World Made by Hand
by James Howard Kunstler

Apocalyptic scenarios are an incredibly easy and thus popular palette for fiction. The blank slate that gives free reign for plot and setting development is one compelling reason. A more telling one is that if you treat the world as inevitable failure, all kinds will sign on assuming that you have solved their problems of inaction or underconfidence for them through escapist fantasy.

Without background on the novel, it could be argued that World Made by Hand shares superficial elements of this approach. The unstated but omnipresent basis for the book is author James Howard Kunstler's so-called (and very possible) "Long Emergency," his conception of the death spiral that will occur as cheap energy disappears and the systems it props up falter, the effects of anthropogenic global warming broaden, and geopolitical and financial instability, exacerbated by the first two problems, come to a hilt. Central government, industrial agriculture, complex infrastructure, entertainment, and technology -- the sum total of our modern lives -- all sputter and fail as a result.

The simple folks of a sleepy Upstate New York town, once affluent bankers, lawyers and real estate agents from throughout the region but again peasants, have been thrust back into the technological equivalent of the early 19th century through just such a scenario. We've no idea when the change occurred, but the still-rotting suburban waste at the town fringe and techno-remnants of our familiar age are everywhere, often having been stripped for scrap or left abandoned for lack of want. Many have lost loved ones to famine, terrorism or disease; those who have survived have to count themselves lucky to be in a place where the anarchic racial violence raging elsewhere is generally non-existent. For the good of the story, however, the extent of the death fantasy in the novel ends there despite the dire warning it carries. Also despite the theme the approach is decidedly light-going. Main character Robert, who once worked with computers but now finds himself farming most of his backyard, is accidental party to foul play and quickly sees his roles shocking him out of the relative comfort of his meager and lonely existence.

This simple-going plot says a lot about the world in which it develops. Nothing here suggests widespread neuroses or self-obsessions beyond the fading memories of the change that occurred and tragedies brought with it. Necessity has pushed these luxurious concerns aside, just as it has erased "feminism," empty teenage rebellion, and other signs of more decadent and energy-intense times. What may have been spent on these or in pursuing entertainment in the past has reverted to the cultivating of forgotten skills, cooperation and socialization with neighbors to complete useful and important tasks and, in general, effort for all of it in proper ratio to the rewards received. We are allowed to consider two ends of this collectivist spectrum, including through the religion that rides into town in the form of a darkly comedic and semi-mystical cult leader and his kin, and their presence, though the cause of some annoyance, ultimately spurns the drive of the townsfolk to overcome their self-pitying lull and remake their station; we are thus witness to the true, inner triumphs of people instead of their unresolved confusions or self-serving mental passions.

Unlike some apocalypses, this one promises no ascent to a boundless paradise as that is precisely what is being left behind. Much like them, though, we have been damned by sin, in this case the sin of our collective and short-sighted failure to maintain ourselves as a purpose-driven people in the face of overwhelmingly abundant energy and easy solutions. If there is any hint of schandenfreude to be found in this book's portrayal of this, it is far overshadowed by the author's clear hope for a world where earnest effort, community, heroism and love have all regained their proper standing atop the collapsed ruins of the ephemeral individual kingdoms we have erected.

World Made by Hand, by James Howard Kunstler