Laurie R. King Virtual Book Club discussion

From Wikipedia:

Doomsday Book is a 1992 science fiction novel by American author Connie Willis. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and was shortlisted for other awards. The title of the book refers to the Domesday Book of 1086; Kivrin Engle, the main character, says that her recording is "a record of life in the Middle Ages, which is what William the Conqueror's survey turned out to be."

The novel is the first in a series about the Oxford time-traveling historians, which includes To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998) and Blackout/All Clear (2010).

Willis' mythos is a near future (first introduced in her story "Fire Watch" (1982)) in which historians conduct field work by traveling into the past as observers. The research is conducted at the University of Oxford, in mid-21st century England.

Kivrin Engle, an Oxford history undergraduate (whose story is referenced elliptically in “Fire Watch”) manages to persuade her faculty to allow her to travel to 1320, even though the Middle Ages had long been considered a period too dangerous for in-person research. Due to an emerging influenza epidemic, the technician managing her “drop” into the past makes an error, and Kivrin, also sickened by flu, lands where she does not belong. From there, the story takes difficult turns in both time periods, which are told alternately.

I first read this book around the time it was published, and was blown away by it. Aside from being a compelling read, I thought it had a lot to tell us about the functions of faith and community in a time of disaster. Recently, because of the current pandemic, I have been reading a lot of epidemic/pandemic literature, and a recent non-fiction book (actually a series of lectures) about the Black Plague during the Middle Ages led me to want to re-read this book.

Some of my friends have been put off by my newfound reading tastes, saying the current pandemic is quite enough for them. If you feel the same and can’t bear to read a book in which everybody suffers and many die, you should certainly give this a pass. But if you can tolerate the pain in order to be moved and educated and maybe even inspired, please read along.

Hi Lenore and all, I too loved "The Doomsday Book" when I first read it in 1992, and in the years since recommended it to many friends. I have to add that I love Connie Willis in general and have read most of her books, including the sequels to this.
A year or two ago I re-read it (prescience?) and was slightly disappointed as it didn't seem the book I remembered. Part of it might have been the dissonance between the "future" she foresaw in 1992 and the world as it is (the characters have information objects on their wrists, but no mobile phones?), the repetitiveness of the present-day Oxford parts (I found myself getting tired of people saying "we have to get a better fix") and the more or less irrelevant story of what's going on with Kivrin's nephew. Having said that, the strongest part of the book, in 1992 and now, is the story that takes place in the Medieval period. I used to tell people, "if you want to know what it was like to live through the Black Plague, read this book," and I still think that's the case. I hope those who haven't read "The Doomsday Book" take the opportunity to read it now and join this discussion.

I have loved this book for years. It is heartbreakingly sad and also emotionally uplifting: there are people who rise above their fear and panic to perform great feats. I urge everyone who is down, depressed, hopeless in the face of all the unending tide of dark news to read and ponder. Later in the month maybe we can discuss why some people made such different choices?

MaryL wrote: "I have loved this book for years. It is heartbreakingly sad and also emotionally uplifting: there are people who rise above their fear and panic to perform great feats. I urge everyone who is down,..."

I loved the priest, a real hero - will not say more for fear of spoilers.

I’m waiting for my library hold on the book to come in. Sounds intriguing... can’t wait.

Merrily wrote: "...A year or two ago I re-read it (prescience?) and was slightly disappointed as it didn't seem the book I remembered. Part of it might have been the dissonance between the "future" she foresaw in 1992 and the world as it is (the characters have information objects on their wrists, but no mobile phones? ... and the more or less irrelevant story of what's going on with [Mary's]'s nephew...."

I will wait to discuss Colin later in the month, when we are past spoiler risk, because I don't think he's irrelevant at all. For the moment, all I can say about him is that, even before he appears, he in some ways defines the story. Mary says, criticizing his vocabulary, that Colin describes everything as either "necrotic or apocalyptic." Which it is. There's a lot of death (necrosis) in the book, and while we use "apocalypse" to describe disaster, of which there is certainly a lot in this book, the original Greek meaning is "uncovering," as in a revelation, of which there is also a lot in the book.

