Is "Time Enough at Last" a tough cookie, or what? Tough on Mr. Henry Beemis, particularly. All the man wants to do is read a good book, a newspaper, and enjoy what the written word has to offer. He has an enthusiasm for reading that should rub off on others, you'd think, but to a boss concerned about his bank's financial health for the long term and a wife who simply wants him to be miserable it seems, the idea of burying yourself into a book of poems or David Copperfield produces the worst kind of adult. I think there's not just a parable about man's eventual destruction of himself (when the H-bombs drop from the country powers of the Earth) here but the falling away from a love for literature and the knowledge produced when one immerses themselves into works of fiction and non-fiction thanks to the day-to-day operations of a progressive society moving "at the beat of the clock" is even more elaborated. The tragedy is that Beamis will finally have time without the interference of others who loathe the whole idea of reading and still be denied the ability to do so
life can certainly be cruel. The incredible sets used for the destructed city, all the rubble and structural damage, are phenomenal and poor Burgess Meredith walking among a once thriving community, now a graveyard, broken remnants of what once was really leaves quite an impression. Truly a pitiable character is Beamis, victimized for simply enjoying what should be privileged to him, then later having a chance to finally embellish in the freedom to engage all the books of a massive catalogue from a library no longer in use thanks to mankind's inability to get along. Almost ending his life with a gun found amongst the rubble, he is spared such a fate when his beady eyes, increased in size thanks to his glass' lenses, catch the fallen pillar of a gutted library. There are plenty reasons this episode remains a hallmark of The Twilight Zone. The glasses which has Burgess' eyes popping is quite an iconic image, and kind of creates a cartoon out of him, while his hearty giggle when able to read his book at the teller's station indicates that his greatest pleasures are not in the world around him but of the world created in literature.
Review of Time Enough at Last
