"... which might in time have given characters a finer temper, began, however, by sapping them to the point of futility. For instance, some of our fellow citizens became subject to a curious kind of servitude, which put them at the mercy of the sun and the rain. Looking at them, you had an impression that for the first time in their lives they were becoming, as some would say, weather-conscious. A burst of sunshine was enough to make them seem delighted with the world, while rainy days gave a dark cast to their faces and their mood. A few weeks before, they had been free of this absurd subservience to the weather, because they had not to face life alone; the person they were living with held, to some extent, the foreground of their little world. But from now on it was different; they seemed at the mercy of the sky’s caprices—in other words, suffered and hoped irrationally."
Wrote Albert Camus in "The Plague" (pages 75-76).
Those are words I heard in my earphones — "A burst of sunshine was enough to make them seem delighted with the world" — at 6:56 a.m. as I aimed my iPhone at this:
४४ टिप्पण्या:
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning?
Meade said...
"Wish I could say the same. I'm afraid it won't even take worst case projections for me to call out the people that turn out to have underreacted. If just the bad case projections come to pass, I'll be resentful. I'm not a forgiving person. I leave that to Jesus. I've learned to accept unjust injury in life but I've also learned to seek just revenge and equalization."
Achilles, do you understand the context of my comment you quoted—what I was referring to when I said "Wish I could say the same?"
A few weeks before, they had been free of this absurd subservience to the weather
Very interesting and timely passage.
I think that this sums up a bit the difference in how rural persons versus city persons are able to deal with what seems like a sudden sea change. How we are reacting to all of this Corona Virus hoopla.
If you live in "the country" really, not much has changed. Life goes on as normal...mostly. You just suck it up and continue on. If you live in a city, the change in life is very noticeable. Drastic changes. Very hard for people to deal with.
Rural people are already more in contact with and at the mercy of the weather. While those who live in cities and especially BIG cities have lost some of the awareness of nature. The weather is there, of course, (as it always is for everyone) and unless it is severe weather, you don't need to be as connected to it because your work or daily life can be done without 'much' difficulty.
Not so much for people who live in rural areas. The condition of the weather, sunrise, sunset is a very important thing in planning what you will do and what you CAN..or will be able to do.
Rural people tend to plan ahead more because they know that conditions will always be uncertain and we are on our own. City people have a sense of security and that order will prevail because someone will be there to make it happen.
Bike to work and you're very weather sensitive.
Trump Administration to Issue Guidelines for Classifying U.S. Counties by Coronavirus Risk: Criteria designed to help local officials decide whether to increase or relax social-distancing rules.
About effing time! WSJ article...I can't read because I'm too cheap to subscribe.
Not everyplace is the same. Small and sparsely populated and less populated areas don't need to be in "total lockdown".
What do you call a plague where nobody knows anyone particular who died, but reads headlines and twitter accounts to gin up fear and panic?
What do you call a plague where nobody knows anyone particular who died, but reads headlines and twitter accounts to gin up fear and panic?
Cooties.
Let me amend my remark above:
Does anyone on the blog know a person (spouse, family member, sibling, neighbor, co-worker) who has died from Covid-19?
In other words, does anyone see the plague? I see the empty streets and stores and stadiums from our RESPONSE to the plague. but I don't see the plague.
And Tom Hanks and other celebrities on the internet don't count. Yeah, I know, he hasn't died either, but we don't even know if he is sick.
Meade said...
Achilles, do you understand the context of my comment you quoted—what I was referring to when I said "Wish I could say the same?"
This is your chance to explain your context.
Someone once recommended that when we look back on this we should want people to remember our actions positively.
Best photo yet!! Wish I had been there to see it in person.
Doggie! and his/her ball. In the sky... top, very slightly right of center.
I just purchased 'The Plague' in paperback. I had read one translation many years ago but I thought I would try the newer translation. Also, it was cheaper.
Despite reservations, I made it through two full seasons of Broadchurch. What I like most is that the action takes place in a spectacularly pretty seaside town. Whenever the characters discuss some aspect of the case, they do it with a lovely scenic backdrop, and it's nearly always sunny. Fine weather for the most part. Sometimes when one of the leading characters has a bad day it's allowed to drizzle or be overcast, but mostly it's fine weather in a pretty town.....I'm not sure, but I think Broadchurch might be Baywatch for the senescent.....Nice day today, but I just sneezed. I'd prefer more foreshadowing to my sneezes.
