I suspect that before too long, we’re going to be faced with an epidemic of fiction involving characters living through a time of contagion. It remains to be seen how many of them will be worth reading.
But what if writers of earlier generations had written their works during the spread of COVID-19? How would it have affected their novels? Here, in no particular order, are some ruminations.
Great Vaccinations, by Charles Dickens
A coming-of-age saga revolving around the growth and education of a young orphan. After a childhood of relative poverty, he receives a mysterious bequest that allows him to move to the capital and pursue his dreams of lowering the reproductive rate. Later, Dickens again used the pandemic as a subject in his A Tale of WHO Cities.
100 Years of Lockdown, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“Many years later, as he faced the vaccination squad, the colonel was to remember that distant afternoon when his father told him about the pandemic.” That’s the first sentence of this beloved magic realist novel. It deals with several generations of a single family in eternal quarantine because the patriarch refused to believe that the end of the lockdown had been announced.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Epidemiologist, by John le Carré
An espionage classic in which a taciturn public health expert is called out of retirement to identify a secret super-spreader of the virus. To uncover the name of this individual, the epidemiologist will have to discern fact from fiction in the accounts of hospital staff, bureaucrats, politicians and believers in herd immunity.
A Passage to Wuhan, by EM Forster
A trip to a faraway wet market is the centrepiece of this incisive work. The characters try to bridge differences of personality and background, only to find that the time is not yet right. Known for its famous scene in which a woman is accosted by an echo in the marketplace, while the others wonder whether it is merely the sound of bats’ wings. Forster was also to write a novel on the trials of working from home, Zoom with A View.
The Great Antibody, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In this influential short work, a mysterious stranger throws lavish, crowded parties attended by the rich and famous. In time, the narrator learns that the reason for this is the belief that if an increasing number of people are infected, it can result in more life-saving antibodies. As he realises: “They were careless people – they spread the virus then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Covid-22, by Joseph Heller
A great satirical novel that ranges across the points of view of several characters who do their best to stay away from the virus. It throws light on the absurdity of bureaucratic procedures, such as the stipulation that asymptomatic persons can spread the virus, but only those with symptoms can get tested.
Foolysses, by James Joyce
A challenging modernist classic that investigates a period of 24 hours during which an advertising executive wanders the streets of a city in strict lockdown. He comes across a number of other characters in pubs and outdoor gatherings, and cautions them about their foolhardy behaviour. In the well-known final scene, his wife, irritated at being asked again whether she will wear a mask, replies: “Yes I said yes I will Yes.”
The Handwasher’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Set in a patriarchal world of the near future, this is a chilling dystopian fable in which women have to wash their hands every hour. If they fail to do so, they are made to suffer by washing the laundry of the entire neighbourhood. Reportedly, detergent and sanitiser companies are in a bidding war to sponsor the forthcoming TV adaptation.
Far from the Lockdown Crowd, by Thomas Hardy
A poignant love story about a man who flees an urban containment zone to become a shepherd in a faraway county. Here, he finds the woman of his dreams and marries her after a series of chaotic ups and downs that involve social distancing from farmyard animals.
The Swiss Family Remdesivir, by Johann Wyss
A humble family’s rise to prominence is the subject of this moving chronicle. Starting from relative obscurity, and armed only with fortitude and self-reliance, they go on to found a pharma company that manufactures a drug which offers hope to millions, and the hope of millions to shareholders.
The Man in the N95 Mask, by Alexander Dumas
In this epic chronicle, one of the three musketeers undergoes a series of thrilling adventures while trying to determine the identity of a mysterious individual whose face is covered at all times by a protective mask. Finally, the musketeer gets him to take it off by fibbing about flattening the curve.
Sanjay Sipahimalani is a Mumbai-based writer and reviewer.
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