Greybeard by Brian Aldiss(1962)
| |||
|
home new fiction |
The time is the early twentyfirst century, and humankind is dying, the entire race rendered sterile by an atomic 'accident' in 1981. Greybeard, barely yet sixty, is one of the youngest men alive. The story opens in the village of Sparcot on the Thames, where Big Jim Mole governs a ramshackle community of oldsters, eking out a living by farming, poaching and occasionally exacting a toll from travellers who attempt to take a boat under the sparcot bridge. Although Man is dying out, other lifeforms are prospering: rabbits and foxes are plentiful. Stoats have increased to the point where they have become a menace, hunting in massive packs. One or two of the larger mammals have also survived, including the reindeer, introduced to Britain in the latter years of the twentieth century. Far from being a gloomy scenario, this provides a rich canvas for Aldiss's narrative, with villages, forest, river, lakes and cities, swarming with life, human and animal. Greybeard decides that the time has come to leave Sparcot and Jim Mole's tyrranical regime, and takes advantage of a threatened stoat attack to slip away down the river with his wife Martha and a few companions. Away from the enforced isolation of Sparcot they find that the human race is returning to a semblance of normality. At Swifford Fair they encounter the bizarre Bunny Jingedangelow, seller of rejuvenating potions and eternal life. Here and there are reminders of the old world they have left behind. Crossing a lake dotted with islands, a railway station and signal box juts out of the flood, home to a mad hermit. (This is a particularly eerie scene). In alternating chapters, the narrative moves between present and past, showing how the world has come to this pass. The flashback sequences show the breakdown of civilisation, martial law, famine and disease, hagridden army officers philosophising over gin and tonics in flyridden bars. While not actually dull, these are inevitably gloomy scenes. We've been there too many times before. It's a brave book which has no dashing, youthful hero or young female beauty to hold the lead roles. There is love. The love of Greybeard for his Martha. The book evokes a pastoral vision of England, an England reverting to a wild pleistocene state. The ending...the ending is marvelous. (First published 1964)
Rog Pile Redruth, Cornwall. (2003)
| 
| |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
|
home new fiction |
3 |