Alas, Babylon

Taking a break from work on Saturday, I spent a couple of hours browsing books at a used books store. I came across a title that rang a bell but which I have never read. Outside of my normal reading furrows but it is a classic of its kind. It is Alas, Babylon, a member of that cadre of books dealing with the post-nuclear apocalypse which included On the Beach by Nevil Shute and A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller. Published in 1959, 1957 and 1960 respectively.

Brought Alas, Babylon home and sampled it to determine where in the "to be read" pile it ought to go. The opening paragraph is a wonderful evocation of an America only two generations gone but feeling so distant. And yet the evocation is humanly eternal.

In Fort Repose, a river town in Central Florida, it was said that sending a message by Western Union was the same as broadcasting it over the combined networks. This was not entirely true. It was true that Florence Wechek, the manager, gossiped. Yet she judiciously classified the personal intelligence that flowed under her plump fingers, and maintained a prudent censorship over her tongue. The scandalous and the embarrassing she excised from her conversation. Sprightly, trivial, and harmless items she passed on to friends, thus enhancing her status and relieving the tedium of spinsterhood. If your sister was in trouble, and wired for money, the secret was safe with Florence Wechek. But if your sister bore a legitimate baby, its sex and weight would soon be known all over town.

I liked this passage as well which both captures a nostalgia for how the world could be (slowing things down, visiting and socialising, people loving books again) as well giving us a peek into how technological changes, in this case, air conditioning, were being seen as affecting America then. The scene is of the town librarian and takes place a good while after the nuclear attack.

Alone of all the people in Fort Repose, Alice continued with her regular work. Every morning she left the Wechek house at seven. Often, ignoring the unpredictable dangers of the road, she did not return until dark. Since The Day, the demand for her services had multiplied. They slowed when they overtook her, shouted a greeting, and waved. She waved back and pedaled on, a small, brave, and busy figure. Watching the car chuff past, Alice reminded herself that this evening she must bring back new books for Ben Franklin and Peyton. It was a surprise, and a delight, to see children devour books. Without ever knowing it, they were receiving an education. Alice would never admit it aloud, but for the first time in her thirty years as librarian of Fort Repose she felt fulfilled, even important.

It had not been easy or remunerative to persist as librarian in Fort Repose. She recalled how every year for eight years the town council had turned down her annual request for air conditioning. An expensive frill, they'd said. But without air conditioning, how could a library compete? Drugstores, bars, restaurants, movies, the St. Johns Country Club in San Marco, the lobby of the Riverside Inn, theaters, and most homes were air conditioned. You couldn't expect people to sit in a hot library during the humid Florida summer, which began in April and didn't end until October, when they could be sitting in an air-conditioned living room coolly and painlessly absorbing visual pablum on television. Alice had installed a Coke machine and begged old electric fans but it had been a losing battle.

In thirty years her book budget had been raised ten percent but the cost of books had doubled. Her magazine budget was unchanged, but the cost of magazines had tripled. So while Fort Repose grew in population, book borrowings dwindled. There had been so many new distractions, drive-in theaters, dashing off to springs and beaches over the weekends, the mass hypnosis of the young every evening, and finally the craze for boating and water-skiing. Now all this was ended. All entertainment, all amusements, all escape, all information again centered in the library.

I bought Alas, Babylon on speculation but having perused it, I am very much looking forward to reading it.