In these days of financial apocalypto, we - or at least I - turn to anyone who can calmly and clearly tell us what the flip is going on. Robert Peston at the Beeb has been my main man (and I notice that Hodder are sensibly rushing into paperback his Who Ru[i]ns Britain? of earlier this year, which explains why the handcart we're all clinging to is rolling merrily to hell). Recent Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times, is also good for straightforward analogies about complicated matters.
Last year, I read The Great Crash, 1929 by JK Galbraith. This, more than anything, reminds us that when the financial system catches a cold, it's a full-on Man Cold. That is, there is much loud moaning, plenty of snivelling self-pity, then comes the prolonged sulk. Sound familiar? No? Then read your Galbraith.
On the other hand, if you want to read about everything falling down about your ears on a more intimate scale one could turn to fiction. In a couple of years, I suspect you won't be able to turn around in a bookshop without knocking into the latest novel that 'brilliantly captures the greed, hubris and vanity of the noughties'. (No reviewer is allowed to use that phrase since I hereby copyright it.) However, when I want to read about it all crashing down, I prefer matters to be a bit weirder than the day-to-day travails of bankers, other City-types, politicians and the usual movers, shakers and ordinary Joes caught in the middle that characterize your average state-of-the-nation novel.
If I really want to know what the state of the nation is, I can take a look out the window. (It's drizzling.)
Which is why I instead turn to a writer like John Wyndham. If you're going to write about the end of the world, do it in style. Want to illustrate human hubris? Then blind the population of the Earth with a passing comet and set a plague of angry plants on them. Want to show how we close ranks in a crisis? Then cover the world in a blanket of radiation and see how the fearful treat the resulting mutants. Want to reveal how dependent we are on each other? Then seed the oceans with an alien intelligence and turn water - the compound on which we depend - against us. Want to describe how power corrupts? Then impregnate the women of a sleepy English village with a superior but indifferent life form and let the offspring grow up. Want to explore the limits of governance? Then invent an astonishing scientific discovery and watch the scramble to exploit it.
Penguin recently reissued these five John Wyndham novels (and with news that Stephen Spielberg is to make Wyndham's Chocky into a movie, a sixth is on the way next April) with haunting covers by illustrator Brian Cronin. Joe Gordon tells me that Forbidden Planet International is giving away two complete sets right now. So get yourselves over there and discover five futures with nary a mention of credit default swaps.
Colin Brush
Senior Copywriter
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They are lovely covers! I may have to get new copies:)
Posted by: Kathleen | October 15, 2008 at 11:49 PM
They are indeed beautiful covers and you've prompted me to investigate Wyndham further - I re-read The Day of The Triffids last year, love the concept but found the writing was 'of its time' in the sense of 50s man-hero over women. An observation rather than a criticism really.
As for man made economic implosions, I point to Atwood's The Handmaids Tale. How did the the religious right subjugate women? By switching off their access to money via banks and using propaganda to convince it was temporary/for their own good etc.
That's hardly what's being done now, but it's interesting to note how fundamentally a system can be upended when access to money is withdrawn.
Posted by: Matt | October 16, 2008 at 11:00 AM
I know we're all living through hard times at the moment, but can we make it company policy not to use the phrase 'ordinary Joes' on the blog? I expect a free copy of each book in recompense.
Posted by: Joe | October 16, 2008 at 03:21 PM
Are you the Joe Sixpack I've been hearing so much about from Sarah Palin?
Posted by: Alan | October 16, 2008 at 03:38 PM
It gets worse for those real Joes out there. 'Joe the plumber' turns out to be less the 'real deal' than we - and particularly Senator John McCain - thought: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/us/politics/17joe.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Posted by: Colin | October 17, 2008 at 10:21 AM
i have loved john wyndham since i was a teenager and 'the chrysalids' was one of my favourite books... great to see them out again!
Posted by: Sonya | October 21, 2008 at 01:23 PM
It certainly is fun to imagine how the world might end, and to think that it would end with financial disaster is positively boring. Give me something with a climax like pole reversal or alien invasion. The possibilities are endless, really. I just hope to live to see it and I hope it's not dull. In a weird way I also hope it hurts.
Posted by: Nigel Tewksbury | October 23, 2008 at 01:47 AM
The End of the World? That was the name of my last exhibition! Hmm. Could be a movement! Or even a tendency! A fashion fad?
Posted by: MATTHEW ROSE | November 10, 2008 at 04:35 PM