Does anyone on the blog know a person (spouse, family member, sibling, neighbor, co-worker) who has died from Covid-19?
Not me.
If 200,000 people were to die in the US, about 1 out of 1650 people, what would be the approximate chances that you would personally know one or more of them in real life?
Bay Area Guy said...
What do you call a plague where nobody knows anyone particular who died, but reads headlines and twitter accounts to gin up fear and panic?
Globalism.
I ordered and received a copy of "The Stand" from my local library the other day. It's the 1990 "Extended Version", because who didn't read The Stand and think, "You know, this book could use 3 or 4 hundred more pages?"
God forgives... Meade doesn’t
Char Char Binks said...
God forgives... Meade doesn’t
It isn't even about that. It is about how people act under pressure. Peeling away the onion layers so to speak.
We all get chances to grow and do better next time.
"The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous...But Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys...They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself."
The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allen Poe
Bay Area Guy said...Does anyone on the blog know a person (spouse, family member, sibling, neighbor, co-worker) who has died from Covid-19?
I felt that way too--even while the walls are closing in, I know no one who has it. I know no one who knows anyone who has it, and yet I am preparing to do my part to stop it.
But that's not true anymore. I still don't know anyone who has it, but I know several people who have family members who have it or friend(s) who have died fror it. So one fewer degree of separation.
The abbey was amply provisioned.
I don't think that would be possible; the story was written in 1842, but the toilet paper hanger wasn't invented until 49 years later.
Camus was quite famous for writing of his reality soley focused on the insanity of waste and death that ruled this world from 1937 to 1945. And he was right. We know that we live to die, but all meaning in that life is removed when the best die young under barrages of artillery including 16 inch Naval Guns.
Camus saw the same world's reality that Eugene B. Sledge wrote about.
"Does anyone on the blog know a person (spouse, family member, sibling, neighbor, co-worker) who has died from Covid-19?"
I have a co-worker whose uncle was diagnosed 12 days ago and who has now died. His funeral is today.
We have only 6 people in our office, and CT doesn't have that many cases per capita. So I was shocked to be the quarantine zone.
Not everyplace is the same. Small and sparsely populated and less populated areas don't need to be in "total lockdown".
Right now it the Governors deciding on a statewide basis. Good on the Administration going to the county level, but it should be state and local governments making that decision since they have a better handle on it. In a sane world anyway. Being a Republic should give us an advantage.
"Does anyone on the blog know a person (spouse, family member, sibling, neighbor, co-worker) who has died from Covid-19?"
Yes. A coworker of a pregnant family member.
pacwest Right now it the Governors deciding on a statewide basis. Good on the Administration going to the county level, but it should be state and local governments making that decision
True. This is why we are a Republic of States. States Rights matter.
However, the Federal Government is only issuing guidelines. The Governors can decide to follow or ignore.
I could think of twenty Portions of the Bible that would give me a positive perspective on what I am experiencing in this current situation.
Alas none of them bring relief to me when I see and hear Nancy Pelosi.
traditionalguy said...
Camus was quite famous for writing of his reality soley focused on the insanity of waste and death that ruled this world from 1937 to 1945.
When I was teenager, Camus was one of my three favorite writers and I found his novels and essays very insightful. As I got older I gradually went off serious fiction as a way to understand the world. I became more skeptical of the 'insights' provided by its authors, who often led crazy lives and believed even crazier things. Maybe in my decline I will recover some interest.
I might add that in addition to scripture, a very positive wife (a nurse who is waiting for the results of a COVID test due to symptoms), Abbey Road has given me great pleasure for some reason.
"I just purchased 'The Plague' in paperback. I had read one translation many years ago but I thought I would try the newer translation. Also, it was cheaper."
When i was younger, I was going to purchase a French Dictionary, and the original "The Plague" and the English Translation, and go through it line by line. I thought it would be an enjoyable exercise and help me learn to read French.
But then I got a girlfriend.
This a cafe?
I am curious how this blog, once so interesting, has turned into a denialist swamp. Althouse and Meade are not denialists, nor sympathetic to them. Some sort of Gresham's Law thing at work perhaps?
I found this article to be uplifting and hopeful today:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/thoughts-from-the-ammo-line-317.php
Also, there are indications that the plague is flattening in Washington.
rcocean said...