A lot of readers along with you have criticized the book because, in the middle of the 21st century, people are still relying on land line phones (a repeated detail in the story) and cell phones are nowhere in evidence. But Willis really should not be blamed for this. Doomsday Book was five years in the writing, and appeared in 1992. The first handheld mobile phone (which, although rather large and clunky, had some remarkable similarities to today’s smartphones) did not appear on the market until 1992, the year the book came out. And because it was not only large and clunky, but sold for $1,100, it unsurprisingly found very few buyers. Cell phones did not really come into consumer availability until 1994. So I think Connie Willis can be forgiven for not having foreseen cell phones, and it’s not like the plot turns on the land lines. If she had foreseen cell phones, then the story line would be that the cell towers were blocked up by the call volume (which did happen on 9/11, and probably some other times as well), and there would have been the same difficulty reaching the unreachable 21st century characters.

Ah, so hard to predict. A favorite Asimov story, "The Fun They Had" featured robotic teachers in the home, but had students using punch cards to feed in their work. I used to read it with students the first day of school, a bit ironically, as the children muse on how much fun gathering for school must have been. Now many of my teacher friends are teaching remotely by Zoom. A friend just shared that her six-year-old was sharing remote learning tips with her high school students . . . glasses to reduce blue-light glare are a new comfort.

I just ran across a remarkable feat of prescience! Very early in the book -- no spoilers here -- a group of Americans are prevented from leaving Oxford due to a quarantine imposed on account of a potential flu epidemic. Their leader is very angry:

"Explain? Perhaps you'd like to explain it to me, too. I'm not used to having my civil liberties taken away like this. In America, nobody would dream of telling you where you can or can't go."

And over thirty million Americans died in the Pandemic as a result of that sort of thinking, he thought....

A couple of thoughts I have had about reading Doomsday Book:

The book opens with an epigraph about bell ringing:

What a ringer needs most is not strength but the ability to keep time . . . You must bring these two things together in your mind and let them rest there forever–bells and time, bells and time.

I suggest you try to notice each time you hear bells in this book, in which bells and time are linked.

To get the most out of this book, the Internet is your friend. I recommend you look up anything unfamiliar to you about either disease or the Middle Ages. Certainly look up any saints who are mentioned. There is even at least one character whose name bears looking up, but I can’t reveal that person’s name until we are past the no-spoiler period. If the various news media have not already overloaded you with information about the 1918 flu pandemic, you might start by learning a bit about it.

(And, by the way, I looked up the term "myxovirus" and discovered, unsurprisingly, that COVID-19 is one.)

For an exhaustive but thorough account of the 1918 flu try:
The Great Pandemic by John Barry

If you've gotten as far as Badri having been taken to the infirmary, you will observe that contact tracing in 2054 Oxford is considerably more rigorous than that done in the US today.

I really wanted to read this book after seeing the description. The hardback book I borrowed from the library has such tiny print there is no way I can read it. Is there a version that has reasonable-sized font? Given the length of the book, there is also no way to finish it before the end of the month. I am wishing for an abridged version.

I am reading this book on my Kindle while c-span with Alex Azar and a bunch of congress people drone on in the background. Absolutely scary. I wish I had a book copy of this because I would like to go back and forth.

Dayna wrote: "I really wanted to read this book after seeing the description. The hardback book I borrowed from the library has such tiny print there is no way I can read it. Is there a version that has reasonab..."

At the moment I have the mass market Bantam paperback edition. The type seems normal to me -- I'm guessing about 10-point type.

Don't fret about not finishing it before the end of the month, as there is no book scheduled for next month.

Hello Everyone

I’m just dropping in to say hello and that I’m about a 3rd of the way through the book. I was uncertain about whether or not I was going to read this one, but I decided to stretch my mental wings and give it a go. So far it’s an easier read than I expected and I’m very much enjoying it.

Thank you Lenore for bringing it to the Group

Jennifer wrote: "...Thank you Lenore for bringing it to the Group."

You're certainly welcome!

From Mr. Dunworthy's thoughts:

Dr. Ahrens told me the most contagious period [of a virus] is before there are any symptoms.

Wear a mask! Keep your distance! Wash your hands!

By now, I expect that most of you have at least gotten to the part where Kivrin is identified as "Katherine" and decides that it would be safer to abandon her planned identity as Isabel de Beauvrier and let the contemps think that Katherine is her name. She has discovered that the church has a statue of St. Catherine of Alexandria. And Agnes tells Kivrin that Father Roche thinks she is a saint.

St. Catherine of Alexandria is the patron saint of, among others, students and unmarried young women. Kivrin, of course, is both.

