The Avon/Equinox Rediscovery Series #18: The Judgement of Eve by Edgar Pangborn

See also #12 in the series, also by Pangborn.  That is the page that contains the rest of my Pangborn reviews.

 THE JUDGMENT OF EVE

Cover art by Patrick Woodruffe 

 This is the 2nd novel by Pangborn in the Avon/Equinox Series.

See also #12, A Mirror For Observers.    

From 1966 comes another near-masterpiece of writing.  The story takes place yet again in New England, post-holocaust.  Once more we have older people who remember the old times, and even some born in it but not remembering very much.  And there is the new generation, with no experience of life outside the medieval world they have been handed.   If you have already read Davy and The Company of Glory, you might know what to expect.  This novel comes four years after Davy and eight years before Glory.

It's nice to read a novel about post-apocalyptic Earth with very few evil men in it, and one that is mostly filled with calmness and intelligence.  Like the other two books mentioned above, this story hardly qualifies as science fiction.  Eve, at 28, is still single and lives with her ailing, blind mother on the family farm.  The farm is going to waste and needs someone to work it.  Caleb lives with them, a harmless mutant who does most of the farm chores.  Into Eve's lonely, near-hopeless life march three men, two of them young and one of them older.  She decides, after meeting them and liking all three, to send them on a mission, turning the story into an adult fairy tale of sorts.  Their mission is to return on October 1st (it is currently the first week of May) and tell her what they think love is.  When they return, she will choose one of them for a mate.

It is said that it is the journey, not the destination, that proves the most interesting.  The men separate and go off on their own adventures, hoping to return on time.  Thoughts of the beautiful and available Eve both torment and inspire them, and each man lives his summer differently.  They all meet up with other survivors and have completely different experiences, though a wild tiger winds its way briefly into each of their lives.  The older man was once a concert violinist, but his left arm was damaged beyond repair during the nuclear holocaust.  I can't see him being much use to Eve in running a farm, but his kindness and wisdom are not easily dismissed.  One of the two younger men is extremely near-sighted, though he manages to find some glasses.  He is a voracious reader, and spends most of his summer in an abandoned library reading.  It might be risky passing his genes along to their children, but it will take educated and knowledgeable people to improve the world.  The third man seems perfect, though he needs some tempering.

Ethan (the 3rd man) goes into the hills at one point of his journey in search of gods.  Here is a nice quote about religion from the book (p. 116):

...it seemed to Ethan that if there were gods they must dwell in the serenity of these hills, these and no others.  Real gods.  Not the big blurry Something-There which was the best you could get out of the religious people at Shelter Town, but knowledgeable, easy gods, with the potential of kindness and cruelty--makers of storm and spring and winter and the green of wet poplar bark.

The writing is filled with little gems like this.  It is a thoughtful book, not geared to action.  Though we don't go really deep into the characters, there is enough for us (and Eve) to judge who would be best suited to her as a mate.  While she could be happy with any one of the three, only one is likely to be able to get the farm going well.  And so the story ends without giving us her answer, which I found a bit strange.  It seems obvious who she should choose, though that is seldom the way love works.  At any rate, once she has chosen, the two others need not wander far off, and perhaps might get the nearby abandoned village repopulated and turned back into a useful patch of civilization.  One would hope they could all remain friends.  One wonders if Pangborn might have wanted her to accept all three men into her bed, something not likely to get past editors in 1966.

Don't read the book looking for or expecting easy answers.  Just enjoy the summer, the wanderings, the stray thoughts, the odd encounters, the strange ways of a brave new world, and the people who are forced back into a more primitive type of existence.  But most of all, read the book.

***1/2 stars.  Reviewed January 3rd/18
Proofread on March 2nd, 2019 

Mapman Mike