and hurtful towards you. I mean, I like talking about Im and her clear desire to take on the task of repopulating the world, which she does very competently and very bravely. That is also a form of seeking a succession, but it's very different than Ish's form.
00:25:30
Speaker
Right. And it goes back to the first year they want to measure time. Ish wants to measure time and figures out how to do that. And Em says, yeah, so we can celebrate the baby's birthday. And Ish is like, oh, so like a woman to want to celebrate the baby's birthday. And it's like, well, why do you want to measure time? Ish, it's not to farm. He's not farming. Right. I don't see you planting crops. Exactly.
00:25:57
Speaker
But I like, yeah, that this building society, she's focused on raising her children. Well, they both want some continuation of who they are. I mean, that's what having children is, right? And they want some continuation of society. He wants more continuation of civilization. She wants to ensure that the human species continues. But those are very related and they end up with the same production, children.
00:26:23
Speaker
So thinking again about man and nature, and where does that separation happen? And can there be a separation? And it feels like the conclusion is that Ish's own human nature is something he cannot escape. His human nature is to be an intellectual, an observer. And when all of the infrastructure around that lifestyle collapse, he
00:26:47
Speaker
he can't continue, which I think is really interesting. I haven't encountered that in any book before because I think in the books I've read before, we would be a real leader. He would be actually building. And I think it's fascinating that he doesn't. And I think it has something to do with the fact that he's the only one.
00:27:08
Speaker
that there's something about needing other people. His nature is as much of an impediment to rebuilding society as the nature of all the kids and the people who are building a latrine and then they lose interest in the afternoon and go fishing instead. It feels like the same thing. Their nature
00:27:26
Speaker
means that they don't focus on a task that is extremely necessary to prevent disease but they just lose interest and then and it's the same with Ish that he's he's fighting his own nature or something about his own nature is preventing him and and in the end it doesn't matter like in the end the tribe is a successful healthy community I mean it's a harsh conclusion like what what did it all really what did their intentions matter because in the end they had a community
00:27:56
Speaker
I think you also touch on something that we see come up a lot in the other Solarpunk books where there is a huge society-wide change and people change, in many cases, everything about their lives, their values, how they live, how they eat, how they consume everything.
Themes of Change and Adaptation
00:28:18
Speaker
And those books tend to accept that radical change is possible for a human and for a society.
00:28:27
Speaker
Whereas here, Ish doesn't really change. He just becomes outdated because circumstances change around him. And that is something I've always wondered with other Solarpunk books. Are people really capable of that kind of radical change that quickly? And if so, it's not everyone. So who is and who isn't?
00:28:49
Speaker
Hmm. I think about, I think something we talked about during the prep call and that idea of, you know, Jack is the great grandson, um, and how different Jack is from Ish and how Jack, you know, is, is bow hunting and they, he's taking coins and he's turning them into arrowheads because they're better for shooting different types of game. And he's got.
00:29:13
Speaker
a mountain lion draped around his shoulders and the mountain lion was the thing that had attacked Ish and had rendered him partially disabled, things like that. And how Jack's life, his world that he interacts with is so different. And it was another thing where I compared him and I thought about my great grandparents and how
00:29:34
Speaker
Like the example, I have a great grandparent who played piano in silent movie theaters for her job. And, you know, compare that to now I have, you know, all of YouTube, I can just pull it up in my phone and it's got all kinds of sounds. And I wish most of the things didn't make sounds, but there they are. Um, and so I think no matter what your, your great grandchildren, your subsequent generations,
00:29:59
Speaker
are going to be living in a dramatically different world. And sometimes that means that it goes from a piano and a theater down to a phone in your pocket. And sometimes that goes from the mountain lion attacking you to you wearing the mountain lion. And I think that one of the lessons that we really can take from this book is that, you know, things are going to change and you don't always know how they're going to change and everybody could be gone.
00:30:26
Speaker
when you come back from your research trip in the mountains. Or everybody could have invented a totally new thing and you have to get used to it when you get back from your research, you know, trip to the mountains as Ish begins his story. So I was, I don't know, I'm really interested in that idea that no matter what stuff is gonna change and people are going to need different tools from the tools that worked for you. And I don't think Ish ever quite figures that out.
