"Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature" by Elizabeth Outka
Have you wondered too: why is covid barely visible in modern media? Why do I never pick up a book with someone wearing a mask, even though it's 2020 in the story? Why do I watch tv shows set in 2021 and they act like everything is fine? I have to dig deep for any text that dares to mention the unmentionable (ongoing) SARSCoV2 pandemic, and that really bothers me.
Turns out this is not a rare phenomenon. The same happened after Spanish Flu a full century ago. This book from 2019 digs into the why of it, and then goes on to analyze the presence of the 1918 pandemic in the very few books that did mention it.
The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 zooms in on 'why?'. Why was the flu silenced in literature? Why was it such a taboo? Even if you're not interested in reading the rest of this book, this part is worth it if you've been wondering the same. It has some interesting theories. Partly the war overshadowed the pandemic. But partly it's also a problem of a lack of language and narrative. War is easy to explain: us, the goodies, fight a 'them', the baddies, and someone wins. But a virus is invisible and not well-understood. The 'enemy' doesn't invade from the outside, but spreads throughout your loved ones, penetrates your body and blurs all the lines of who's what. There was a lot of guilt about participation and ignorance. On top of the grief, there's a societal view of sickness as weakness, and of caring and ill health with femininity, which didn't help. I won't recap all of the book here, but it was a fascinating read to see why the pandemic was hidden in media, and how so much can be applied to the current times too. Plus there were lots of archival pictures that I'd never seen before!
In part 2 several books from around that era are discussed and the role of the pandemic in the story is analyzed. I was afraid that it might be too academic for me, but it was quite readable. Most notably I've gotten a more negative view of Virginia Woolf. Although she was one of the few acknowledging sickness in her literature, she also minimized Spanish Flu in daily life, not wanting to engage with it. I was also surprised to see 'look to windward' appear, which I've only known as a quote on war through Bank's books. And wow, the amount of 'living dead' analogies that pop up, interesting stuff.
Part 3 goes into two major trends that became popular post-pandemic: spiritualism and zombie tales. Both are forms of the dead coming back, one for mourning and peace of mind, the other for an outlet for fear and anger. I got quite upset reading about seances where ghosts of flu victims return to earth to exonerate their families from guilt of infection, hmpf. Either way, I thought it was engrossing. In hindsight, it all makes sense, and it helps me understand the way people behave now.
At the end the book states that we're not ready for a new pandemic, although we could be, if only we'd look reality in the eyes and prepare well. Covid started and... here we are. Millions dead, many more millions chronically ill, ableism abound, covid still around and mutating. And probably more pandemics coming at us in the near future. Every day I feel stronger about not letting this truth go unsaid. It's uncomfortable, but more tragedies will occur if the majority of people keep avoiding unpleasant realities. Don't look away, don't underestimate yourself -you can bear it and do your part to keep the people around you safe and well.
As the book says: "Reading the letters and stories told by the survivors of the pandemic —and the literary representations that simultaneously revealed and hid these very stories— launch us into new narrative streams, allowing us to hear voices long ignored in part because the viral, dust-like form at the heart of the story was itself invisible and silent."
I'm adding this book under #PlagueBook and I've also gone back and tagged all previous books that talk about pandemics that I've reviewed with that too (in a tiny effort to not lose these works into silence once again). You can view them all here:
https://c.im/@reading_recluse/tagged/PlagueBook
Please stay safe and #WearAMask !
