Status Updates From Diario del año de la peste

this book has no chapters so finding a good place to stop is difficult D: but i like so far!!! love reading about plagues and such... completely unrelated to covid

It is absolutely depressing to be reading a book from the 1700s, and to be realizing humans haven’t changed a bit for the better. The same things happening now we’re happening back then. Just read a part about people trying to purposely infect people with the plague. We had that early on in 2020. Just....depressing.

Ok, this is still the best 2020 reading ever, although as per classic Defoe, it's pretty repetitive in parts. (Like, yup, people ran away from their homes when they were supposed to be locked in due to the household being visited with plague. Every other page is a recap of that, and people running wild in the streets and dying of plague.) Got it. That said, might it stylistically communicate the FEELING of pandemic?

Thus far, I’d say that if you were looking for a handbook on how a pandemic goes, this is it. 28 pages in and I’m already checking boxes for our current situation.

This is a struggle

There are so many descriptions of people’s behaviors during an epidemic that still hold true now. So weird. The writing is of course in an anachronistic style and so it takes some time to get into the rhythm of it, but it is interesting in some ways.

„Затварянето на къщите беше мярка, взета за първи път, както разбирам, по време на чумата през 1603г. при възцаряването на Джеймс I. Правото да се затварят хората в собствените им къщи е било дадено със закон, гласуван от парламента и озаглавен „Закон за милосърдна помощ и напътствие за лица, заразени от чума“.

reading this in the time of coronavirus... wild

It was a most surprising thing, to see those Streets, which were usually so thronged, now grown desolate, and so few People to be seen in them.

(…)
Mas os resultados eram nulos: a epidemia não afrouxava, e a população encontrava-se nessa altura no ponto mais alto do seu terror, a tal ponto, pode dizer-se, que se considerara perdida e se entregava ao desespero.

The experiences described so far and our current situation have a rather bizarre degree of overlap.

Uma vez na outra margem, e tendo dado dinheiro adiantado ao barqueiro, conseguiram mantimentos de boca, que ele foi buscar e depôs, para que eles depois os recolhessem, a bordo do barco, mas, como eu disse, não sem ter recebido o dinheiro adiantado. Os nossos viajantes viram-se, porém, em apuros para passarem o cavalo para a outra margem, uma vez que a barca era muito pequena e imprópria para tal transporte.
(...)

(...)
e todos os que tinham amigos ou propriedades no campo se haviam retirado com suas famílias, quando, de facto, se chegou a pensar que a própria cidade acabaria por desertar das suas muralhas, não ficando lá ninguém, a partir daí é de crer que todo o comércio, salvo o que dizia respeito à subsistência imediata da população, se visse completamente paralisado.

(...)
Contaram-se muitas histórias, umas cómicas, outras trágicas, sobre alguns que, vivendo como peregrinos no deserto, escaparam exilando-se de maneira quase inacreditável e gozaram, mesmo assim, de uma liberdade maior do que era de esperar em tais casos.

(...)
E rara era a rua onde se não visse a cabeça de bronze de Frei Bacon, tabuleta especial dessa espécie de gente, ou ainda as insígnias representadas pela Tia Schipton, pela cabeça de Merlin ou coisas no mesmo estilo.

Picking this up like 8 years after I started it.

Sound familiar?
“One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really wicked to encourage them to....inviting the people to come to them for remedies...’Infallible preventive pills against the plague.’ ‘Neverfailing preservatives against the infection.’”

Lost interest

All the needful Works, that carried Terror with them, that were both dismal and dangerous, were done in the Night.

this ones got me thinking and reflecting a lot about the injustices of the past and present, in the similarities and differences of how we each have handled a pandemic (though one much more deadly than another) & about who is affected the most in an unequal world

A definite flavour of "Robinson Crusoe"!

this was a Time when every one's private Safety lay so near them, that they had no Room to pity the Distresses of others; for every one had Death, as it were, at his Door, and many even in their Families, and knew not what to do, or whither to fly.

This, I say, took away all Compassion; self Preservation indeed appear'd here to be the first Law.

Reading the orders and finding many things similar...so, we deal with pandemics in somewhat the same way as we always have. But, the killing of all the dogs made my heart stop. Why?

I‘m amazed about the sameness of the rules put in practice due to the plague: keeping distance to other people on the street, no more entertainment, quarantine for houses with infected persons...
Basically the same, just a little more drastic.

No me convencen el ridículo natural de pensar sobre la peste y sus efectos como "disposición divina" ni el discurso procrastinador queriendo justificar algo y no desarrollar nunca el argumento porque eso "se tratará más adelante"; evasión como falla argumental al fin.

I have to admit, this book is trying my patience. For every new avenue of description, Defoe repeats 3 from earlier in the novel.

I have heard it was the opinion of others that [the infection] might be distinguished by the party's breathing upon a piece of glass, where, the breath condensing, there might living creatures be seen by a microscope, of strange, monstrous, and frightful shapes, such as dragons, snakes, serpents, and devils, horrible to behold.

Perhaps an idea for a DIY Corona test?

I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on my business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked all my effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole city, […]

Die rich or live poor?

people who appear well spreading disease
soixantine

people who appear well
soixantine