Reading the plague to write its stories

Reading the Plague

To be a writer you have to be a reader first - words of advice from an author who kindly spent time with me some years ago encouraging me to take up the pen but to make sure that I always kept up with reading. And for once, the lockdown means I actually have some quality time for varied reading.

A quick trawl of the internet reveals a veritable tsunami of writing about coronavirus. A combination of predictions of doom and castigation of any human misdemeanour, a cluster of conspiracy theories, an avalanche of advice (much of it unfounded, unproven and utterly useless in the face of an illness that has no cure), a cry of horror at something that threatens humanity - not human life, because that is lost in its thousands daily, neglectfully cast aside and wantonly wasted by run-of-the-mill tyranny, rampant capitalism and ordinary human cruelty. The threat we fear is the threat to the comfortable sense of control that humans like to have over their lives, over the world, over nature. 

When terrified - because fear is the over-riding emotion every person seems to share with everyone else during times of plague - humanity turns to stories, to narratives that might provide some kind of explanation, that might help an understanding of the chaos that appears to have suddenly arrived in our midst. So we flick through social media, and scroll through our search engines, allowing the time we have left to trickle through our fingers while we grasp at the straws that are slung out across the ether by everyone else, who feels pretty much the same.

So in the face of this endless stream of words, how can we best select what we read to obtain information, inspiration and, possibly, solace?

Solace in Stories

We, as a species, function intellectually through stories. We understand the world through narratives that exhibit patterns that our brains can pick out, recognise and to which we respond almost instinctively. Once we learn to read, to assimilate written information and assess this subliminally, and in particular once we soak ourselves in fiction reading, we simply can't stop. 

And once we join in the writing of those narratives, we can't stop that either. So I've put together a list of some of the writing I've enjoyed reading these past few days of staying home. I hope some of the ideas of further reading helps relieve any of my readers who might be bored, and inspire some fellow-writers to add to the welter of words storming through our world right now.

"Reading is an infection, a burrowing into the brain: books contaminate, metaphorically, and even microbiologically...But, of course, books are also a salve and a consolation." A short excerpt from Jill Lepore's article in The New Yorker of 30th March 2020, "What our contagion fables are really about" which takes a stroll through the literature of plague and touches on some of the fears humankind experiences through plague - in the face of so much progress, plague, pestilence, pandemic represent dramatic regress.

What our contagion fables are really about

Pandemics spare no person, no culture, no community. Poets have written about disease in so many ways, in all of humanity's languages. In Night Visitor, the medieval Iraqui-Syrian poet, al-Mutannabi, wrote an ode to fever:

"For she does not pay her visits save under cover of darkness,

I freely offered her my linen and my pillows,

But she refused them, and spent the night in my bones.

My skin is too contracted to contain both my breath and her,

So she relaxes it with all sorts of sickness.

When she leaves me, she washes me

As though we had retired apart for some forbidden action.

It is as though the morning drives her away,

And her lachrymal ducts are flooded in their four channels.

I watch for her time without desire,

Yet with the watchfulness of the eager lover."

(al-Mutannabi  (915-965))

For an interesting look at 1400 years of Middle Eastern writing about plagues and contagion, try this article by Mustapha Abu Seineh of 27 March 2020 in the Middle East Eye:

Plague and Poetry: How Middle East authors have written about disease

And here, in the Library of Economics and Liberty, Sarah Skwire offers some pandemic reading to help you through whatever hours of boredom that might be plaguing your lockdown:

Five Books about plagues and pandemics and five books to make you feel better

Personally, I'm opting for complete escapism and disappearing into some fantasy world or other, maybe Tolkein, perhaps Pratchett or possibly Pullman, or Rowling, or even a re-run of Moorcock...