I just finished reading 'Vivian Applie and the End of the World,' and the one thing I will say for it is that I actually stuck around til the end. I've really tried to read modern books the last few years but most just sputter out in the first quarter or so. There are a few exceptions, this one I kept waiting for something to happen, mostly they just drive around and mope, and then the book ends without really getting anywhere. It is doing an excellent job for the genre though, Left Behind did a great job of making an entire book about nothing so you'd have to read three or four to actually have some semblance of a bad plot. The premise was an interesting one: some mega-cult that seems like a cross between the Mormons and the worst of the prosperity gospel televangelists with a hearty dose of patriotic deism has pretty much taken over American culture promising an imminent rapture while weird climactic shifts are playing havoc with the weather setting the stage for a seemingly pointless road trip across post-rapture America. This was written a long time pre-covid and was first published in the UK. Having survived that minor apocalypse, I had a hard time believing the US economy could function as it does in this frivolous tale, how does a burger chain stay supplied or gas stations stay open? How do you reliably get gas or cash to pay for it? How do you still have cell service? Why does a US teenager sound like a Brit? Have you really driven across South Dakota in May? Where is the rest of the world in the middle of this global but local crisis? What is the point of this book?
I don't like most of the characters, the ones with promise have far too short a role or are left in a drug induced coma for the majority of the book. There is plenty of death and danger and emotional angst but it's as easy to forget as driving over the next hill. Nobody has a heart or feelings or any attachment to anybody or anything. While we are shown the dangers of fundamentalist belief, secular nihilism isn't shown to be any more useful or comforting, nothing means anything so why should we care about any of it? There is only a small dusting of plot near the end and then it just ends, there is a sequel but I don't really care at this point. I kept reading hoping there would be a point, unless the point is to show me there is no point? There's a little humor but way too much circling the drain and pointless drama. The author makes a point of not stereotyping people but most of the characters are sadly stereotypes with no depth or interest or complexity, maybe it is a silent commentary on the plight of the modern soul, but this book is certainly lacking one.
Is it trying to be the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, That Hideous Strength, the anti-Left Behind, a secular dystopian Jane Austen, or what? It does a great job of showing the futility of extreme cult groups, hippie communes, and secular nihilism but it gives you nothing to cling to, no hope in a maelstrom of meaninglessness. If it is a social commentary it is lacking in comment or clarity or I'm not bright enough to discern it. If it is humor, it is of a morbid and vapid sort. If it is high adventure or youthful frivolity it is certainly frivolous but rather drab in quest and scope. If it is about character and personal growth, sadly the main character's suicide or tragic death might have been preferred. If it is to show the insipidity and heartless individualism of modern Americans, then the climate change tsunami cannot wash away our sins too soon, for we are all of us deplorable beyond reach of redemption or forgiveness. If it is to warn about the dangers of fanaticism for any cause, it was a clarion call that went unheeded, for the pandemic was a far better teacher.
I did appreciate the book's minor attempts to respect religious belief in non-fanatical cult situations, but it was sort of a ho-hum half hearted attempt, as was everything in this tale. I really was left wondering what the point of any of it was, maybe the point is there is no point? The point was to point out the futility of everything in modern life? If this is modern life without a firm belief in anything, then I could not write a better argument for true and abiding faith. There are little hints and tidbits that the main character longs for just that, but her own cynicism blinds her to anything and everything, even her own deepest feelings and longings. This book does a great job pointing out the futility of everything but it leaves you with nothing to fill that gaping hole in your heart, which a far wiser writer once said is eternity placed within the hearts of men, a thing we cannot fill with temporal and transient what-nots, a thing that can only be filled with something bigger still, or rather Someone.
That's what this book is looking for, it is a search for belonging, for True Love, for real redemption and purpose and meaning, a yearning for Home and Peace and real Joy. But every discovery, every relationship, every new mile only yields disappointment and discouragement, for we're looking for love in all the wrong places, nay we have mis-defined love. Love is doing what is best for the beloved, no matter the cost to oneself whether the beloved likes it or not. Perhaps that is the point of this book: that longing, that search, the futility of it all in chasing after the wind. It is a modern Ecclesiastes perhaps? I'd stick with the original, at least that will point you towards the Answer rather than just heaping up the questions.
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