00:30:56
Speaker
I agree with that analysis. I think that's great. It just makes me realize that part of what I want from life, and obviously we don't always get what we want, but is a sense of continuity between all my actions. And to get that, you can't really have serious world dislocating change here. I like to imagine that the effort I took when I was in college and really shy to overcome
00:31:24
Speaker
like helps me now on a day-to-day basis. Working on learning Spanish, which I never did quite successfully, but I think still the effort really helped me become more sensitive to language, which helps me in my job now, which is all about language. I want to see those threads of continuity.
00:31:41
Speaker
But if tomorrow civilization basically ended, none of that would matter, right? Like there would be a before and an after that I think would leave me feeling alienated from my own past in really painful ways. Like, well, what was that even worth? You know, like, wow, I spent all that time networking for my job and it certainly isn't going to matter after the apocalypse, right? But do you guys feel that drive for continuity between the parts of your life, past, present and future?
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, in our last discussion in seven years, we were talking about a big shift that feels like your past self dies. And I've definitely gone through a couple of those shifts, it feels like. And, you know, they were painful. And if someone comes to me and says, Well, it all happened for a reason, or that experience is valuable for I hate that I reject that, like, no, sometimes you waste your time and it sucks. And you just have to move on and do what the best you can now.
00:32:39
Speaker
So, so you're much more dynamic than I am getting out of that. Maybe they're somewhere in the middle where I want the things that I planned to turn out the way I planned them. But when things are terrible, I don't want it to be because I planned poorly.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah, but I don't think it means that our actions don't have a purpose. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. You just got to try. You got to try stuff out. Ish, I don't know what clicked in his brain, but when he makes the bows and arrows. Solarpunk, we've talked about using technology for a better future.
00:33:14
Speaker
instead of looking at the past. And he looks forward, like, what do my grandchildren need right now? They need to be able to hunt. And here's a tool that I can make and they can learn to make with the supplies available and provide for themselves after all of the canned goods run out or go bad. And that becomes very important to the tribe, Jack.
00:33:36
Speaker
uses arrows and he takes coins and makes arrowheads which I thought was fascinating that like at one point where Ish is trying to explain currency to Joey and what all the coins mean and what the faces mean and and and Joey's like I like the big nickels because they're shiny and big you know like
00:33:54
Speaker
Ish didn't quite get the lesson through. Well, his great grandson, Jack, they're like, oh, yeah, we use these for arrowheads. And they're everywhere. And he doesn't know why. And he doesn't know why there are people on them. And there's a bird that doesn't quite look like any of the birds that they see in the San Francisco area. But there was sort of a mismatch there and a mismatch in what's useful about knowing about currency, right? Well, what happened to be useful is that it's metal that can be sharpened into arrowheads, not the history of America.
00:34:25
Speaker
But Ish's actions in teaching and doing it in the way that he did it, using it like a game and understanding that that was the way to teach these kids how to use these tools is to treat it like a game. And the fad ran out, but then it came back the next year. And what was important was that the skill for making bows and arrows
00:34:44
Speaker
was passed on. His actions had meaning, not necessarily fully in the way he expected or intended, but it's still important. It's still a valuable contributor to the tribe. It's like he learned how to teach and it only took him 20 years or however long, which is telling you something. If he's a grad student and he's trying to be on the professorial track prior to his starts, I would not have liked to take his class. Right.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yeah, I he had to let go of the idea that he would have a successor in in Joey and it unfortunately had to be taken away from him in a horrible way. But yeah, he had to kind of let let go of that expectation. I do, Margaret, I really like what you said about change happens and you know, we all are maybe alienated from our grandparents in ways they couldn't imagine and then the same with, you know, our grandchildren or
00:35:40
Speaker
you know, people who are related to us down the line. And is that really so different than what has happened to Ish? Maybe it's not. Maybe we just get to lie to ourselves that there is greater continuity because a lot of the outward symbols are still the same, right? We're still using the same coins and we understand what they mean. But maybe in fundamental ways, it's not that different.
00:36:00
Speaker
But are we even using the same coins? She was in France at the time. France didn't even use the same coins. Yeah. When I was just thinking when was the last time I actually held coins in the flesh as it were. It's been a while, right? Like I don't use cash for anything. So there's a difference there too. I wonder if we have a moment to talk about nature and people's relationship with nature and how Stuart kind of bookends the book with conflicts with nature.
