But this week's book did not transport me to a time or place where I wanted to be. This week's novel, One Second After by William R Forstchen, took me to a time and events that I hope I never have to experience. Perhaps it was so chilling because the story takes place just an hour from where I grew up. Perhaps it is because in the beginning, the characters are so much like me, and end up in a place so very different. Perhaps it is because it's a disaster novel with no real happy ending, although it probably plays out in a realistic way.
Did you ever see the cancelled television series, "Jericho" on CBS? It ran several years ago for one season and seven episodes. It actually got cancelled at the end of the first season, but the public outcry for the story lines to come to some conclusion was so great CBS approved a short season to take the viewers to a place where they could say goodbye. "Jericho" was about multiple nuclear attacks on the United States and how a small farm community in rural Kansas sought to survive in the aftermath of the unthinkable. One Second After tells the story of a retired Army colonel teaching in a small North Carolina college near Asheville. NC and what happened after all of their access to electricity and technology was cut off. I don't want to share any more of the plot because some surprising things happen, but I do want to share some of the questions that I was asking after I finished the book. Just as an aside... I started at 2:30pm on Sunday afternoon and finished before I went to bed at midnight, taking only about 40 minutes out of that time to prepare dinner. I could not put it down without knowing what happened to the characters... it was that compelling.
So here are my questions:
How dependent am I on technology? Could I cook, clean and get the things I need to survive for a long period of time? This question has sort of been answered a couple of times, through a June "almost tornado" and January ice storm in Oklahoma. Ironically, both times my spouse was away, and so while I wanted to be self sufficient and able to get along on my own, I really had to depend on my friends to help me get through 5 and 8 days respectively without power. As much as anything, I needed to know that I was not alone. Isolation was my biggest hurdle.
How dependent is our society on technology? While I am happy to turn off the television to keep from hearing repetitive or irrelevant news, what would I do if I couldn't know what was going on? How would our community or society function if we were cut off from all information (and direction) for even a little while? Would we really revert back to the society of the Middle Ages, or have we come farther than that?
What does it mean to be a moral person? This was the question that I most struggled with in this book, as I read about the choices people made as they felt their circumstances dictated. There are many things that I have said I would never do, but if push comes to shove, can I keep those promises? And along those same lines, what does it mean to be a moral community if we live in a society where it sometimes seems that anything goes?
These are hard questions which often generate other hard questions. But that's how a society grows stronger... when we think and talk about the hard questions, not always having to agree, but laying out cards on the table and figuring out how to go from where we are to a better place. That is how we grow... isn't it?
I had a hard time picking a quote, but here's just a paragraph from the first chapter:
But there was "something else" now. A gut instinct that ran deeper. Something had gone wrong, what, he still wasn't sure, but there were too many anomalies, with the power off, the cars stalled, except for the Edsel, no planes... Something was wrong. And at this moment, for the first time in a long while, his "city survival senses" were kicking in. One Second After, page 42.Peace, Deb
I'm starting Book #3 today - something much lighter - Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert. This continues her story after Eat, Pray, Love.
No comments:
Post a Comment