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General => The Stay Safe Board => Topic started by: groom on Wednesday 22 July 20 17:45 BST (UK)
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I’m re-reading “World Without End” by Ken Follett and have just reached the part when the plague has arrived at the town of Kingsbridge. One of the main characters has returned from Florence after surviving “ La Moria grande.” He is telling, Caris, a nun who works in the hospital , what the Italians did.
" In Florence the nuns counselled us to stay at home as much as possible and avoid social gatherings, markets and meetings of guilds and councils. The nuns wore linen masks over their mouths and noses and washed their hands in vinegar after touching the patients.” Sound familiar?
Have you read any fiction or non fiction that could almost describe how we have dealt with Covid 19?
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I've been thinking about books, groom. It's not Love in the Time of Cholera, more like Day of the Triffids. Maybe there's one in a Prachett Diskworld that might be appropriate.
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By coincidence, I was reading Daniel Defoe's 'Journal of the Plague Year' (1665) when the pandemic started so it seemed very topical and interesting to read how the plague spread in London and how the authorities dealt with it.
I was rather impressed to read that in some ways they were better looked after than we were. If a family was 'locked up', a guard would be appointed to stand at the door to ensure that no-one entered or left without permission; doctors and nurses were allowed entry. Part of the job of the guard was to run messages for the locked-in family, as well as doing their shopping, and summoning help if required.
Obviously, families who were locked in weren't over-keen on being shut up, and it was not uncommon for them to send the guards off on complicated errands, and in their absence break out of the back of the house and leave London - taking the plague with them, presumably.
There was also a problem with people frequenting taverns and getting drunk after witnessing the 'funerals' of their loved ones. These consisted of bodies being put onto a cart full of other corpses at night, driven to a plague pit, and the entire cargo unceremoniously tipped into the pit.
Just the sort of light-hearted reading required for the beginning of a pandemic!
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Not a book but some years ago we visited the village of Eyam in Derbyshire.
In 1665/1666 there was an outbreak of the plague and lead by their local Rector they isolated themselves from the outside World for 14 months. Food was left at the entrances to the village from the nearby Chatsworth Estate and was paid for by coins left in vinegar.
We have been there before.
Dorrie
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I'd love to visit Eyam, Dorrie - I've heard about how they isolated themselves to prevent spread of the plague. Am I right in thinking it was the vicar who led them, and supported them, whilst losing his own family?
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Little bit worrying that we are still doing the same thing 400 years later!
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I suppose we are in a similar situation because, as a new virus, we have no vaccine, no magic medicine to make it go away. To begin with, no-one knew how to deal with it, how it spread, how long it remained on surfaces. For all our technology, we've been laid low by a collection of proteins. (I must say I have problems understanding a virus as not a 'living' thing as we know it. It doesn't hop about, it doesn't think or move of its own volition. It just exists and multiplies within a host.)
In 'Journal of the Plague Year' Defoe describes a conversation with a plague nurse who spent her time travelling from infected house to infected house, caring for stricken people. When asked how she avoided catching the plague, she explained that she had a close-fitting bonnet which she soaked in vinegar before she went into each house, and also put vinegar on her clothes and hands. Seemed to have worked for her.
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'Doomsday Book' by Connie Willis is a science fiction novel which has a number of parallels to the present time. Kivrin who is a university time traveller sent back to observe medieval times first hand finds herself accidentally out of the planned time range and goes through to the time of the Black Death. Meanwhile forward in the time from which Kivrin has come from people are being laid low from a deadly 'mysterious strain of influenza' and no one is willing to risk a rescue mission for Kivrin.
At times whilst reading this book I almost felt like the author had had a premonition of now.
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I'll put that on my reading list!
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It's quite uncanny how life repeats itself!
I've read both the Ken Follett and Daniel Defoes books and the parallels are remarkable. Perhaps we should soak our masks in vinigar before going out...
I'm still not convinced we'll get a vaccine that will be conclusive... they've never found one for malaria or aids or influenza..... the thought that this could debilitate countries for years to come doesn't bear thinking about...
It's hard to think that life won't be the same again.... it's like being in a bad dream and hoping you'll wake up and it's all gone!
You have to wonder if something like this comes round every so often as a natural culling of humanity and to bring us all up short as we've all over indulged in life... a wake up call I suppose....