00:36:30
Speaker
So thinking about how the book opens with Ish out in the woods doing his research for his dissertation and getting bit by a rattlesnake. And thinking about how at the beginning of the book, he's going through and he's trying to do something. He is being an active participant and the snake gets in his way and interrupts the hill he was trying to climb.
00:36:55
Speaker
And he's got to go back to the cabin and do what he can, considering he's in the woods to mitigate the snake bite, right? And then at the end of the book, he's an old man. He's not able to walk for himself. The neighborhood is on fire and his great grandson and some other men from the community are carrying him away.
00:37:17
Speaker
carrying Ish and carrying Ish's hammer away from danger. And they're walking down this road and they see a mountain lion. And I know I was just talking about how the great grandson is wearing the skin of a mountain lion for the final chapter of the book. But now
00:37:32
Speaker
Now is not the time. Everything is on fire. We are carrying our great grandfather. It is not the time to fight this mountain lion. And so instead of going through nature and going into conflict with nature, they skirt around the mountain lion. We'll deal with you another day, Mr. Mountain Lion. We're trying to get to the bridge, trying to get to San Francisco.
00:37:52
Speaker
Um, and so I thought it was interesting how kind of you see like both these micro and macro conflicts between humanity and nature at the beginning and the end. And you see how at the beginning when Ish is a young man, Ish is trying to fight nature and nature tries to fight humanity and wins by sending this pandemic to it and wiping out everybody, but like seven people in the whole Bay area. And then.
00:38:19
Speaker
the end you also see nature doing its thing and setting fire to the hills in the east bay area in berkeley or wherever it's supposed to be and then you see people just saying all right we don't need this neighborhood we are going to go somewhere else and we are going to figure it out and so i think that that relationship it does a really good job of encapsulating how like that relationship between like people and nature has changed
00:38:43
Speaker
Um, and rather than being like the, I don't know if top dog is the right way to say it, but rather than feeling like nature is something that we use and we're going to do what we want with it. And I'm just going to go out and do this research and I'm going to learn about it. And I know Ish thinks about killing the snake, but says that's a waste of time. Like literally snake, you are not even worth my time. And you just tried to kill me going from that, that feeling of being in charge to having to, to, to get away, to skirt around.
00:39:11
Speaker
was really telling. And so now these people are much more a part of nature. Jack is wearing a mountain lion with Levi's because they're still scavenging to a certain extent. But going back to nature, that returning to nature, that interacting with nature, that no longer being quite the boss of nature in the way that they were was a really interesting
Human vs. Nature: Evolving Perspectives
00:39:32
Speaker
theme. And I wanted to dig into that a little bit and see what you all thought about it. I think Ish, or the narrator's explicit there at the end that Ish observes
00:39:41
Speaker
them walking around the mountain lion, which requires them to leave the road because the mountain lion is on the road with a sense of sadness because a sense of sadness and kind of wonder that these young men don't just fight the mountain lion.
00:39:56
Speaker
even though that would be totally irrational in these circumstances, but there is a feeling of dislocation, right? The mountain lion has pushed the people off the road and we're just going to let that happen. But I think that's kind of one of the sadness, that's the sadness and the beauty of this book, right? Earth abides. You find earth beautiful, that is beautiful. Humans, maybe they don't, or at least not in a recognizable form.
00:40:18
Speaker
I think it's interesting, like we know in the right circumstances, not Joey, Jack can probably hold his own against a mountain lion because he's wearing one. Right, yes. Yeah. Just not right now when you're carrying your great grandfather. Ish, you are the reason right now. The fire is probably also a reason, but the fact that they don't want the mountain lion to hurt you is probably the reason that they're not getting out their bows and arrows right now. That's true. So, oh, Ish.
00:40:46
Speaker
I think this book is particularly interesting in the context of the other Solarpunk books, which obviously have a great love of nature. But there's also a huge emphasis on technology being able to overcome any difficulties associated with nature and somehow doing it in still a very green and friendly way, because it's the essence of Solarpunk. But in those other books, nature does not have the upper hand as much as it is beloved. I think that's a big difference.
00:41:16
Speaker
Well, yeah, in Song for the Wild built, we talked about the story of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone. And the robot in that book talked about how fear, like fear is part of nature. And humans have built civilization and have sort of relegated fear to an option, right? Like I've been skydiving.
