Noah's Castle - The Complete Series [DVD]

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Having known that throughout the book, I think I would have been better able to see things from his father's point of view, and the moral dilemma would have been more compelling. The theme music is one of the eeriest, most haunting soundtracks I've ever heard, and the ending was pure mastery- the credits rolled against an image of an army checkpoint at sunset, men and vehicles silhouetted against the sky whilst a radio news commentary interspursed bulletins of the various doom-laden events of the day. The story explores how the members of the family, and those around them, survive and grow during one winter of the crisis. My problem was the viewpoint of the author that a father who tries to take care of his family is somehow evil and that sacrificing yourself and your family for the greater good is somehow noble.

Although the author has set up an ethical dilemma, he presents several sides of the issue, and doesn't push a final conclusion, which was refreshing. Noah’s Castle tackles all of these issues to varying extents, but to my mind its lasting power lies in the sensory rendering it provides of how it might feel when a society actually, in real time, starts to collapse: everything pretty much normal, maybe just a bit worse—with a background noise of helicopters, sirens, smashing glass, running feet, and tolling bells gradually growing louder in the background. When people are not able to easily (or at all) obtain food, the seemingly strong fabric of society frays almost instantly.To contemporary readers, Noah’s Castle will probably look dated and a bit trite, but by the standards of the day it was unpatronizing and adult in its ambiguity and refusal to draw inch-thick lines between goodies and baddies.

People like Christopher Fairbank ( AUF WEIDERSEIN PET ) , Lee McDonald ( GRANGE HILL ) and Alun Lewis ( EMMERDALE ) . You could say that tales of economic division, social unrest, shortages and repression have become mainstream fodder in more recent times for a younger audience via the likes of the film and book series The Hunger Games (2012-2015 and 2008-2010 respectively). It is Norman’s solipsistic, patriarchal approach to life—a damaged worldview resulting from a childhood dominated by another man’s traumatizing self-obsession, and now playing out in another form through his son, and so on for ever—that creates, at least in part, the social fragmentation he so fears. Possibly not the best book to be reading during this period of global unrest and inflationary fun, but I heard about this book as being a fascinating "what if" look at a socioeconomic collapse in post-war Great Britain.There is an almost canon of late 1960s and 1970s British television dramas and series that have come to be seen as hauntological touchstones and which have resonated through the years and come to represent an otherly spectral folklore.

It blew aside any notion that the collapse of modern civilisation would in any way be some kind of glamorous, Hollywood-type adventure, and accurately showed it for what the Punk movement has always told us it would be- squalid, dirty, diseased and starving, with the army patrolling the streets, riots a common event, and the cities festooned with barbed wire and subject to curfews.There is no easy side for the reader to take, and the excitement over the moral issues alone will keep you wanting to read. The story was so well-written I am planning on tracking down more of John Rowe Townsend's books to read in the future. I think it's important to keep that in mind while reading, as while most of the book stands the test of time, there are parts which are a little dated. Episodes focused around how living in this new UK with is almost military junta government affected the main characters lives.