When i was younger, I was going to purchase a French Dictionary, and the original "The Plague" and the English Translation, and go through it line by line. I thought it would be an enjoyable exercise and help me learn to read French.
I had a similar thought but didn't know enough French to even begin. I did have a girlfriend, but she wasn't the problem. Where I grew up learning a foreign language was not viewed as a sensible way to spend time.
" i am curious how this blog, once so interesting, has turned into a denialist swamp."
And *I'm* curious about your method of thinking and writing. I just read your comment right after I read Andrew Sullivan's latest screed against Trump. Like your use of the word "Denialist", his article if full of "-ists" and "-ism" and insults like "cultists" and "Trumpists".
You seem to suffer from the same disease that most of the Left do, a complete inability to write about politics in a concrete way, without insulting those who disagree, mind-reading, ascribing motives without evidence, and using emotive language and generalizations.
"Where I grew up learning a foreign language was not viewed as a sensible way to spend time."
In fairness, it usually isn't. I eventually did learn to read French, but other than helping me read signs in France, it did me no good and I've not done it years. I'd have to relearn it.
Camus's narrator wasn't trying to work from home with little kids in the next room.
Lincolntf said...
I ordered and received a copy of "The Stand" from my local library the other day. It's the 1990 "Extended Version", because who didn't read The Stand and think, "You know, this book could use 3 or 4 hundred more pages?"
3/27/20, 10:57 AM
I remember reading it in the early 80's when it had already been "updated" from the original 1978 version. What made King's writing especially terrifying to me when I was a teen and young adult was how he crammed his works with topical and pop culture references, completely recognizable to his Boomer audience - the familiar world with horrifying supernatural elements. Nobody ever just eats a chocolate bar in King's books - it's a Snickers. They don't just watch TV, they watch "Columbo" or "The Waltons." They wear Levi's 501 jeans and Nikes and wear Pink Floyd T-shirts.
After a while, it becomes very tiresome and I started to wonder if King was getting paid to mention Tide detergent and Samsonite luggage in his books. And of course, all those references date his novels very quickly. "The Stand" gave me a jolt because it's meant to read as if these events are taking place now, in today's world. Yet, even by the early 80's it had to be updated because Carter was no longer president and references that were topical in 1978 were old news.
I haven't read it since then, but it must really be a period piece now, with no Internet, no cell phones, and all those quotes from Boomer bands like Blue Oyster Cult and CCR.
One of the eight people in my office tested positive this week. That person is now in home quarantine with a cough.
O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works proceed, give unto Thy servants that peace which the world cannot give: so that, with our hearts set to obey Thy commandments, and freed from the fear of the enemy, we may pass our lives in peace under Thy protection.
This is an antidote to the crisis of Camusien existentialism or absurdism.
You seem to suffer from the same disease that most of the Left do, a complete inability to write about politics in a concrete way, without insulting those who disagree, mind-reading, ascribing motives without evidence, and using emotive language and generalizations.
Excellent! When folks bemoan the deep and poisonous political divide, they fail to address the source of the problem. I'll add my name as among the source by pointing out that lefties, generally, are nasty little shits.
- Krumhorn
With all due respect, I think you may be too old to be reading Camus. I know I am.
Entre nous, nothing nus in Camus, and I can't stand King.
At my high school, French, Spanish, and Latin were the FL options. I chose Spanish, did two years, and got two semesters college FL credit. After more of that, I took two semesters of German as an elective (and for the company of Fraulein Waldtraut).
I don't regret the Spanish, but either French or Latin would have been more useful to my eventual historical interests.
Plus, it's my opinion that historians and archivist/librarians should have some reading knowledge of several languages--"picture caption and encyclopedia entry mastery." It worked for me, and I pick up simple conversation pretty easily.
Narr
With the exception of Latin!
If you are monitoring yourself everyday for signs of an illness - a cough, a sore throat, fatigue - the atmosphere is a little like that of Camus novel, both in terms of the individual and in terms of the wider world. There are little signs here and there that you anxiously worry about both in yourself and in others, attentively waiting for whatever is next. But of course, coronavirus isn't as serious for most people or for society as the plague was, and what we learn of the outside world tends to come from television, not from first-hand experience or from hearsay (rumors do still spread, though; this time over the internet).
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