00:41:42
Speaker
Because in my daily life, I don't have to interact with poisonous animals or mountain lions that threaten my safety. I can go out for pleasure and seek out a fearful experience. And that's what civilization allows. Is that what Ish was doing at the beginning? He was taking advantage of the leisure of going out into nature, and then he knows that he can come back and write books about it in a nice, safe, cozy,
00:42:11
Speaker
But in the end, there's no retreat. You fight that mountain lion and you have to deal with the very real consequences of maybe being injured, maybe you have to carry the mountain lion with you. There are more burdensome consequences to that.
00:42:30
Speaker
Does that characterize, like, was there a difference between the beginning with the rattlesnake and the ending with the mountain lion? Like, I'm not sure I'm seeing a full characterization of each of those encounters and how they reflect each other. I think that the things that they're doing, or I say specifically they, I mean Ish, the things that Ish is doing
00:42:52
Speaker
kind of make those differences for me. Like in the beginning, I think Ish is a geographer. And so he is out there in the field and he is doing his surveying work and he is trying to better understand the world around him. And he is that being in charge is very central to what he is doing when the snake bites him.
00:43:16
Speaker
And it is very much like you have interrupted my interaction with nature, piece of nature. And I think, and y'all can call me out on this if it doesn't quite fit, but I feel like Jack is just in nature. Yeah, that makes sense. We're gonna get away from this fire. We're not gonna get mauled by this cat. We're gonna get across the bridge, whatever a bridge is, and we're gonna get away from Berkeley burning down.
00:43:46
Speaker
Yeah, just reasonable circumstance, specific decisions without any sort of additional need to feel like you got to conquer nature, right? Yeah, right. Like Jack defined, he says he's happy and he defines happiness as things are as they are. And I am part of them. And that sort of baffles ish, but I love it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:05
Speaker
And that's in response to Ish's question, are you happy? And he's baffled by the question at all, right? Which that's a pretty successful society if someone's just even baffled by that question, right? Yeah. Maybe. I don't know.
00:44:21
Speaker
I also wonder how Ish's realization hits as he's going on his cross country trip at the beginning of the book. And so he finds a car and then he finds a police motorcycle and he loads the motorcycle onto the back of the car in case something happens to the car in the desert. And at some point he comes to this realization, if something happens to this car, who am I going to talk to anyway?
00:44:51
Speaker
and just decides to jettison the motorcycle and keep driving, knowing that if he loses the car, he loses himself and what, you know, how much has been lost if there's really nothing out there, you know? And I kind of wonder how that fits in, because I feel like Ish clearly, like he's learning and he's thinking about things, like he's clearly thinking about things, but he does things as a result of thinking about things, at least at one point in the book. And I wonder,
00:45:21
Speaker
I don't know why you're talking about like,
00:45:23
Speaker
ish and his relationship to nature. It reminded me of that because it's not that he's giving up at that point. It's that he's getting a little bit of that Jack spirit of I am in this situation. I am in this ecosystem. I am in this place. I am in this time. And I'm just going to roll with that. And so he gets that a little bit. He embraces it, but it's there for that second when he throws the motorcycle off the back of the station wagon and goes.
00:45:53
Speaker
He says that as letting go of fear or embracing fear. It's like he's embracing that he can't control the outcome of his trip. That's beautiful. I think that's a big part of Solarpunk too. Embracing being a part of things and not necessarily being on top like we've been talking about.
00:46:18
Speaker
Oh, it's interesting though, because I think in Solarpunk that recognition comes a lot within society. Because so many of the Solarpunk communities that have been described, everyone does their part and they're happy to do it, right? There are not necessarily dramatic heroes and villains and it's a different view of society. You're like, we're all working together to achieve this goal. And here there's a little bit more of that connection
00:46:45
Speaker
in relationship to nature. Should we talk a little bit about genre themes? Yes. This is very different from the other books we've read, so was there a big one that stood out to you as a genre theme? Well, this conversation has made me think that the relationship to the past and how well or quickly people can change or not
00:47:08
Speaker
is actually a really crucial theme for all solar punk. And this book talks about what happens when people maybe aren't flexible enough to make the big changes.
00:47:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he does when he does his first cross country trip, he notices like people have a different reaction to him because they have the experience of watching people around them get sick and die. And he didn't because he was secluded. And there is there is a difference there. And so I wonder how much that like horrible experience either accelerates the change or maybe like makes people stagnate, you know.
