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Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O'Connell
vitsa's review against another edition
4.0
Really quick and enjoyable read. I found the writing very easy going and hilarious in places.
The book read like essays all linked by the common theme of the end of the world. I found them all interesting in their own way. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the preppers, it was very funny but also made a lot of very interesting points.
Overall it was a light read. It doesn't contain any groundbreaking revelations but I don't think that was the point. It's very much a personal account and it does contain ample interesting insights that bear thinking about. A good few observations were very apt and striking, and especially so given the current situation.
"Trump is only the most visible symptom of a disease that has long been sickening the country's blood - a rapidly metastasizing tumour of inequality, hyper-militarism, racism, surveillance, and fear that we might as well go ahead and diagnose a terminal-stage capitalism" Nothing like the response to a pandemic to confirm the diagnosis.
The book read like essays all linked by the common theme of the end of the world. I found them all interesting in their own way. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the preppers, it was very funny but also made a lot of very interesting points.
Overall it was a light read. It doesn't contain any groundbreaking revelations but I don't think that was the point. It's very much a personal account and it does contain ample interesting insights that bear thinking about. A good few observations were very apt and striking, and especially so given the current situation.
"Trump is only the most visible symptom of a disease that has long been sickening the country's blood - a rapidly metastasizing tumour of inequality, hyper-militarism, racism, surveillance, and fear that we might as well go ahead and diagnose a terminal-stage capitalism" Nothing like the response to a pandemic to confirm the diagnosis.
brontherun's review against another edition
4.0
Movies, podcasts, and books that fictionalize the end of days abound. They have been around at least as long as the bible, and probably longer. Mark O’Connell delves into our psychological obsession with the fascination, to the point of preparation, for the apocalypse. The 24-hour global news cycle of the last four decades may have contributed to relentlessness of doom and gloom. As O’Connell puts it: “The apocalypse is profoundly dull. I, for one, am sick to death of the end of days. I’m sick, in particular, of climate change. Is it possible to be terrified and bored at the same time? Is it possible, I mean, to be bored of terror? If not of the kind of literal terror that privileged people like me rarely experience, at least the kind of abstract terror that is released like a soporific gas from the whole topic of ecological catastrophe.”
I share his fascination/boredom dichotomy with end of days but less from a hopeless feeling about the future than out of a desire to understand the popular culture notion of spiraling towards acceptance of apocalyptic hopelessness as an inevitability. The economic spending and consumer industries that have sprung up around preparing for some version of the future that resembles Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is real, as O’Connell explores across the globe. People spending their financial resources on everything from estates in New Zealand, to bunkers in South Dakota, to protein sludge packs from the internet. And then they post videos on social media? O’Connell has apparently watched hours of such video. “It struck me that these bug-out-bag videos bore a strong family resemblance to the more mainstream YouTube phenomenon of haul videos, in which a person, usually a young woman, laid out for her videos the results of a recent shopping trip. The bug-out-bag video was a kind of apocalyptic variation of this display of consumerist achievement.”
The whole thing seems wildly absurd and immature. "And there is something fundamentally male about this narrative of exit, of escape as a means towards the nobility of self-determination." The players in these destruction scenarios are often men, escaping the day to day reality of getting stuff done. The opposition of escapism from community togetherness versus care of one another is raised by the author. Traditionally, women have played the care givers in society as a whole, and I think have less opportunity, or even inclination, to give up on it.
From the exclusion zone around Chernobyl to groups of privileged seeking escapist options from the global environmental problems, this book is a fascinating ride-along of O’Connell’s 18 month dive into the world of the apocalypse proclaimers. From the Mars escapism fantasy to New Zealand outposts, I can’t help but think that some very wealthy people are spending a lot of money pursuing unlikely outcomes when that money could be doing so much good to directly reduce suffering and pain in the world as it is.
Perhaps my favorite snippet from the book was of a woman who directly faces that conflagration of ecological destruction and doesn’t give up. A firefighter of outback wildfires, she shares her experience with the burning world with the author. And he latches on to the terror she faces (literally faces!!): "So, this is something that has happened to you, in your own life, as a person? Actual snakes that are on fire have leapt towards you from vegetation that is also on fire?" At this question, the woman chuckles. Yep, if she can face that and still laugh, there is hope in the world. Like the author, if we want to turn away from attention-grabbing apocalyptic stories to reduce our anxiety, we have to place what is really going on in the world in our own context. As bad as it may be, life isn’t always burning snakes leaping at your face. And when they are, try not to lose your sense of humor.
I share his fascination/boredom dichotomy with end of days but less from a hopeless feeling about the future than out of a desire to understand the popular culture notion of spiraling towards acceptance of apocalyptic hopelessness as an inevitability. The economic spending and consumer industries that have sprung up around preparing for some version of the future that resembles Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is real, as O’Connell explores across the globe. People spending their financial resources on everything from estates in New Zealand, to bunkers in South Dakota, to protein sludge packs from the internet. And then they post videos on social media? O’Connell has apparently watched hours of such video. “It struck me that these bug-out-bag videos bore a strong family resemblance to the more mainstream YouTube phenomenon of haul videos, in which a person, usually a young woman, laid out for her videos the results of a recent shopping trip. The bug-out-bag video was a kind of apocalyptic variation of this display of consumerist achievement.”
The whole thing seems wildly absurd and immature. "And there is something fundamentally male about this narrative of exit, of escape as a means towards the nobility of self-determination." The players in these destruction scenarios are often men, escaping the day to day reality of getting stuff done. The opposition of escapism from community togetherness versus care of one another is raised by the author. Traditionally, women have played the care givers in society as a whole, and I think have less opportunity, or even inclination, to give up on it.
From the exclusion zone around Chernobyl to groups of privileged seeking escapist options from the global environmental problems, this book is a fascinating ride-along of O’Connell’s 18 month dive into the world of the apocalypse proclaimers. From the Mars escapism fantasy to New Zealand outposts, I can’t help but think that some very wealthy people are spending a lot of money pursuing unlikely outcomes when that money could be doing so much good to directly reduce suffering and pain in the world as it is.
Perhaps my favorite snippet from the book was of a woman who directly faces that conflagration of ecological destruction and doesn’t give up. A firefighter of outback wildfires, she shares her experience with the burning world with the author. And he latches on to the terror she faces (literally faces!!): "So, this is something that has happened to you, in your own life, as a person? Actual snakes that are on fire have leapt towards you from vegetation that is also on fire?" At this question, the woman chuckles. Yep, if she can face that and still laugh, there is hope in the world. Like the author, if we want to turn away from attention-grabbing apocalyptic stories to reduce our anxiety, we have to place what is really going on in the world in our own context. As bad as it may be, life isn’t always burning snakes leaping at your face. And when they are, try not to lose your sense of humor.
jessicawoofter's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
plaidpladd's review against another edition
3.0
This book was interesting, although not hugely enlightening. It was at least good to know that I'm not alone in my preoccupations with these worries.
mginn01's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
liefkesusan's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
3.5
mckeelyshannon's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
One of my favorite lines from this book was “It was not the building of bunkers beneath private land that would allow us to survive the catastrophes we faced, but the strengthening of communities that already existed.”
miguelf's review against another edition
4.0
Reminiscent of an episode of This American Life, Notes muses on the author’s ennui regarding the many dangers facing humanity and that is followed up by a few adventures to confront those who dwell professionally or semiprofessionally in this environment. Thus we meet some doomsday preppers and get close to the uber rich making luxury bug out retreats in New Zealand. Written before the outbreak of Covid-19, it’s a timely book for all the wrong reasons but feels more pertinent for this reason.