The Death of Grass - Jan 2023 - Book Group discussion thread

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Vixx
Vixx
Jan 2023
9:08pm, 16 Jan 2023
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Vixx
Yes, and worth a read - it'll take an adult possibly 90 minutes or so :)

(It was marketed as a book for teenagers and I was one at that point who had read the original three and watched the TV series (and has the DVDs).
Vixx
Vixx
Jan 2023
9:11pm, 16 Jan 2023
1,794 posts
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Vixx
amazon.co.uk
McGoohan
McGoohan
Jan 2023
9:15pm, 16 Jan 2023
52,314 posts
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McGoohan
I was just reading a review where apparently when the TV show came to the end of the second series the announcer said, 'And if you want to know what happens next... you'll have to read the book!' :-)
Vixx
Vixx
Jan 2023
9:30pm, 16 Jan 2023
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Vixx
Wouldn't surprise me. They only made the first two books.
Columba
Columba
Jan 2023
5:51pm, 18 Jan 2023
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Columba
Though I read the book before (probably soon after it came out, which was in 1956) I remembered next to nothing about it, and don't know what I made of it at the time. The only incident I remembered was Mary complaining that the fishcakes they were given in school had less and less fish, and more and more potato.

Reading it now, I felt that the children (and adults too, but children especially) would surely have been more traumatised than John Christopher makes them. But possibly not. The wartime traumas will still have been fresh in many people's memories, and perhaps people who had been through those had acquired ways of coping. And John Christopher's children seem unrealistically biddable; but that too may not have been unrealistic in the 1950s.

All that bare brown earth, though, when the grass has died... I think lawns would have been as green as ever, but green with the moss and clover which lurk around the roots of the grass, not to mention the dandelions, docks, thistles, nettles etc. which would have moved in to colonise the grass-free ground. And I couldn't understand why people were so set on growing potatoes and nothing else. What about peas and beans, cabbages, tomatoes? Ok, no sheep and cattle, but goats and rabbits are edible and don't have to be fed on grass.
LindsD
LindsD
Jan 2023
5:52pm, 18 Jan 2023
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LindsD
Good points
Columba
Columba
Jan 2023
6:10pm, 18 Jan 2023
22,099 posts
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Columba
The idea of the government actually planning to bomb major cities in order to reduce the number of people starving and rioting seems more than a little far-fetched. But perhaps not.

Like Lord of the Flies (which came out at very much the same time), the book explores the rapid degeneration of civilised behaviour into strong-man led tribalism.
McGoohan
McGoohan
Feb 2023
8:36pm, 3 Feb 2023
52,373 posts
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McGoohan
Well... that was bleak
McGoohan
McGoohan
Feb 2023
8:37pm, 3 Feb 2023
52,374 posts
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McGoohan
'Oh Clive, must you be so beastly?'
'Susan,' he growled, 'You know I'm only doing what's necessary.'
'Daddy!' little Percy exclaimed, 'Can we bring along my best friend, Floofy?'
Clive considered the proposition. 'Of what quality is his father?'
'He is the school janitor.'
Clive's eyes widened. Snazzo was a lumpen child but he might make a tasty broth if cooked with a few shallots. 'By all means,' Clive said.
'Will things ever get back to normal, husband?' Susan asked, once more on the brink of tears.
'Of course my darling. It will all be as before.' He touched her face affectionately. 'But that's for later. Right now, those rival gangs won't execute themselves, will they, you silly goose?'
'I suppose not,' she said, smiling through her tears.
'Now, help me skin this working class chappie and you can cook him with some seasonable vegetables while I smoke my pipe and stand guard.'
Peregrinator
Peregrinator
Feb 2023
9:05pm, 3 Feb 2023
1,114 posts
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Peregrinator
😊Well, yes

About This Thread

Maintained by McGoohan
January 2023's book is The Death of Grass by John Christopher as chosen by BintMcSkint.

Owing to the book's title, I suppose you'll be expecting me to make some sort of marajuana/grass/drugs pun here. But I won't, I tell you, I won't. And if you don't like it, you can stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Damn!

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