Caroline
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This morning I came across details of a 2011 film directed by Stephen Sonerbergh called 'Contagion' which apparently has become very popular home viewing during lockdown. It is the story of a virus which escapes from a Chinese lab and causes a pandemic followed by societal melt-down; so just the sort of thing we need to cheer us up currently.
I asked daughter whether it was worth watching. "Put it like this" she replied. "It certainly mirrors this pandemic well because it goes on for so long that you end up feeling bored with it".
I think I might watch it anyway. Free with Prime.
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I asked daughter whether it was worth watching. "Put it like this" she replied. "It certainly mirrors this pandemic well because it goes on for so long that you end up feeling bored with it".
I think I might watch it anyway. Free with Prime.
Hi G
I think we've all been through enough already, with some still facing challenges, so won't be watching it.
Despite an old condition, I'm trying to keep my body's vital power up physically and mentally as much as possible.
Take care, Mark
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It's quite uncanny how life repeats itself!
I'm still not convinced we'll get a vaccine that will be conclusive... they've never found one for malaria or aids or influenza..... the thought that this could debilitate countries for years to come doesn't bear thinking about...
It's hard to think that life won't be the same again.... it's like being in a bad dream and hoping you'll wake up and it's all gone!
You have to wonder if something like this comes round every so often as a natural culling of humanity and to bring us all up short as we've all over indulged in life... a wake up call I suppose....
Caroline
Yes, YES and YES!!
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I've been struggling to concentrate to read . I'd planned on making my way through the pile of 'books to read' on my shelf during lockdown but I haven't got very far. Is it just me?
I have however got quite a nice tidy garden and an oven that's been cleaned!
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I've tried to put aside an hour or so every afternoon to read, although sometimes I fall asleep! I have about 300 books on my Kindle, so I'm working my way through some I read quite a few years ago.
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We watched the ‘Inferno’ DVD the other night, - adapted from the Dan Brown book, and starring Tom Hanks. It’s the one about a plot to release a virus which will destroy mankind!
Very topical, - except the plot is foiled, and the virus isn’t released!
And of course there’s ‘Death in Venice’... but that has plague!
Romilly.
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Also, - meant to add,
‘The Machine Stops’, book by E.M.Forster, - very relevant at the moment...
Romilly.
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At the start of all “THIS” an old gentleman living at the far end of my road and whose house I pass, was in his front garden.
We exchanged views,and he stated that it was “ germ warfare” the Chinese had the antidote but would not release it to other countries,I said but so many have died in Wuhan,” Ah yes, but Mao Tse Tung marched millions of his people across China and five million died along the way, so many people were as nothing to the Chinese government.No difference now, it is all about World Domination, you mark my words!”.
Do you know, I am starting to wonder!
Just as with Influenza ,this will probably mutate and a new vaccine will be needed every year ,a couple of years ago it was not as good as it needed to be and I for one was ill for nine weeks ,then info was released that it had not been a good vaccine that year,well Covid 19 is not ‘Flu ,soo—-?
The last great emergency was after a period of intense deprivation and a cataclysmic war ,then a hedonistic period which seems to get worse .
What things will be like if we ever get over this we can’t tell,but I hope people are not so self centred and get devastated if they break a nail.!
We are a generous country and have a core of wonderful people, unselfish and caring ,but also,a lot of the other kind,let’s hope philanthropy wins over
selfishness.
There is a good chance it will, let’s face it, it will have to.
Viktoria.
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Romilly - I've recently read 'The Machine Stops' and yes that's another interesting book. Very impressive how EM Forster foresaw the internet and instant messaging etc; chilling stuff. I like the sound of 'Inferno'. I'll put that on my list after 'Contagion'.
Not on the same theme but certainly dystopian is 'Snowpiercer' which is currently showing on Netflix. Best and most exciting series I've watched for a long time. Incidentally I'm interleaving the watching and reading of all this grim stuff with binge-watching Downton Abbey which certainly brings some light relief both to my viewing and to life in general! ;D
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The Unparalleled Invasion by Jack London. Published in 1910.
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Thanks for the pointers Greensleeves:-)
Inferno is I think, one of the trilogy of Dan Brown films? The first one was the Da Vinci Code, - I can’t remember the middle one!
We’ve just finished watching all 3 series of ‘Broadchurch’, - I feel lost now!
