World War Z
I will start by saying this is one book that I enjoyed from beginning to end.
Brooks capitalizes on the effects of isolation. We follow a wide range of people dealing with the same issue differently. So, to start, I felt like this read a lot like King's The Cycle of the Werewolf. In the novel, we bounce from place to place reliving people's lives through interviews, rather than following the war through one POV from start to end. Brooks chose the right method. I have never seen the movie adaptation, but if it does not work the same way Brooks wrote it with different people, different places, I do not think I am interested. I feel like I would have put the book down had we followed one story. Instead, we see how a variety of civilizations and governments handle the outbreak through interviews. Not to mention, Brooks jumbles the discussions, so it comes off as an anthology following one timeline in one world, rather than pounding the reader back to back with different survivor stories from start to end.
That being said about the structure, I also want to point out how the novel is written conveniently. By this, I mean that we follow people rather than chapters. My OCD refuses to allow me to stop mid-chapter for anything. The puzzle pieces came together through different, short, explanations, and questions. It was not like The Children of Time, where you had to budget time to read through twenty paged chapters. Brooks' novel does not even come off journalistic, which was another plus to me. I was able to stop after each person or interview if I needed, but I was also able to stop mid-interview at the next question if I really had to do something.
Let's talk about the monsters: Zack, zombies, Gs - whatever you want to call them. I think they were horrifying in the novel. Brooks did great with detail (holes, eyeballs by strings, no lower half). They were lifeless creatures, but the had a weird way of communication with one another that made it terrifying to know if you ran across one in the woods that seemed alone, it would signal out to seven more that food was around. Brooks does not bother to make them hyper either; they walk slow, moan, crawl, are missing limbs, but there are so many of them. It is a quantity vs. quality. Sure, these living dead are not the most agile or swift of the bunch, and they rot, but they have patterns of movement and are terrifying in groups.
I also enjoyed how the big issue was not only the zombies but the different groups of surviving humans that couldn't get along from time to time (all the time). Towards the end, we get a lot of different societies being rebuilt, from Russian hardcore wilderness to Chinese blocks of communism. Some people relied on themselves, fewer people relied on religion, and others just functioned to bring humanity back by adapting to the threat of the living dead. In the end, it wasn't humanity wins or loses, it was a matter of adaption. The theory of Evolution is one of my favorite topics in Anthropology. We develop and adapt to the world around us, these people had to readjust themselves from their formal lives, not only to survive but to rebuild. The zombies weren't massively extinct in the end either, the real threat is that they still exist and people have to live around that life. Pulling an example from the novel, we see how they use dogs in the USA to help keep their survival rate up as dogs could scent the crawlers that would easily be missed in tall grass. Instead of being only man's best friend, they became a huge part of military and survival for the species.
Yes, while I love for everyone to die and die horribly, I really enjoyed this book. It felt real. It did not feel like some far off fantasy delusion or idea. It felt like this could happen any day now, and sure the monsters are not the most athletic or brain-functioning group, but they are dangerous in their own right (biting, infected flesh and blood, massive hordes, movement regardless speed, only one way to kill them). I think I may fear that one day my landlord will knock on my door and it won't be my living landlord thanks to Max Brooks. You go, dude.
Also, may this post be dedicated to the remembrance of the whales. No one asked them how they felt. Make sure you ask a whale how they feel, tell them about it, see what they say. If you ever see one.
Brooks capitalizes on the effects of isolation. We follow a wide range of people dealing with the same issue differently. So, to start, I felt like this read a lot like King's The Cycle of the Werewolf. In the novel, we bounce from place to place reliving people's lives through interviews, rather than following the war through one POV from start to end. Brooks chose the right method. I have never seen the movie adaptation, but if it does not work the same way Brooks wrote it with different people, different places, I do not think I am interested. I feel like I would have put the book down had we followed one story. Instead, we see how a variety of civilizations and governments handle the outbreak through interviews. Not to mention, Brooks jumbles the discussions, so it comes off as an anthology following one timeline in one world, rather than pounding the reader back to back with different survivor stories from start to end.
That being said about the structure, I also want to point out how the novel is written conveniently. By this, I mean that we follow people rather than chapters. My OCD refuses to allow me to stop mid-chapter for anything. The puzzle pieces came together through different, short, explanations, and questions. It was not like The Children of Time, where you had to budget time to read through twenty paged chapters. Brooks' novel does not even come off journalistic, which was another plus to me. I was able to stop after each person or interview if I needed, but I was also able to stop mid-interview at the next question if I really had to do something.
Let's talk about the monsters: Zack, zombies, Gs - whatever you want to call them. I think they were horrifying in the novel. Brooks did great with detail (holes, eyeballs by strings, no lower half). They were lifeless creatures, but the had a weird way of communication with one another that made it terrifying to know if you ran across one in the woods that seemed alone, it would signal out to seven more that food was around. Brooks does not bother to make them hyper either; they walk slow, moan, crawl, are missing limbs, but there are so many of them. It is a quantity vs. quality. Sure, these living dead are not the most agile or swift of the bunch, and they rot, but they have patterns of movement and are terrifying in groups.
