Speaking of William T. Vollmann; by the serendipity machine that is google I found ‘The Death of Grass’ by John Christopher as a suggestionwhile looking for ‘The Dying Grass’ novel, Its from 1956 (penguin modern classics) in the dystopian genre. The prodrome or introductory section sets the scene for the two Custance brothers who are visiting with their parents their grandad’s farm in the lake district. There having discovered that the elder Davey has a taste for farming and country life it is decided that he will inherit the farm. The other brother John wants to be an engineer and so indeed it turns out.
Fast forward to 1958, twenty five years later.
It opens up with the news of disturbances in China where the shortage of rice has caused unrest. A virus affecting the rice crop has destroyed the staple of the masses.
"What's the latest? Did you hear the news before you came out?'
'The Americans are sending more grain ships.'
'Anything from Peking?'
'Nothing official. It's supposed to be in flames. And at Hong Kong they've had to repel attacks across the frontier.'
'A genteel way of putting it,' John said grimly. 'Did you ever see those old pictures of the rabbit plagues in Australia? Wire-netting fences ten feet high, and rabbits - hundreds, thousands of rabbits - piled up against them, leap-frogging over each other until in the end either they scaled the fences or the fences went down under their weight. That's Hong Kong right now, except that it's not rabbits piled against the fence but human beings.'
But like any virus we have scientists to protect us from its predations by inventing a vaccine, a cure of some kind.
They isolated the virus within a month of it hitting the ricefields. They had it neatly labelled - the Chung-Li virus. All they had to do was to find a way of killing it which didn't kill the plant. Alternatively, they could breed a virus-resistant strain. And finally, they had no reason to expect the virus would spread so fast.'
The author has studied his species of grass and is able to tell us that rare rice grass is found in the Lakes district and that it too is affected. But not the grasses we like to eat; wheat, oats, barley and rye. Chung-Li is very selective.
Yes,' John said, 'wheat is a grass, too, isn't it?'
Wheat,' David said, 'and oats and barley and rye not to mention fodder for the beasts. It's rough on the Chinese, but it could have been a lot worse.'
'Yes,' Ann said, 'it could have been us instead. Isn't that what you mean? We had forgotten them again.
And probably in another five minutes we shall have found some other excuse for forgetting them.'
David crumpled the grass in his hand, and threw it into the river. It sped away on the swiftly flowing Lepe.
'Nothing else we can do,' he said.
Two hundred million have died in China despite partial success of the isotope 7 spray. Unfortunately it has released the phase 5 of the virus which had been masked and ineffective before that. It became more virulent and attacked all forms of gramineae, wheat etc. What are you going to feed the stock on without grass in one form or another.
Well not to worry. What?
'Yes,' Roger said, 'that's something that worries me, too. Every government in the world is going to be comforting itself with the same reassuring thought. The scientists have never failed us yet. We shall never really believe they will until they do.'
Can’t we all live on root crops even if we have no butter for our parsnips? Yes but, there will be panic in an orderly British fashion:
"The disaster in the East, it was explained, had been due as much as anything to the kind of failure in thoroughness that might be expected of Asiatics.”
John talking to David on his farm where he is visiting with his family learns that the order-in-council to plant potatoes where previously wheat was grown has been rescinded. Just the kind of confidence restoring measures that democracy specialises in. No good will come of it and David the farmer is going to put in potatoes and beet next spring. Moreover he is going to erect a high rampart across the neck of the narrow valley that his farm Blind Gill is on. At the back of the farm is a mountain so he can barricade himself in. He invites his brother and family to wait out on the farm any trouble which may happen.
Things very rapidly go South, which means that the family must go North from London to the brother’s place, the agricultural bunker. They learn that a Fascist takeover plans to nuke major cities to bring the population down to a feedable size. Can they make it in time? John’s friend from the propaganda ministry tells them they have got to get out now. That journey and its adventures have become a stock dystopian device. They learn that a sharp shooting killer is a useful member of a team and that being strong and ruthless in the war for survival is necessary. Roaming bands of marauders leave the cities. To be armed is essential. John Custance as leader of the little group driving and walking to Blind Gill must make decisions which would be unthinkable to the middle class engineer of a few days previously. He must kill without hesitation. Society has returned to a barbarism.
Its a short intense book much better written than the average of the genre. It was published in America as ‘No Blade of Grass’. Read it. Remember it happened to the humble potato. Now if there were an evil vegan scientist in Wuhan....
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