00:47:44
Speaker
M is amazing because she's ready to move forward. She lost a husband and two children, and she's ready to have a new husband and have more children. And they lose more than just Joey in those years, too. I think they lose another child. But that resiliency to continue and not let grief stop you, that's pretty astounding.
00:48:06
Speaker
And I think, you know, if, if there was a big societal change, like we would all be grieving something, even if we don't lose our loved ones in death, we'll we're, yeah, I mean, you've been talking about that too, Caroline already had the grief. I do think that's an interesting point though, because grief can be a catalyst for change, right? And so can trauma actually, but it can also
00:48:25
Speaker
push you into not being flexible enough. I think here though, maybe because Ish did not have as terrible an experience, there's not a hard line for him between the past and the present. Maybe there needed to be.
Grief and Resilience as Catalysts for Change
00:48:39
Speaker
Maybe if he had had experiences that drew that line a little more starkly, maybe he would have changed. Maybe he would have been a different person more suited to this world.
00:48:50
Speaker
My favorite trope was the people standing out and enjoying the sunlight in the fresh air. I didn't find that moment in this book. Did I miss it or was it not present? Yeah, it wasn't. First one without it. Interesting. Not even like the New Year marking where they gather together and they
00:49:12
Speaker
note you know what year it is by chiseling a number into the rock and then they say this is the year that the year that Joey read or the year of the mountain lions or whatever it is because they may not be necessarily in the sunlight and that's interesting because they do it at the at the winter solstice more or less and so there's not sunlight but they definitely do gather and like express that they have had a year together in community
00:49:38
Speaker
and talk about what the big idea of that community was. And it's stark that they stop saying what year it is, the year that Charlie comes, and the year that they, you know, kind of go from feeling vaguely like a hippie commune to executing somebody in a very short amount of time.
00:49:57
Speaker
And so I wonder how that idea of the gathering to mark the years fits in. And I wonder if the fact that they do it at the time of year when there is the least sun kind of stands in opposition to the rest of this genre. Yeah. Despite it being a book named Earth Abides, there are not moments where the narrator appreciates the beauty of nature.
00:50:22
Speaker
Some of the descriptions of nature I found to be beautiful, but certainly Ish is not particularly appreciating it, and that is different.
00:50:31
Speaker
which is interested in somebody who studies birth. Yeah. But until the end, the end, he's looking at the the mountains that look like a woman's breasts. Oh, yes, that's true. At the very end, one of these mountains really look like like you think about like the Teton range in Wyoming. And I'm just like, you you've been in the woods for a while. Right.
00:50:54
Speaker
I mean, you're in hill country. You don't see those hills. I have never, no, I have never seen those hills. As you pointed out, this book is kind of, is very different from the other solar punk books. It's more of a counterpoint than anything, but it's a counterpoint on some related issues too. Like work should be enjoyable. You know, here the problem is it's,
00:51:18
Speaker
The tribe is only willing to do what's enjoyable, right? And they are not very what Ish would call disciplined.
00:51:25
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, they get it done, though. The water goes out, but it's a problem for a day until they figure out, oh, we'll just go get water from our well. They eventually dig the latrines and the wells. So I don't know how big of a problem that is. It seems like a big problem at first, but they get it done when it's absolutely necessary. That's a way to live. I'm not comfortable with that, but it's a way to live. It feels like there's a spectrum
00:51:51
Speaker
the pre-collapse idea about work is that work is all important, and the harder you work, and in some ways, the more miserable it is, the better.
Work Ethics and Community Strengths
00:52:00
Speaker
And then Solarpunk kind of reacts against that and says, well, what if work was enjoyable? And then this book says, what if we didn't work? What if we just said no? What would that mean? But I like the idea that different work is enjoyable for different people. George loves to fix things.
00:52:20
Speaker
And I think that George genuinely enjoys making sure that like the paint trim on the houses is really lovely, things like that. Ish probably genuinely loves doing academic research. That is enjoyable work for him. And so I think that one of the things that the book points out, at least for me at the point in my life where I am, is that you've got to have a balance of people who enjoy doing different kinds of work. I don't think anybody's going to be happy digging the latrine. So we got to get together and get that done.