I also enjoyed how the big issue was not only the zombies but the different groups of surviving humans that couldn't get along from time to time (all the time). Towards the end, we get a lot of different societies being rebuilt, from Russian hardcore wilderness to Chinese blocks of communism. Some people relied on themselves, fewer people relied on religion, and others just functioned to bring humanity back by adapting to the threat of the living dead. In the end, it wasn't humanity wins or loses, it was a matter of adaption. The theory of Evolution is one of my favorite topics in Anthropology. We develop and adapt to the world around us, these people had to readjust themselves from their formal lives, not only to survive but to rebuild. The zombies weren't massively extinct in the end either, the real threat is that they still exist and people have to live around that life. Pulling an example from the novel, we see how they use dogs in the USA to help keep their survival rate up as dogs could scent the crawlers that would easily be missed in tall grass. Instead of being only man's best friend, they became a huge part of military and survival for the species.
Yes, while I love for everyone to die and die horribly, I really enjoyed this book. It felt real. It did not feel like some far off fantasy delusion or idea. It felt like this could happen any day now, and sure the monsters are not the most athletic or brain-functioning group, but they are dangerous in their own right (biting, infected flesh and blood, massive hordes, movement regardless speed, only one way to kill them). I think I may fear that one day my landlord will knock on my door and it won't be my living landlord thanks to Max Brooks. You go, dude.
Also, may this post be dedicated to the remembrance of the whales. No one asked them how they felt. Make sure you ask a whale how they feel, tell them about it, see what they say. If you ever see one.
You said you thought it felt real, and I think a big part of that was that the story was so much about the outbreak of a deadly disease, and how different countries might try to react to, or contain that. That, to me, gives it a feeling that is much more realistic and possible. If there is going to be an apocalypse, I doubt its going to be zombies, but I could totally see it being an outbreak of an incurable, deadly disease.
ReplyDeleteSo you said you liked the interview style, and on my post I said I hated it. Without looking, can you recall any character's name? I can't. I read this book about three weeks ago, but still, I should remember someone's name. To me, that's a problem. You had that Chinese doctor. You had that Japanese guy. You had the Israeli government guy. You had the female pilot who's plane went down over Louisiana. And that's just how I remember them... as these fuzzy outlier characters that survived. I don't remember anyone's name because I wasn't invested in them. I couldn't care whether they lived or died because I already knew they all lived.
Brooks was good with description. He was okay with his overall story of disease zombies I guess. He was great with working in real world politics into his story. But the decision to make it a bunch of interviews just blew it all up for me.
Shoe,
DeleteVery good point, I honestly didn't recall any names of the characters, just the settings and what happened. I also read this a few weeks ago, but even writing the initial post right after I finished the novel, I didn't recall any names.
hey Alexis, I am with Shoe on this one. You make a good point about the way the book was laid out though. I think that was the only really positive part of the read for me. I think this is a useful technique if its applied differently and more personally. I also think the scale could have been a real positive if the book had just been more intimate and had real characters to contrast the worldwide devastation with some personal devastation.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I am thankful for Shoe pointing out how there were no connections for the reader to gain with characters, except our narrator. But, even he was rather dull.
Delete"I feel like I would have put the book down had we followed one story."
ReplyDelete"I also enjoyed how the big issue was not only the zombies but the different groups of surviving humans that couldn't get along from time to time (all the time)."
These are the lines you wrote that I was like YES THAT IS EXACTLY MY SAME THOUGHT. I thought this book was way more about the humans than it was the zombies. It was about the societies reactions and that's why the interview style worked out so well. It would have been much more biased and flat had it been only one person's POV. Imagine only hearing about the boats. It still would have been an interesting story, but it wouldn't have been as good as the book was as written.
I am glad someone agrees with me that the one POV would have really knocked it down!
DeleteI loved the book as well, Alexis, and I completely agree that it worked best told from a variety of perspectives! I think the whole point of the book, like you said, wasn't to just scare us with the zombies (although it did that too), but to portray all of humanity's reaction to such an existential threat. It honestly felt like a pretty good allegory for something like climate change—although admittedly easier to fight, since you can't just shoot climate change in the brain. At any rate, I think the inclusion of so many different perspectives really allowed us to see and understand the scope of the threat in a way we wouldn't have if it had just been one person's story. And surprisingly, since we only saw the zombies in people's narratives and not in actual in-the-moment scenes, I thought the zombies were probably the most effective and terrifying monsters we've seen yet! I totally agree—I found myself checking the locks this week in a way I almost never do otherwise.
ReplyDeleteLong live the whales.
I also think the way that it is presented makes it feel like it could be real. I really did not like reading the book, but I understand my reasoning why. I think if I had approached this novel more like a collection of short stories, and started reading a long time ago, it wouldn't have been so irritating for me to read. I think it does create the wide scale feeling, I just can't stay focused on the overarching story being told when it is broken in fragments, mainly because I just didn't have a character to latch onto. I can see why you would like it though, if, as a reader, you don't always need to have a central character to follow.
ReplyDeleteALSO, the movie is extremely different from the book. It is only about one character, which is why I like it better, lol. So you probably would dislike it. I don't know too many people who like the book that think the movie is also good.
Delete