Time Travel?
Published in 1953, In the Wet speaks of the 1980s, using the future as canvas for the author's political thought.
In the Wet begins with 80 pages (in the Canadian hardcover) of setup. A British Church of England parson explains, in first person, that he’s spent much of his life in Australia, that he has malaria, and the circumstances in which he meets a drunken old man called Stevie, and then comes to be at Stevie’s bedside during the wet season, as Stevie is dying. Stevie relates his life story—only he doesn’t, the priest has malaria and is delirious, a nurse who was also present the whole time heard nothing. Also, the life Stevie tells is a life that takes place in the future—the book was published and this frame is set in 1953, the main part of the story takes place in 1983. It’s Stevie’s next life as David Anderson that we hear about.
some of the themes that have made Nevil's books so popular... show up in all his novels; some in only a few. But only "In The Wet" includes every one.
- A love story (All but a few NSN novels)
- Romantic pairings bridging social classes (Lonely Road, Ruined City, Landfall)
- An adventure story (Just about every novel)
- A flying story (Marazan, So Disdained, Landfall, Pastoral, Rainbow)
- A sailing story (Lonely Road, Most Secret)
- A subplot involving reincarnation (An Old Captivity)
- A subplot involving thought/soul transference (An Old Captivity, Rainbow)
- The economic disaster of socialism (The Far Country)
- Racial and national equality (Chequer Board, Round the Bend)
- A glimpse into the future (Ordeal, On The Beach)
- The use of the anti-hero (Chequer Board, Trustee)
- Special extra-sensory abilities among non-European "primitive" people. (An Old Captivity, Chequer Board, Round The bend)
- An interest in eastern religious teachings (Chequer Board, Round the Bend)
- Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. (Just about every novel)
An "Unbiased" Review
In the Wet - 'contains many of the typical elements of a hearty and adventurous Shute yarn such as flying, the future, mystic states, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things.' - Wikipedia
Use the preview on the Amazon cover below to get a feel and read the novel by clicking on the link in the title above.
I've skipped Slide Rule as it is autobiographical and would be of real interest only to hard core Nevil Shute fans. The next book of his that we shall deal with sounds very tragic.
Requiem for a Wren - 'The story of a young British woman who, plagued with guilt after shooting down a plane carrying Polish refugees in World War II, moves to Australia to work anonymously for the parents of her (now deceased) Australian lover, whilst the lover's brother searches for her in Britain. The title echoes William Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun.'
This is one of Shute’s “full circle” novels, in which he tosses us in at the ending, and then works us backwards through what brought his characters to that starting point. It’s a plot device which can get a little tiresome if encountered too often, but in this case it works very well indeed.
Recommended, emphatically, for Shute fans, and, speculatively, for those new to this author, who might appreciate a slightly simplistic but thought-provoking view of the effects of war on its participants, by a man who lived much of what he wrote about.
The novel has drawn a variety of reactions with most finding the tragedy hard to handle and yet reviewers find the usual charm of a Nevil Shute - a special something in each book which draws and holds the reader:
Requiem for a Wren is ultimately a rather sad story, but it is also full of sunny moments and small victories. By the end, you are left rather like Alan is, in love with Janet, unable to have her, but glad you got to know her so well anyway.
The next post completes this sequential look at Nevil Shute's novels with Beyond the Black Stump, On the Beach, The Rainbow and the Rose, Trustee from the Toolroom - at least two of those are quite popular even today.
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