***
BOOK: A Journal of the Plague Year
AUTHOR: Daniel Defoe
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 1722
REVIEW:
As I write this, we’ve been socially distancing for over a year. And I’m not sure, honestly, whether it is now the best time or the worst time to read A Journal of the Plague Year, an account of the Great Plague of London in 1665.
In any event, I found it fascinating. This book describes the last major outbreak of bubonic plague to hit London, which killed something in the range of 100,000 people.
***
My friend and NewsWhistle colleague Amber Waves often remarks, when visiting various countries or reading about history, that nothing really changes. And of course some things change from place to place and year to year: fashions, humor, technology, and so on. But people really don’t change much no matter their time and location–wherever and whenever you explore, you will find brilliance and gullibility, honest people working hard, selfish and opportunistic characters, petty arguments, leadership, wisdom, love, prejudice, violence, charity: all of the wonderful and terrible things about us humans. And so it is in 17th century London.
***
Interestingly, scholars are in disagreement regarding how to categorize A Journal of the Plague Year. Some consider it historical fiction (Defoe was only a young boy when the events of this book took place and likely based it on records from an uncle). Others call it non-fiction–the uncle’s journal, edited and published years later by the nephew (who was a journalist for years before he was a novelist). Others characterize it as a combination–reportage with a fictionalized overlay to give it a narrative interest. Regardless, the depiction of the pandemic is historically accurate and meticulous in its details–there is truth here. Whether it is comforting or not to know that contagions, and our collective response to them, are rather consistent throughout history, and how little has changed (despite our current understanding of germ theory and improvements in medical science), will depend entirely on the reader.
***
Rumors spread. Perhaps you thought urban legends were a new thing? (“That wherever it was that we heard it, they always placed the Scene at the farther End of the Town, opposite or most remote from where you were to hear it.”)
The wealthy fled, including the royal family–they settled in Oxford to avoid the plague. “Nothing was to be seen but wagons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, coaches filled with people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away.”
Many of the poor fled as well, although some were then doomed to starvation, as they could not gain admittance to other towns or find shelter.
Local government officials worked relentlessly to bury the dead, keep order in the streets, slow the spread of disease, and allay fears.
Charitable contributions poured in to keep the terrified and suddenly unemployed populace from starvation.
Charlatans offered miracle cures; these did not work.
Food delivery continued from the countryside to the city, even through the worst of the crisis. (Essential workers aren’t a new phenomenon, either.)
Casualty figures were manipulated, as deaths increased dramatically but many deaths were initially attributed to other causes.
The hedonistic and nihilistic set to drinking heavily, and perished.
The busy city streets “which were usually so thronged, now [were] grown desolate.”
The specific tales of suffering and grief are so painful as to be difficult to read. The description of the mass graves is harrowing.
***
Three hundred and fifty years later, we could stand to learn a great deal from Defoe–about what public health measures did and did not improve the situation, the shortsightedness of government, business, and individuals who failed to plan and did not take the danger seriously until it was too late, and the importance of social distancing and contact tracing. We don’t know yet what lessons we’ll learn from the COVID-19 pandemic, but we can hope that the collective wisdom is written down, remembered, and applied again when needed.
***
RATING (one to five whistles, with five being the best): 3 1/2 Whistles
***
HOW TO PURCHASE: You can read it for free on Project Gutenberg, or purchase the Penguin Classics edition (which contains some good information in the appendixes) on Amazon.
***
Laura LaVelle is an attorney and writer who lives in Connecticut, in a 100-year-old house, along with her husband, two daughters, and a cockatiel. Laura can be contacted at laura@newswhistle.com
***
Book Cover Courtesy of Penguin Random House
***
***
ALSO ON OUR BOOKSHELVES:
A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler
A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
A Wandering Eye: Travels with My Phone, Miguel Flores-Vianna
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An Almond for a Parrot, Wray Delaney
An Exaltation of Larks, James Lipton
An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer
Anne Of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
Arthur & George, Julian Barnes
Ayesha at Last, Uzma Jalaluddin
Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon
Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan
Books for Living, Will Schwalbe
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast
Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Death in Profile, Guy Fraser-Sampson
Decorating a Room of One’s Own, Susan Harlan
Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill
Diary of a Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield
Ed Emberly’s Drawing Book of Animals, Ed Emberly
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Endangered Pleasures, Barbara Holland
Envious Casca, Georgette Heyer
Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gmorning, Gnight! Little Pep Talks for Me & You, Lin-Manuel Miranda
H is for Haiku, Sydell Rosenberg
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne
Hemingway Didn’t Say That, Garson O’Toole
Heretics & Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
Hide My Eyes, Margery Allingham
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin
How to Bake π–An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics, Eugenia Cheng
Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
I Will Always Write Back, Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda with Liz Welch
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Stephanie Barron
Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook, edited and revised by Cyndi Giorgis
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
Lizard Music, Daniel Pinkwater
Madeleine’s Ghost, Robert Girardi
Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz
Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
New York New York, Richard Berenholtz
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson
Out of the Blackout, Robert Bernard
Parnassus on Wheels & The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein
Plotted: A Literary Atlas, Andrew DeGraff
Sanditon, Jane Austen and Another Lady
Secrets and Lies, Selena Montgomery
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rivelli
Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh
Sorcery and Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
Still the Promised Land, Natwar Gandhi
Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand, Alexander Elder
Strength in What Remains: Tracy Kidder
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
Tales of the Unexpected, Roald Dahl
Tall Blondes: A Book About Giraffes, Lynn Sherr
The Billionaire’s Vinegar, Benjamin Wallace
The Book of Forgotten Authors, Christopher Fowler
The Book of Imaginary Beings, Jorge Luis Borges
The Cat Who Went to Heaven, Elizabeth Coatsworth
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes, Devoney Looser
The Dancer of Izu, Kawabata Yasunari
The Great Passage, Shion Miura
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs
The Ice House, Minette Walters
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
The Longbourn Letters, Rose Servitova
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman
The Madwoman and the Roomba, Sandra Tsing Loh
The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo
The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, P.D. James
The Missing Piece, Shel Silverstein
The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah
The Mother & Child Project, Hope Through Healing Hands (ed.)
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue
The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister
The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel (illustrator), Maurice Sendak (introduction)
The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami
The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer
The Three Questions, Jon J Muth
The Truth About Unicorns, Bonnie Jones Reynolds
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories, Saki
The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang
The Weird World of Wes Beattie, John Norman Harris
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose
Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe
This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader, Joan Dye Gussow
Touch Not the Cat, Mary Stewart
Up At the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
Worth a Thousand Words, Brigit Young
You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, Eleanor Roosevelt
84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff