This book, published in 1951, speculates about the consequences of a monumental life-changing event.
As the story opens, World War II recently ended, the cold war is causing tension between the U.S. and Russia, and Americans are getting on with their lives.
Dr. William Gaunt, Ph.D. is a highly respected philosopher living in Miami, Florida with his wife, Dr. Paula Gaunt.
Paula has an M.A and a Ph.D. in ancient and modern languages: Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Russian, and a bit of Chinese. William was pleased and proud, but perhaps slightly patronizing, when Paula continued to study in the early years of their marriage, expecting her to be a homemaker and mother. Nevertheless, William gladly makes use of Paula's talent to critique his lectures and papers.
William exemplifies the patronizing attitude men have towards women in the mid-20th century, no matter how accomplished the females are. The Gaunts' daughter Edwinna tells it as it is when she rails at her mother: Phooie! Twenty years of hard studying to learn a lot of things you've never used. Twenty-seven years of being dad's housekeeper and errand boy. All you do is write grocery lists in plain English and add drugstore bills and count dirty clothes.
That's all about to change. On February 14, 1950, the world splits into (what I'll call) two dimensions. In one dimension all the human females disappear, leaving only men.
In the alternate dimension, all the human males disappear, leaving only women.
This happens instantaneously, so in the women's world, planes are suddenly pilotless, trains are abruptly without engineers, delivery trucks lose their drivers, and so on. And women pregnant with boys suddenly find the mounds of their abdomens relaxed, caved in, all evidence of pregnancy vanished.
In the men's world, wives, mothers, daughters, housekeepers, etc. abruptly vanish. Food is left on the stove to burn; nurses disappear from patients' bedsides; frightened little boys wail for their mommies; etc.
In the first moments after the split, there are crashes and chaos in the women's world;
and bewilderment and fright in the men's world. No one can fathom, much less believe, what happened.
In the men's realm, William Gaunt speculates this might be mass hypnosis or universal schizophrenia.
In the women's realm, Paula Gaunt immediately has to deal with a flaming power pole felled by a car crash. And in both domains, America and Russia point fingers at each other.
Once the confusion subsides, and both genders realize they're now on their own, the men and women start to deal with the bizarre situation. On the men's side, Russia and the U.S embark on a short-lived nuclear war, then make peace.
On the women's side, by contrast, American and Russian women arrange a détente and work together.
In the men's realm, the president of the U.S. summons a 'Committee of Savants' to Washington for discussion and investigation, and Dr. Gaunt heads one of the committees. Since the men's domain is chock full of scientists and researchers, they try to find a scientific explanation for what happened, with hopes of finding a solution.
In his committee reports, Dr. Gaunt philosophizes endlessly about Adam and Eve; men and women; right and wrong; etc. and it's clear author Philip Wylie is using Gaunt as a mouthpiece for his own views. (This frequent cogitating gets old fast.)
In the women's realm, the wives of vanished politicians try to form a government of sorts, but get caught up in discussions of a suitable uniform for members - which should be chic, to keep up morale.
"The secretary of state, twice listed amongst America's ten best-dressed women, had had the forethought to invite to the congress her world-famed couturier, Elsie Bazzmalk." (Talk about a cliché, but the book needs some comic relief. LOL).
Homosexual activity increases in both dimensions, and as might be expected, the men's world (at least in the U.S.) manufactures sex dolls. This gives author Philip Wylie an opening to speculate about men and women and marriage.
When Gaunt sees a store selling sex dolls, he ponders: "To many men, a wife was little more than such an object as these dolls. Men of that sort were allured by the externals....They married not a personality - a mind, a cultural entity, a bundle of genes, ideas, or a soul - but a blue-eyed blonde with a good figure....Their 'love' was confined to using her as an erotic toy.....His [real life] chosen mate would age....child-bearing, child-rearing, domestic duties, and perhaps a job (along with the years) would gradually destroy in his mate every vestige for the reason he had once discovered for marrying her." Of course, these men might ditch their wives for young women.
As for the women, Gaunt thinks, "Often too, such a wife's not unnatural opinion that she was more than mechanical lust-putty led her to resentment." So, "both she and her miserable husband became embodiments of a general resentment - against each other, life, and the wide world."
Unfortunately for the female world, no women have run factories, power plants, homesteads, mines, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and so on, and things are very tough for them. Paula Gaunt becomes the head of various committees, and she's instrumental in organizing small farms, fire departments (such as they are), police departments (such as they are), delivery services, health care, hunting parties, and other necessities.
Nevertheless, the women's world reverts to something between being hunter-gatherers and primitive farmers, as in prehistoric times. There are nurses, but very few doctors, and - once the medicine runs out - disease runs rampant. Moreover, most industries soon revert to rust and ruins.
The men's side does much better with technology, but the men's homes become messy and untended; their clothing gets slovenly and dirty; they lose their appetites; they feel sad and depressed; and so on.
Both men's and women's worlds attempt parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction) to produce babies, but aren't successful. And both worlds experience violence, looting, murder, and havoc of all kinds.
The separation goes on year after year......and that's all I'll say.
I'd like to think an experience like this would teach both genders a lesson: men to respect and value women as more than wives, mothers, and helpmates; and women to assert themselves and insist on self-fulfillment on their own terms. I'm not sure if this happens in 'The Disappearance', but kudos to author Philip Wylie for (at least) understanding the issues.
Author Philip Wylie
I've seen reviews criticizing the book's homophobic and racist overtones, and though this is grating, I don't think it's unusual for the 1950s. It would be interesting to see the 'disappearance' premise addressed in current times, when women (at least in the Western world) have diverse careers; same-sex marriage hardly turns heads; and cloning babies is a real possibility.
The book is worth reading just for the speculative (though not completely unheard of) premise. Recommended to fans of dystopian novels.
Rating: 4 stars
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