I've been reading these novels alongside each other, one from the 18th century by Daniel Defoe, one from the 20th by Albert Camus. Both explore life in a pandemic. Neither could be recommended if you're wanting to cheer yourself up, but they are full of so many insights and points of contact with our current experience.
This from Camus is particularly powerful:
'A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogey of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away.....
Our townspeople were not more to blame than others, they
forgot to be modest - that was all - and thought that everything was still possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible.
forgot to be modest - that was all - and thought that everything was still possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible.
They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like a plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views?
They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.'
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