On Pandemic and Literature | Hacker News Reader

On Pandemic and Literature

themillions.com

20 pointsdrjohnson4 comments

It wasn't until this latest outbreak that I realised just how pervasive the ideas of pandemic are in the creative works I consume. One of my favourite books is "The Reality Dysfunction" which deals with a pandemic of possession. A favourite childhood video game is "Halo: Combat Evoloved" which centres on alien space zombies. Speaking of zombies, I really like "World War Z" (the book, not the film). And, in my efforts to have better job prospects, I am studying biostatistics which includes plenty of content on epi/pandemics.

It's bit like how nature and animals pervades all of our advertising and branding. You don't notice just how much our zeitgeist is filled with these things until someone or something points it out to you.

> It wasn't until this latest outbreak that I realised just how pervasive the ideas of pandemic are in the creative works I consume.

This very thought came to my mind too. The examples that I thought of first were Thomas Mann's Death in Venice where Aschenbach hesitates until it is too late to flee.

'Among these things the Englishman said the most important one. "[...] The ban can hardly be delayed for more than a few days." "Thank you," said Aschenbach and left the office.' [1]

Back then fleeing was at least considered an option but today? Where would you go?

Very striking is also Albert Camus' classification of people in the face of crisis in The Plague:

- the ignorant

- the revolting

- the ones in solidarity

- the loving ones

Lastly not to forget, the episode about the telephone sanitizers in Douglas Adams' book;-)

[1] My own translation (attempt)

+1 for "World War Z", the book, which I literally read at the beginning of the current pandemic, by pure coincidence. It was an eye opener, at least the parts about how the [zombie] pandemic began and spread, how people and governments reacted and so on.

However, I enjoyed the movie too, and I think it's one of the best in the genre. Although, admittedly it has very little in common with the book.

Same here. I’ve been going for some video game-y escapism the last few days, and finding every other game I load has some sort of Infectious apocalypse built into the premise (Dishonored, Division 2, They Are Billions).

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