I had no idea we were discussing books again until I saw Laurie’s FB post. When I saw it was Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, I actually gave a cheer. This book, which I read quite a few years ago, is easily one of my top five favorite books I’ve ever read, and picking favorites is never an easy task for me, since there are so many. I’ve read all Willis’ time traveling historians books, and they are all wonderful. I’d love to read them all again, especially this one, but I’m desperately trying to catch up on my reading and reviewing right now, so I won’t be able to do a reread at this time. However, I most likely will visit this discussion and relive some of the amazing parts of this tale. I should add that the book has two of my favorite topics, that of the plague in England and that of time traveling, so it was bound to be a treasured read from the start.

Kathy wrote: "I had no idea we were discussing books again until I saw Laurie’s FB post. "

Hi Kathy! I send out a group-wide message to members before every book discussion, and an auto one gets sent out on the 1st (I think) as a general announcement when we are about to discuss a book. Just make sure you have your Goodreads email notifications set up for private messages, and you should be notified in the future via email.

I just finished A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin in which he exhaustively details NASA's intense safety protocols-protocols that were later somewhat abandoned, hence Challenger. In this book I was struck by Mr. Dunworthy's insistence on safety checks vs. Gilchrest's cavalier attitude toward a technology he clearly didn't understand. Is Gilchrest the avatar for every PR minded petty bureaucrat who ever chaired an academic department? Or is Mr. Dunworthy slowing down progress?
Also Kivren's tutor (Lambert?) with his laser focus on the subtle language shifts sounds just like some of the backroom NASA specialists who seemed to think theirs was the only reason for the mission

I just finished last night, after the debate (I won't make the comments I could).
I was caught in this book and blown away by the values of care and concern and community and the courage! I will be looking for more in the series.
My library only had it as an ebook, which since the quarantine has become my favorite kind. Adjusting took time, but ebooks are easier for my hands and eyes. The loan expired, but I've found I can keep reading as long as I don't connect to the internet while in Kindle mode.

If you've gotten at least halfway through the book by now, you will have noticed that the more hysterical residents of Oxford are referring to the influenza as "the Indian flu" and demanding that England secede from the European Community on the ground that uncontrolled immigration is bringing disease into England. Does this sound familiar?

Lenore wrote: "If you've gotten at least halfway through the book by now, you will have noticed that the more hysterical residents of Oxford are referring to the influenza as "the Indian flu" and demanding that E..."

So timely . . . and sad.

More life imitating art:

[Dr. Ahrens] looked sharply at [Dunworthy]. "Why aren't you wearing your mask?"

“It causes my spectacles to steam up. Why aren't you wearing yours?”

"We're running out of them. . . .”

I have always loved the medieval parts of this novel, which capture (for me) so perfectly the difference between the medieval world and our own. I always had trouble relating in the same way to the more modern parts, which dragged, in my view.

But that was before Covid-19. Thinking I should re-read.....

As we have reached the 10th of the month, spoilers are permitted. But I would actually like to ruminate on something non-spoilery.

Gilchrist says "Attitudes toward death in the 1300s differed greatly from ours. Death was a common and accepted part of life, and the contemps were incapable of feeling loss or grief."

Every time I read this statement I become furious all over again and have to remind myself that Gilchrist is a fictional character. What an arrogant attitude, based on zero evidence!

Unfortunately, this attitude -- that we know something about what "more primitive" people knew and felt -- is apparently quite common. Dorsey Armstrong, a medievalist who presented the Great Courses' “The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague,” found it necessary to remind listeners several times that the inhabitants of the 14th century were just like us. When slavery still existed in the US, African-Americans undergoing potentially painful medical procedures were not given anesthetics, because it was presumed that they do not feel pain as white people do.

We cannot know what anyone feels even in our own time and our own community, and certainly not the feelings of those in other communities and/or other times.

It does seem that there have been those lacking empathy in every age. Now remembering the great scene in HUCK FINN in which Huck realizes that Jim felt love for his child, radical because it was denied so strongly by those who supported slavery, and ironic because Huck's father did not.
Gilchrist even lacked empathy for his own student, ready to abandon her with a "well she knew the risks" attitude. Horrible for any with that attitude to be in charge of others' well-being.

Attitudes toward death probably did differ simply because it was so much more present in their lives. I doubt, however, that grief and loss were not felt.

