No time for Nevil Shute

This isn't what Nevil Shute was thinking of when he wrote `On the Beach.' Picture / Jason Stewart.

The good news in these extraordinary times, someone pointed out on social media last week, includes that reading has not been cancelled or banned. Providing, of course, that reading takes place within our personal bubble, and does not involve travelling further than locally, a term that seems to be redefined every time Police Commissioner Mike Bush pontificates on how we should be behaving.

That small nugget of positivity should have come with a warning though. This may not be the best time to read, or re-read, Nevil Shute's On the Beach, regarded by many as the best novel ever to explore how our world might literally come to an end.

On the other hand, it might reinforce a couple of important points. 1 — Covid-19 doesn't hold a candle to a nuclear holocaust. And 2 — Previous generations have had their own fears to face and overcome.

Shute wrote his famous novel more than 60 years ago, but it has a very modern ring to it, one reviewer commenting on how people reacted to their inevitable deaths, "from denial, escapism and religious fervour to acceptance and the new 'madness' that that brings."

We've certainly seen some signs of madness here in the last few weeks — who knew, in a country that had supposedly lost the art of turning unprocessed food into something edible, enough people know what to do with flour to feed themselves and their families to empty supermarket shelves? Not quite panic on the scale of what might be induced by the threat of a nuclear apocalypse, perhaps, but a not unexpected reaction even at a time when the threat of annihilation by warring nations has receded to the point where it has become little more than a mildly interesting footnote to post-World War II history.

Despite the doomsayers who warn us that our planet is in the process of warming beyond possibility of survival, most human beings enjoy living in a world that is safer than it has ever been.

Ironically, those who seem to be handling this current crisis better than some include those who have been through testing times in the past. The generation who survived the Great Depression, who endured the toughest of times during the Second World War, who even in the furthest reaches of the Far North of New Zealand lived in daily fear of a Japanese invasion, and accepted much greater material deprivation than their grandchildren can begin to imagine, might statistically be at the greatest risk from Covid-19, but in many cases seem to be made of sterner stuff than their descendants.

This is not the first time that disease has posed a threat to humanity on a grand scale, if in fact that is what Covid-19 represents. The difference this time is that we are much better connected than we were in centuries past, and better able to share our fears that the end is nigh, and conversely, our optimism and even humour.

One social media poster suggested last week that one of the positives to come from this new virus is proof that the world can survive without celebrities and professional sport, while another noted that the global lockdown seemed to be taking its toll on the scammers who have for so long devoted themselves to parting fools from their money.

Another compiled a list of things that have not been cancelled or banned, including going outside, listening to music, spending quality time with loved ones, sharing with friends, singing, laughing and sharing hope.

He or she might have added to that list the likes of washing windows, spring cleaning, catching up on garden chores, mowing lawns, cleaning spouting, and patiently waiting for rain or for the council to tell us that we can resume watering the roses.

The climate change fraternity will also have taken heart no doubt from the extraordinary impact that taking cars off roads, grounding aircraft and closing factories, including those in China who feed our insatiable desire to collect things we don't need that are made of plastic, has had on pollution levels. It has taken very little time for skies to clear over some of the most polluted parts of this planet. Whether or not that will have any effect on temperatures and the other symptoms that we are assured are warnings that we are destroying our home remains to be seen, but there is absolutely no doubt now that fossil fuels are fouling the air that we breathe, and that Mother Nature will not be slow to express her appreciation should we find some other way of powering our world.

The fact, however, is that this virus will eventually peter out, and life, to some extent, will return to normal. Just how long that will take post-Covid-19 is anyone's guess though.

We are being told that at least some of those businesses that have had to shut their doors won't open them again when this is all over, and that seems to be a given. None of us really knows just how things will look in a few months' (or years') time, and the longer the crisis goes on the worse the final outcome will be.

In the meantime, as yet another social media poster commented last week, New Zealand's farmers aren't shutting down. And, for all the abuse pastoral farmers have suffered over recent times, on the fallacious basis that those who farm cattle in particular are doing more than anyone else to damage our environment, it is our farmers who offer the best hope that we will still have an economy once coronavirus is defeated.

As others have said, the world can largely do without much of the stuff that we buy and sell, but people will always need to eat. And even if there might yet be a lot of water to go under the Covid-19 bridge, it would be fair to say that at this point in time this country is relying on its farmers more than ever.

The government has so far shown no inclination to delay or reassess the various demands it plans to impose upon pastoral farmers, supposedly to reduce their environmental impact, real or imagined, but those who produce meat and dairy products, for us and for overseas markets, will undoubtedly prove to be our economic heroes. As they have long been. And as they will long continue to be.

There are no guarantees, of course. The longer our overseas customers remain isolated in their homes and out of work, the more likely it will become that international markets will collapse. There will be little point in producing some of the best food in the world if no one is able to buy it. We should not be tempted to cross bridges before we get to them though, and right now we should be lauding the men and women who above all others promise to be our salvation.

In the meantime all we can do is stay at home, avoid any situation that might allow this infection to spread, and focus on the inevitability that, in time, this too shall pass. For most of us these are times of inconvenience. The impact will be greater for some than for others, but we will recover. There was a time when 'It's not the end of the world' was a common response to almost any instance of misfortune, and we should be saying, and hearing, that again.

In the meantime, those who are of a nervous disposition, who might be struggling to maintain a much-needed sense of proportion, or are in danger of succumbing to despair, should stay away from Nevil Shute.