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‘World made by hand’ offers a glimpse into future
by Juan Wilson - Special to The Garden Island
“World Made By Hand,” a new novel by James Howard Kunstler, is a view into the near future where the kind of lives we live in America today are only dim memories. I recommend you read it. It may even change your circumstances in that future world.
Kunstler’s writing career began with newspaper reporting. For several years he was a staff writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. In 1975 he dropped out to become a full-time author. His non-fiction work has focused on the dilemma created by building our living arrangements around the “convenience” of cars.
In 2005 he published “The Long Emergency.” That book changed my life.
It has prepared my mind for the big changes resulting from “peak oil,” or the halfway point in the consumption of all existing fossil fuel.
“Looked at closely, the peak will resemble a kind of bumpy plateau because the price and demand data would appear to wobble inconclusively for a while, perhaps several years. ... The global peak period will be a time of both confusion and denial. ... Eventually economic growth as conventionally understood in industrial societies will cease,” Kunstler wrote in “The Long Emergency.”
Those clinging to a non-negotiable American lifestyle find the “The Long Emergency” a nightmare. For those seeking an alternative to our auto-centric suicidal behavior, it offers a ray of hope.
In more than one way, that book is the parent of “World Made by Hand,” which is a fictional narrative of what it will be like without cheap oil to grease our lives along. This page-turner will grab you and take you for a trip through the aftermath of SUV-accessed suburbia.
‘World made by hand’
The book takes place a generation from now, when young adults have little or no memory of the good old days of refrigeration and big box stores. Some time before the narrative begins, nuclear devices were smuggled into America in cargo containers. One was detonated in Los Angeles, the other near Washington.
In a spasmodic reaction, a Middle East War embroils the world. In its aftermath the United States is denied access to imported oil. Much of familiar America unravels in the following decades.
Starving people have fled the cities. Race wars have occurred. New diseases have decimated a generation. These events are not well understood by those survivors who try to pick up the pieces.
The locale of the book is Union Grove, a small backwater town that straddles a stream leading to the big river in the Hudson Valley somewhere in New York.
The turmoil that gripped America for years has largely left Union Grove alone to fend for itself. State government services are nonexistent. There is no communication with federal authorities, if any exist.
The book is written as a first-person account by Robert Earle, who once earned a living flying around the country organizing trade exhibitions for a software company and is now middle-aged and gets by as a carpenter.
Earle says of his town, “The egalitarian pretenses of the high-octane decades had dissolved and nobody even debated it anymore, including the women of our town. A plain majority of the townspeople were laborers now, whatever in life they had been before. Nobody called them peasants, but in effect that’s what they’d become. That’s just the way things were.”
Much of the energy spent by the residents of Union Grove is related to growing, hunting, preparing and preserving food. Kunstler writes with pleasure about the details of daily life. You can smell the cornbread and taste the fresh, pan-fried trout.
Entertainment is different than today. It’s not consumed, it’s produced. Playing a musical instrument or singing is a passion for many, and Earle has become a skilled fiddler.
His life is complicated when a young man from the town is killed, and there is no legal or judicial system to deal with the tragedy. This sets into motion a series of exciting and dramatic incidences that lead the town out of its lethargy and depression.
Kunstler weaves the lives of four distinct groups into his tale about Union Grove: the town’s original residents, the outcasts and outlaws, a lord and his ‘serfs,’ and a new religious cult that has just arrived.
The main dynamic of the novel is the differing approaches these groups use to deal with the situation in which they find themselves. The intertwining of their efforts leads to surprising and interesting results. A good deal of action is packed into the story.
A critique
There is evidence that Kunstler intended this book to be a movie, or better yet, a long-run HBO series. The story is told cinematically, not through introspection. Dialog, action and visual description drive it. It also takes place over a short period of time with no long sojourns into the private past of its characters.
Kunstler’s story falls into the broad category of post-apocalyptic saga. One famous post-nuclear-war book-to-movie deal was “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute in 1957. That was little more than a sad eulogy for the human race. Twenty years later began the “Mad Max” film trilogy by George Miller, which combined to create a post-atomic-war and post-oil scenario.
Kunstler’s “World Made By Hand” is not like either, although it has a sadness and there is violence. His book reads more like a Western by Zane Grey or Louis L’Amour. Those two were both romantics telling their stories in the context of a wild land’s transition to modern civilization set in the past. Kunstler adventure is a mirror image world — a transition from modern civilization to a wild land set in the future. Let me be the first to coin the genre name “The Eastern.”
The isolation of Union Grove is too great, almost like the set of a stage play where nowhere else on earth exists. Opportunities were missed to show more of the differences in the approach to living by the “four gangs.” It was surprising to me that Kunstler did not illustrate the possible self-righteousness and intolerance by the New Faithers toward the Townies. More details of the oppression involved in being a serf on Bullock’s farm would have been welcome and dramatize why some, like Robert, stayed a Townie.
Lastly, Kunstler offers us an element of the supernatural that hits a sour note. It seems like an unnecessary device in so well-told a tale. This book deals with the central issues that will determine the quality of our lives and the lives of our children. I highly recommend it as an exciting story of our future that concludes on an optimistic note about our lives to come.
For more information, visit Kunstler’s Web site, www.kunstler.com, or www.worldmadebyhand.com.