In my experience with my very first pregnancy, there was expectation and excitement, there was speculation about who this embryonic speck of humanity will become, but there does not tend to be much fear of losing the pregnancy or child. After losing a pregnancy, that fear becomes much more present and I suspect that was closed to the medieval experience. There would have been an ever-present knowledge that anyone could die at any moment for even the most trivial of reasons - a scratch become septic, an accident. But that knowledge doesn't not preclude grief at the loss of someone you cared for.

I have appreciated the juxtaposition of the modern and medieval response to coping with the plague: Willis seems to think that some people will be idiots in whatever century, but does show the differences in their thought processes. 1348: judgement from God, your own sins brought it down; 2054: clearly a foreign attack or science gone wrong, but someone else's fault. Her ability to predict from 1992 what today's issues are is uncanny. Shortage of "loo paper", refusal to quarantine, even lack pf PPE.

Father Roche is presumably named for the saint of that name. St. Roch, as it is now generally spelled, or St. Rocke, as he is known in the medieval hagiography, The Golden Legend, likely lived from 1295 to 1327 (some give his dates as 1348 to 1376). His legend is that he selflessly nursed and cured very many sufferers of illness all over France and Italy. Wikipedia notes that “he is specially invoked against the plague.”

If you are obsessively curious, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Roch and/or http://www.intratext.com/ixt/ENG1293/...

Mr. Dunworthy seems to have a tremendous mastery of the Bible. He tells Mrs. Gaddson exactly which Bible verses he wants to hear. (And naturally they are not the ones she would have chosen.) Does this seem out of character for a man who is a historian of the 20th century and has not shown himself to be especially religious? What do you make of this?

Interesting question. The religions or mythologies of a people are a part of their history, though they often object to their own beliefs being called myth rather than Truth. Howard Schwartz had to fight his editors for TREE OF SOULS: THE MYTHOLOGY OF JUDAISM.
Francis Howell High School had a class on world religions, because religion shapes the culture, and I did tell of stories from the Bible as well as from Greek and other mythologies, because they are part of the literary canon. I did love his redirecting her dismal choices, and I wonder that they didn't put a stop to her depressing input.

I think Mrs. Gadson is a "type": the overbearing female convinced of her righteousness and clueless about the real world. There is someone like her in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and in countless Golden Age mysteries, even Georgette Heyer features her a lot.
That said: I KNOW several ladies like this, and there isn't any stopping or deflecting them. The only thing to do is "Run Away!"

True . . . that's what they do with Hyacinth Bucket (boo-kay). It does seem too much, though, to allow her to torment the sick.

I had a different read on Mrs. Gadson. I thought she was ineffective, always fluttering on the edge of the action/plot without actually creating anything. I thoughts the patients she was so stridently read to as too far gone in the illness/ unconsciousness to even be aware of her or her words. As far as Mr. Dunworthy dictating the passages he wanted read ... for me another example of Mrs. Gadson’s impotence. He simply ignored her wishes and she complied with his.

Speaking of the Gaddsons, what did you think of William? On the one hand, he really was invaluable from the moment Mr. Dunworthy recruited his assistance. On the other hand, a lot of his value in the latter part of the book seems to depend on causing multiple young (and at least one not so young) women to fall madly in love with him, while not telling any of them that they are not the only one. How do you feel about him? And does his appalling mother bear some responsibility for his behavior?

I just figured out what one of my issues with this book is. It's that the author doesn't seem fully invested in the minor characters. That she is relying on caricature rather than character. I think it's also that some of them are there for humorous effect and it's not humor that really works for me. Anyone else?

I didn't get the impression that William was deceiving his female admirers, but he did certainly "get around." More playful than predatory, and probably an escape from Mummy . . . and who could blame him?

Mary wrote: "I didn't get the impression that William was deceiving his female admirers, but he did certainly "get around." More playful than predatory, and probably an escape from Mummy . . . and who could bla..."

To be fair, you're right. While at least one of them was thinking in terms of future nuptials (the ambulance driver), we have no basis to think that he was leading them on in any way.

KarenB wrote: "I just figured out what one of my issues with this book is. It's that the author doesn't seem fully invested in the minor characters. That she is relying on caricature rather than character. I thin..."

I don't know. Is any author fully invested in minor characters? I'm trying to think back on a recent book that I thought well of, and I hit on Riviera Gold, which I liked a lot. The pilot of the sea plane, the police investigator -- were they more fleshed out than the minor characters in this book?

