BookTalk.org

... defensive line at the Rocky Mountains
... living dead assaulting the Rocky Line and festering within our 'safe zone'
... fuse a fractured landscape into the modern American war machine
... everyone was some version of an 'executive' ... suited to the prewar world
... a lot of graves needed to be dug
... infusing these sedentary, overeducated, desk bound cubicle mice with the knowledge necessary to make it.


I was reminded of The Zombie War in reading an old book, The Gnostic Jung, a Commentary on Seven Sermons to the Dead. Jung wrote his very obscure and mystical sermons in 1916 at the height of the first world war when mass slaughter was underway on the Somme. Jung starts off "the dead came back from Jerusalem, where they did not find what they were seeking." Later he says, "the dead caused a great riot, because they were Christians... the dead howled and raved greatly, for they were still incomplete ones. "

In the 1982 commentary by Stephen Hoeller, he suggests that the dead described by Jung are living people who lack any spiritual awareness. The Gnostics classed humanity into three grades. The hylic cannot see beyond the material, and are spiritually dead, rather like zombies. The psychic are spiritually alive but deluded. The Gnostics are those who are spiritually enlightened, called pneumatics.

This made me wonder if Max Brooks is suggesting that mass culture is somewhat zomboid, steadily crowding out all signs of humanity and life on earth...