Romilly.
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La Peste by Albert Camus
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I'd totally forgotten about that one - it was on a reading list I was given in the 1960s - a distant pre-plague past
PS - I've just looked and see that I've still got it after all this time
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I never have any trouble reading, though a lot of it has been fairly light fiction. I have mixed in any non-fiction I have in the house. But housework and cleaning the oven ( :o) are as far down the list as they always have been.
I have just got hold of and re-read a book, which is mainly about the development of kitchen gadgets, but the author also had a theory about housework. When servants became hard to find, the middle class women became servants themselves, partly because all sorts of things were being invented which pushed her that way. The work should have been outsourced. The book was written in the late 80s, and now a lot of outsourcing is in fact happening.
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Just finished watching the film 'Contagion' (2011), and the parallels with the current pandemic are astonishing. China, bat virus transferring to pigs, then to humans via meat processing... The outbreak, the realisation that the virus could remain active on surfaces for long periods of time, and the frantic search for a vaccine.
The film didn't foresee people claiming that the virus was a hoax, or burning down 5G masts, or refusing to wear masks, but on the whole the current situation was pretty well, and chillingly, mirrored.
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I’m re-reading “World Without End” by Ken Follett and have just reached the part when the plague has arrived at the town of Kingsbridge. One of the main characters has returned from Florence after surviving “ La Moria grande.” He is telling, Caris, a nun who works in the hospital , what the Italians did.
" In Florence the nuns counselled us to stay at home as much as possible and avoid social gatherings, markets and meetings of guilds and councils. The nuns wore linen masks over their mouths and noses and washed their hands in vinegar after touching the patients.” Sound familiar?
Have you read any fiction or non fiction that could almost describe how we have dealt with Covid 19?
I read a book that discussed a smallpox outbreak, I think it was in Quebec. One Bishop advised his parishoners to gather together and pray or an end of it and held more frequent communion services. The other advised order the use of the common cup to be stopped temporarily, and advised his flock to stay at home and pray with their families to protect everyone by being apart. Can't remember the book though.
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The Camus thing is on Radio 4 Britain Sunday afternoon. Performed by actors in lockdown?
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I have recently come across a review of a novel with a pandemic theme called 'The Pull of Stars' by Emma Donoghue. It is set 1918 in a Dublin understaffed city hospital when the flu pandemic was causing public terror. Nurse Julia Power has a fight on her hands to try to save the lives of the quarantined mothers and their unborn babies when two outsiders arrive into her 'regimented world' to help. One is Doctor Kathleen Lynn who is on the run from the police. The story was apparently inspired by this real life woman who had been a pioneering doctor and Sinn Fein activist. The other is a young volunteer called Bridie Sweeney. The story is told over three intense days wherein the women change each others lives in unexpected ways.
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Thanks for the pointers Greensleeves:-)
Inferno is I think, one of the trilogy of Dan Brown films? The first one was the Da Vinci Code, - I can’t remember the middle one!
We’ve just finished watching all 3 series of ‘Broadchurch’, - I feel lost now!
Romilly.
The film I couldn’t remember is ‘Angels and Demons’ from a book by Dan Brown.
Romilly.
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How disappointing! I thought this would be a thread about reincarnation....
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I had this book on my bookshelf and had never read it but I recently did and found it very interesting on describing the black plague and how different areas of Europe reacted to i.
The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe - Robert Steven Gottfried
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All this just goes to prove, there's nothing new under the sun!
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Another good book on the same topic is The Return of the Black Death by Susan Scott & Christopher Duncan. The blurb states that the authors'trace the origins of the ...disease, through possible outbreaks in classical times back to its animal hosts in Africa'. The Black Death was haemorrhagic plague, not bubonic. I've read it twice because it has some interesting theories [and I keep forgetting the details ;D].
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'A Distant Mirror ; The Calamitous 14th century' by Barbara Tuchman is an interesting read, covering the disasters of plague and famine in those times. Not comfortable reading, but very informative.
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In 1977, there was a short story called The Screwfly Solution"
The basic premise was that aliens wanted the Earth, and the best way to get it nice and cleanly, without "dirtying" their hands was to infect the women in such a way that they did not like their men, to the extent of eliminating the men.
A little more drastic that the Covid 19, but...............