And Willis had a lot of major characters to flesh out, as she was operating in two time periods.

What do the rest of you think?

An interesting article comparing the reactions and coping mechanisms of the populace to the Black Death with reactions to COVID in our own time. The author focuses on Florence, but I'm sure England was not much different. (And doesn't appear so in our book.)

https://tinyurl.com/y5cpsz5b

Thank you for the article link Lenore. It does sum up what I’ve been thinking about this book ... human nature doesn’t change.

I'd like to come back to the point about medieval people being so accustomed to death that they didn't feel it. When I was in grad school, that was the general view. It was also argued that people didn't grieve for infants who died, because it was so common.

These days, scholars understand that's nonsense. Who doesn't realize, even in our modern world, that everyone we know will someday die? But an abstract death is very different from the death that robs us of this special, particular being, whether it's a day-old baby or 90-year-old Grandma.

My point is simply that Willis is recording a view that was typical of the time when she wrote this novel. Then, with her heroine's experience in the past, she blows it up. And more power to her!

I'd like to go back to Merrily's complaint, upthread, that the parts of the story about Colin are "more or less irrelevant." With all respect to Merrily, with whose comments I am usually in complete accord, I have to disagree.

I see the 2054 and the 1348 stories as sort of mirror images of each other. In each story, a mysterious illness takes hold, and the populace reacts similarly in each. And to my mind, some of the characters are mirrors of each other as well.

Kivrin and Colin are mirrors of each other. In each case, we have a young person (Colin is 12, and Kivrin, an undergraduate, is likely no more than 20) moving toward danger rather than away (Kivrin to a period known as a 10, Colin to a quarantined area) because ot them it's an adventure. And each of them, out of their element (Kivrin in the not-quite-hospitable household of the d'Ivry family, where she is under suspicion, and Colin in an Oxford college to which he has no ties), copes by making themselves indispensable (Kivrin taking over the care of Agnes and Rosemund, Colin running errands for practically everyone). Each is abandoned (Kivrin by Gilchrist, and perhaps feeling abandoned by Dunworthy; Colin by his mother, and then feeling abandoned by Mary and Dunworthy), but rises above their abandonment to help those around them. And in the end, each is the salvation (of a sort) of the one who most needs their help.

Similarly, I see Lady Imeyne and Gilchrist as mirror images. (Although comments I have read online see Imeyne and Mrs. Gaddson as mirror images.) Both deny responsibility for the catastrophes they have wrought (Gilchrist for rashly sending Kivrin to the Middle Ages despite its ranking as a 10 without proper preparation, Imeyne for bringing the bishop's envoy and company to their remote village despite her son's orders to tell no one where they are) and seek to blame others (Imeyne: the sins of everyone else; Gilchrist: Badri, Dunworthy, the net itself) for the consequences.

There may be other mirror images as well. One comment I saw proposed Basingame and God as mirrors, the absent authorities that could rescue them from the havoc surrounding them, if only they could be reached.

Do you see other mirrors? Or do you think I am wildly off-base?

Intriguing . . . who does Dunworthy mirror?

Lenore wrote: "I'd like to go back to Merrily's complaint, upthread, that the parts of the story about Colin are "more or less irrelevant." With all respect to Merrily, with whose comments I am usually in complet..."

I think you are right-and said it so much better than I have been able to express.
I am an MD, and have been intrigued by the flights of fancy with the medical technology in 2054. Sadly, the ignoring the patient in favor of staring at the computer screen is already happening. Willis's depiction of the multiple conspiracy theories re: origin of virus are also too true. Oddly, she doesn't indicate any Anti-Vax sentiment aside from the one religious objection regarding interference with living organisms. Guess 1992 was too early to imagine that!

Good points. My mother switched doctors because hers only looked at the screen and she wanted to be listened to. *
One practice switched to tablets so the staff would stay facing the patients, making eye contact. . . . and anti-vaxers, who could imagine?
*Mom also shared the story of her aunt, who once grabbed her doctor's necktie, pulled him closer, and said, "You aren't listening to me." After that, I noticed that Dr. Tyree, whom she had complimented on listening, didn't wear a necktie . . . coincidence?

"Damn it Jim I'm a Doctor not a data entry tech!"

Doomsday Book begins and ends with the ringing of bells. And there are a lot of bells throughout the book in both time periods. Are the bells symbolic? Do they signal something?

And what about the admonition that each man stick to his bell?