Max Brooks- World War Z

World War Z

Crown Publishing

Max Brooks

2006

“Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.”

Max Brook's 2006 pseudo-investigative journalism novel-turned-literary sale juggernaut World War Z by explaining how zombies took over the world prompted me to wonder the same question; just how did zombies take over the world? Well, the world of popular fiction on page and screen, at any rate. Sure, George R. Romero's first two zombie films Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead were brilliant, popular horror movies, but each sequel offered diminishing returns in quality or inspiration, and I really don't recall any big mainstream zombie fiction in the gap between Dawn of the Dead and the sudden explosion of popularity over the past six to eight years (if you discount cult successes like the Evil Dead films at anyrate). I think a large amount of credit for elevating the living dead so highly in the public imagination should go to Robert Kirkman and Image Comics The Walking Dead series from 2003, and obviously the subsequent TV show was massive, but maybe just as much credit should be given to (probably) the biggest selling zombie fiction novel of all time...

Brooks' more popular follow-up to his first novel The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z seems to have achieved a seriously impressive feat in terms of critical reception in relation to book sales, as in; it's all pretty good. I've lost count of the amount of times I've read people praising this novel over the last eight years, so it was about time that I, as self-processed zombie lover, read this book... and so I did, and found it a pretty quick and engaging read over its 300+ pages- but not without some noticeable flaws that stop me from seeing it as a future Penguin Modern Classic. Essentially the critical successes and failures of this book all ride on the author's specific and, some would say, ingenious choice of narrative formatting. The over-arching plot is instantly familiar; a deadly new virus resembling rabies suddenly appears in China, and a lack of understanding or investigation allows it to spread to other countries. As time goes on and the virus spreads, its effects quickly become clear- and no I'm not going to bother explaining them- leading to mass panic across the world as each country scrambles to send in its military to battle to problem, which all leads to the full-on World War Z of the title.

Max Brooks

It's easy to see how a premise like that could turn the heads of the millions of living dead fans out there and it certainly turned mine, but it's also the type of idea that isn't going to go anywhere without a capable author to stamp their mark on a simplistic genre. Brooks decision to frame the book as a series of in-depth interviews was an inspired and brave one, and ultimately directly results in both my favourite and least favourite aspects of the project. I'll be cynical and start with the problems; most notably Brooks set himself a difficult challenge when he forced himself to create dozens of individual characters from all over the globe; especially the first person interview-subject narrative meant each character needed their own voice, distinctive enough to avoid repetition and the subsequent eventual destruction of any audience suspense of disbelief. Overall I think he personally just about gets away with creating a decent ratio of interesting to inevitably dull characters. I apologise for being a literary snob, but to me Brooks really isn't a standout prose author like the kind I usually fawn over, but instead a perfectly capable storyteller with a sense of the screenwriter about him in terms of his mostly realistic dialogue. There were some examples of characters whose voices seemed identical, but then there were also some standout hits.

My favourite of these were two characters who gave their stories and then promptly teamed-up, Kondo Tatsumi and Sensei Tomonaga. With those two Brooks impressed me with his ability to make their voices distinctive from the book's many Westerners, and in doing so composed two compelling short stories containing action, horror and a poignant tone. One of the major advantages of choosing this type of format for his fictional journalism for Brooks was his chance to write a series of short stories with thematic similarities, letting him repeatedly capture the readers attention with fresh scenarios while constantly reinforcing the main points he wanted to make. Unfortunately for me, one of the key themes that just kept on reoccuring was Brooks interest in the technical aspects of war, leading him to veer away from the zombie killing and character refining for the sake of giving lots of details about the various military hardware being used to fight the war. I have no idea if any (or all) of them are even real but I assume so, and so that sort of writing most likely gives the book an air of legitimacy, but frankly I couldn't care less about any of that stuff. I wasn't really interested in much of the war-based drama to be honest, particularly in the fragmented way Brooks presents it through the various interviews.

In my opinion World War Z isn't good enough overall to deserve to be called a modern classic, but I did mostly enjoy it and can absolutely see it as a cult classic novel. The scope and ambition is admirable and leads to moments of great storytelling, but I don't think Brooks had the prose voice nor spark of ingenious to pull the the pieces into enough of a cohesive plot for the book to reach the levels that it might have. I think it could've especially done with being edited for length and really needed a better ending, but I can't help respecting how Brooks' approach to the stagnating zombie genre helped resurrect the living dead once more by moving away from the cliche of a small group of survivors by taking it global. A fun, derivative book that I likely won't read again, but should fondly remember.