• Juan Wilson is a resident of Hanapepe and writes a bi-weekly column for The Garden Island. Juan is an architect-planner and the editor of www.IslandBreath.org
Kunstler’s writing career began with newspaper reporting. For several years he was a staff writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. In 1975 he dropped out to become a full-time author. His non-fiction work has focused on the dilemma created by building our living arrangements around the “convenience” of cars.
In 2005 he published “The Long Emergency.” That book changed my life.
It has prepared my mind for the big changes resulting from “peak oil,” or the halfway point in the consumption of all existing fossil fuel.
“Looked at closely, the peak will resemble a kind of bumpy plateau because the price and demand data would appear to wobble inconclusively for a while, perhaps several years. ... The global peak period will be a time of both confusion and denial. ... Eventually economic growth as conventionally understood in industrial societies will cease,” Kunstler wrote in “The Long Emergency.”
Those clinging to a non-negotiable American lifestyle find the “The Long Emergency” a nightmare. For those seeking an alternative to our auto-centric suicidal behavior, it offers a ray of hope.
In more than one way, that book is the parent of “World Made by Hand,” which is a fictional narrative of what it will be like without cheap oil to grease our lives along. This page-turner will grab you and take you for a trip through the aftermath of SUV-accessed suburbia.
‘World made by hand’
The book takes place a generation from now, when young adults have little or no memory of the good old days of refrigeration and big box stores. Some time before the narrative begins, nuclear devices were smuggled into America in cargo containers. One was detonated in Los Angeles, the other near Washington.
In a spasmodic reaction, a Middle East War embroils the world. In its aftermath the United States is denied access to imported oil. Much of familiar America unravels in the following decades.
Starving people have fled the cities. Race wars have occurred. New diseases have decimated a generation. These events are not well understood by those survivors who try to pick up the pieces.
The locale of the book is Union Grove, a small backwater town that straddles a stream leading to the big river in the Hudson Valley somewhere in New York.
The turmoil that gripped America for years has largely left Union Grove alone to fend for itself. State government services are nonexistent. There is no communication with federal authorities, if any exist.
The book is written as a first-person account by Robert Earle, who once earned a living flying around the country organizing trade exhibitions for a software company and is now middle-aged and gets by as a carpenter.
Earle says of his town, “The egalitarian pretenses of the high-octane decades had dissolved and nobody even debated it anymore, including the women of our town. A plain majority of the townspeople were laborers now, whatever in life they had been before. Nobody called them peasants, but in effect that’s what they’d become. That’s just the way things were.”
Much of the energy spent by the residents of Union Grove is related to growing, hunting, preparing and preserving food. Kunstler writes with pleasure about the details of daily life. You can smell the cornbread and taste the fresh, pan-fried trout.
Entertainment is different than today. It’s not consumed, it’s produced. Playing a musical instrument or singing is a passion for many, and Earle has become a skilled fiddler.
His life is complicated when a young man from the town is killed, and there is no legal or judicial system to deal with the tragedy. This sets into motion a series of exciting and dramatic incidences that lead the town out of its lethargy and depression.
Kunstler weaves the lives of four distinct groups into his tale about Union Grove: the town’s original residents, the outcasts and outlaws, a lord and his ‘serfs,’ and a new religious cult that has just arrived.
The main dynamic of the novel is the differing approaches these groups use to deal with the situation in which they find themselves. The intertwining of their efforts leads to surprising and interesting results. A good deal of action is packed into the story.
A critique
There is evidence that Kunstler intended this book to be a movie, or better yet, a long-run HBO series. The story is told cinematically, not through introspection. Dialog, action and visual description drive it. It also takes place over a short period of time with no long sojourns into the private past of its characters.
Kunstler’s story falls into the broad category of post-apocalyptic saga. One famous post-nuclear-war book-to-movie deal was “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute in 1957. That was little more than a sad eulogy for the human race. Twenty years later began the “Mad Max” film trilogy by George Miller, which combined to create a post-atomic-war and post-oil scenario.
Kunstler’s “World Made By Hand” is not like either, although it has a sadness and there is violence. His book reads more like a Western by Zane Grey or Louis L’Amour. Those two were both romantics telling their stories in the context of a wild land’s transition to modern civilization set in the past. Kunstler adventure is a mirror image world — a transition from modern civilization to a wild land set in the future. Let me be the first to coin the genre name “The Eastern.”
The isolation of Union Grove is too great, almost like the set of a stage play where nowhere else on earth exists. Opportunities were missed to show more of the differences in the approach to living by the “four gangs.” It was surprising to me that Kunstler did not illustrate the possible self-righteousness and intolerance by the New Faithers toward the Townies. More details of the oppression involved in being a serf on Bullock’s farm would have been welcome and dramatize why some, like Robert, stayed a Townie.
Lastly, Kunstler offers us an element of the supernatural that hits a sour note. It seems like an unnecessary device in so well-told a tale. This book deals with the central issues that will determine the quality of our lives and the lives of our children. I highly recommend it as an exciting story of our future that concludes on an optimistic note about our lives to come.
For more information, visit Kunstler’s Web site, www.kunstler.com, or www.worldmadebyhand.com.
• Juan Wilson is a resident of Hanapepe and writes a bi-weekly column for The Garden Island. Juan is an architect-planner and the editor of www.IslandBreath.org
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brandygreen wrote on Sep 24, 2009 2:05 AM: