N. Shute: On the beach - summary

Summary : On the beach is a story about the darkness of the nuclaear age . There is Peter Holmes , his wife Mary and thier daughter Jennifer . The all try to live thier life as normal . Peter works for the Australian Navy. They are friends with Moira Davidson, a young woman who seems bent on drinking herself into oblivion. An American submarine scorpion pulls into the nearest port, captained by Dwight Towers. Peter is asked to go on an exploratory cruise with the Americans, along with the other main character, John Osborne, a scientist. They were in several towns , but hadn’t found any life there , because the radiation level was too high . Moira falls in love with Dwight. Osborne is an interesting character who starts to live for the first time in the shadow of the end. The basic theme of the novel is how people face up to the prediction of certain death.

Analysis of a charakter : Peter Holmes . He works for the Australian Navy . He was introduced to an American submarine commander, whose ironically nuclear submarine has survived the war and made it to Australia . He is not optimistic of the end .

The Main idea is to warn people before using nuclear weapons and to be more carful with radioactivity on earth.

My opinion : On the Beach is probably one of the most depressing, poorly written and least convincing books that I've read in a long time. Not that it's a bad book, just not a very good one . I don’t like depressing books . It is only a little bit thrilling . I also didn’t like the sad ending .