The Plague, by Albert Camus

 Fittingly for this moment, Camus takes us on the journey of a walled city – a place of mediocrity and ugliness – from the first signs of plague to the rejoicing at its waning. Through the eyes of a kind and dedicated doctor, he shows us the suffering of victims, the anger and arrogance that give way to indifference and defeat. The Church has no adequate answer, neither do the doctors. “Thus, too, [the townspeople] came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of which they thought incessantly, had a savor only of regret.”

As the city is closed off from the world in an effort of containment, its residents find themselves prisoners. “No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all. Strongest of these emotions was the sense of exile and of deprivation, with all the cross-currents of revolt and fear set up by these.”

In a nod to our current climate, he observes, “Thus, while plague by its impartial ministrations should have promoted equality among our townsfolk, it now had the opposite effect and… exacerbated the sense of injustice rankling in men’s hearts.” We see people with money holding extravagant parties, out of reach of those who can no longer afford even bread.

A visiting journalist, trapped by the lockdown, spends months arranging an escape so he can unite with the woman he loves. He pulls strings, he invokes important people, he bribes sentries, all to no avail – he is as trapped as any nobody. Somewhat later, with his sense of injustice prickling him, he discovers that the doctor, with whom he works, put his own wife on a train to a sanitarium just before the plague struck. He not only cannot see her, he’s not even sure whether she is recovering from her malady, or if her doctors are “sparing” him the truth. The journalist, suddenly aware he is not the only person suffering, is shamed, and begins contributing to the plague-fighting effort.

Early in the epidemic, the priest invokes suffering as God’s plan:  ”From the dawn of recorded history the scourge of God has humbled the proud of heart and laid low those who hardened themselves against Him. Ponder this well, my friends, and fall on your knees.”

But after months of ministering to the sick and dying, he is shaken by witnessing the horrific death of a child ravaged by the disease. Suddenly, this agony no longer seems the will of God, so his tune changes: “Who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment’s human suffering?... My brothers, a time of testing has come for us all. We must believe everything or deny everything. And who among you, I ask, would dare to deny everything?” Thus the priest clings to a lesser version of the faith he lives for, unable to cast it away but stricken from finding any glory in it.

And Camus leaves us with a challenge – does enduring the plague change us? Are we learning anything? He points out, through his narrator the doctor, that the nature of the illness continues to evolve – first, it is a bubonic attack; later, it infects the lungs. The serums and vaccines are occasionally effective, but near the end, as though the plague has exhausted itself, suddenly treatments that failed are now saving lives. It is a warning against thinking we know more than we do, and that the virus must follow a logical course. No, it doesn’t. And he assures us it can always come back. The best we can do is protect each other.

Wolf Hall book review

Hilary Mantel's novel Wolf Hall won the Man Booker Prize in 2009, and no wonder. She weaves together history and the inner life of a self-made man at a pivotal moment in England's history, creating a rich tapestry of the human desires that reordered an era. If you're familiar with Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, a hagiography of Sir Thomas More, this is its verso. More was the brilliant, humble, moral lawyer who as Chancellor chose silence and death rather than defy his king or deny his church, when Henry VIII was casting off his 20-year marriage to Katherine of Aragon in favor of Anne Boleyn, with whom he hoped to produce an heir to his throne. Churchmen, scholars, diplomats and schemers all worked to give Henry what he wanted, while loyalists to the Pope, the French emperor, and Katherine and her parents (Phillip and Isabella of Spain) resisted. Civil war was not out of the question.

Mantel's hero, however, is Thomas Cromwell. In Bolt's play he is a lout whose power stems from blackmail, and whose web reaches far. But in Mantel's intimate characterization, Cromwell, a blacksmith's son, has the instincts of a born politician. Fleeing a violent father, the boy makes himself useful to people in the fabric trade, and living in Europe becomes fluent in many languages. With no illusions about the nobility of man, he applies Machiavellian principles to achieve his aims. He is observant, a good listener, and cultivates a memory system that proves invaluable as he moves into the rarefied worlds of Cardinal Wolsey, whom he serves steadfastly, then Henry, Anne Boleyn and her court, Katherine, churchmen, even More despite their differences. Conversations with friends and foes alike are witty, barbed and productive.

Mantel's great achievement is that for the eight years of the story's focus, 1527 - 1535, we live in Cromwell's skin with him. He never fails to note the fabric worn by those around him, we feel deeply the deaths of his wife and daughters to "the summer sweats", a devastating illness in which a person goes to bed in the morning feeling bad, and is dead by sundown. We see the satisfaction he takes in bringing young men into his large household, guiding them and setting them on productive paths. He also takes in strays: the widow and children of his brother; a pregnant young woman whose abusive husband has abandoned her and their two small children ; a French youth with bloodthirsty inclinations. He buys the loyalty of servants in his enemies' households, to keep track of their doings.
He is the King's adviser because while he is soothing in how he imparts bad news, he doesn't hide the facts. Henry trusts him, and we feel he should, because here is a man who is his loyal subject, who will bend his will and use his connections to get him what he wants.

And perhaps because he is immune to Boleyn's charms, he earns her confidence as well. The aristocracy scorn him for his low origins - though he says very little about his childhood, claiming not to know even what year he was born - but they also fear him: he is a shrewd investor while they squander money they assume they have, and it unnerves them to see in high precincts a man who gained power and position without bloodlines.

Cromwell is depicted as a generous man, loving husband and father, always on the lookout for the welfare of those under his protection. More, on the other hand, oversees the torture of those he regards as heretics, belittles his own wife in her presence, and is as parsimonious as Cromwell is open-handed. Between Bolt's story and Mantel's one must wonder, Who were these titans of reason really?