00:52:49
Speaker
But you definitely do like we definitely need a Maureen in my house, for instance, because like nobody in my house derives immense enjoyment from making the kitchen look gorgeous, for instance. And so it rarely looks suitable. And so but but I've got family members where I go to their house and I'm just like, how did you do this? And they just they love
00:53:12
Speaker
having people over and keeping a beautiful home and they have different strengths from me. And so to have a good society, you've got to have people with all those strengths. And I think, I don't know, like I kept wanting to push ish to look to see like
00:53:25
Speaker
all of the things that all of these people are contributing. And he recognizes it and he keeps discounting it. Like in the part I was talking about earlier where he's like, Ezra is so good at talking to people, but is that really leadership? I get that right. And Im is so good at inspiring people, but is that really leadership?
00:53:45
Speaker
Leadership is being me and I am leader. Yes. Well, you know, when they're going, when they first find George is like, oh, he's a carpenter. It'd be better to have a mechanic. And I was like, are you, what are you talking about? It's great to have a carpenter. He has this thought that like, oh, it'd be better to have a mechanic. And then later on when he's like sort of musing and, you know, as an old man and losing time and all that,
00:54:09
Speaker
He thinks about, he has a thought that we were really lucky that the people who survived and who became part of the tribe, it was those people. So his mind changes on that. He's able to think about, actually, it was lucky we had the people we had. And even though at the moment he was wishing for different kinds of people, I'm glad that Ish had that kind of growth. That's true.
00:54:30
Speaker
But it was out of his control. Again, I keep thinking that this book is about, well, it is Earth abides, despite what human humans do.
Nature's Endurance and Final Reflections
00:54:38
Speaker
And it's like all of this is out of human control. We ready for final thoughts?
00:54:43
Speaker
I'm going to keep thinking about continuity with the future and do we really even have that anyway, regardless of whether or not there is a cataclysmic division between past and future? I don't know. Maybe there's not. Maybe that's sort of a self-sustaining lie. I'm going to think about that.
00:55:04
Speaker
And then another thing that I want to think about going forward with thinking about Solarpunk is the relationship to nature and sort of the question of, well, if we love nature so much, why not just embrace that it will abide whether or not we're here? It might take a different form, but it'll be here. And why is that not enough? So those are my thoughts that I'll keep turning over after this.
00:55:30
Speaker
Margaret, do you want to go ahead? I'm thinking about a couple of different things. I'm thinking about that idea of people trying very hard to be out of nature versus being in nature and being part of nature.
00:55:47
Speaker
ish telling, you know, essentially thinking about, you know, hey, snake, you're interrupting my interactions with nature when the snake is part of nature. And really ish is part of nature too. And they're all in that together and thinking about
00:56:02
Speaker
being more connected to things that at least at this time of year in Texas, I would prefer not to be connected to because it's very hot outside and I do not like it. So I'm thinking about that. And I'm also thinking, I guess I'm thinking in general about ecosystems. I'm thinking about that natural ecosystem and how we're part of that natural ecosystem, but I'm also thinking about people ecosystems.
00:56:21
Speaker
and how we're part of people ecosystems where you've got to have people who are good at different things and people who bring different ways of knowing things to the table and people who think about problems in different ways to really survive as a community. And so those are two things I'm thinking about. So maybe at the end of the day, I'm thinking about ecosystems.
00:56:44
Speaker
Well, I'm going to try and think more about what would I miss if civilization disappeared, because I don't know. Maybe I have fooled myself into thinking I've read enough apocalyptic books that I'd be ready.
00:56:55
Speaker
But maybe I won't be. Maybe I wouldn't be. What do I need or what have I surrounded myself with that I'm dependent on civilization for? What about that? Listeners, what did you think of Earth Abides? Have you read any books by George Stewart? What do you think about Solarpunk?
00:57:15
Speaker
and specifically about whether the past will have continuity with the future. Let us know by recording a voice memo and emailing openingquestion at gmail.com. You can also comment on our sub stack at bookclubpod.substack.com. We will read your responses and play your voice memos on our feedback episode at the end of the season.
00:57:34
Speaker
Our next book discussion will be about Walk Away by Cory Doctorow. Read with us. We'll release that episode next week and you can get your copy by using the affiliate link in our show. The Book Club podcast is produced by me, Carly Jackson, and Caroline Korman. Music and audio editing by Alex Marcus. Thank you to special guest Margaret Gary. Thanks for listening.