Literature Then, Literature Now
“The narrative uncertainty causes many of us to turn to genre fiction and predictable movies (even if they are about disaster)—they allow us to pull down another story like a shade and sit in a place where we already know the ending.”
Excerpt from an essay by Elizabeth Outka, “How Pandemics Seep into Literature”
I think in some ways literature is a novelty. This feels strange to say, especially when so much of literature is inherently repetitive in nature and the genre overall consists of stories that are thoroughly recycled over time. What I mean by novelty, however, is that literature will still always feel new and exciting despite its nature. There must be some reason why we flock to the young adult dystopian literature when so much of it is always about some underdog kid defying society. We’re attracted to every version of slow burn romance, because we know in the end, the guy will in some way get the girl. Even old fairytales get twisted into modern dramas: rags to riches, the big bad wolf, and sinister plots behind candy houses. We cling to literature in spite of it. We know the endings to these stories. Whether we’ve read them before (and we most certainly have) or we’ve lived them ourselves, we can’t escape the sense of voyeurism that happens when new literature feels familiar.
This past summer, I read Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 post-apocalyptic novel, Station Eleven. In short, it follows a constructed timeline with scattered memories of the events that followed before and after a flu pandemic swept the globe. Sound familiar? It was an eerie experience to indulge in a piece of literature about a pandemic while simultaneously living in one. Like the current coronavirus health crisis, the novel’s very own “Georgia Flu”, was unexpected, unimaginable, and catastrophically deadly. I found the enjoyment I had gotten from reading that novel at the time I read it was exceptionally strange. If I wanted to escape the constant stream of news of the pandemic that came from my living room television, I would go upstairs and read bits and pieces of a book about the aftermath of a separate fictional pandemic instead. Doesn’t that sound strange? It’s a paradox at best, but I suppose a lot of how we live life is a paradox within itself. We’re terrified of the dark and the strange things lurking in it and yet, we wait in lines for rickety haunted houses. We live in fear of the unknowing possibility of being attacked in broad daylight, but we love listening to true crime podcasts and the retelling of unfortunate victims. There is a fine line between reality and fiction. While both can tell the same story, we actively choose to go into one where we know what we are getting ourselves into. It stems from our control or lack thereof. When we retreat to these fictional versions of reality, we can take the reins and offer ourselves some kind of comfort, knowing how situations play out. We’re attracted to the suspense, danger, and threats within fiction, but we know that there is an end. I can put Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven down, but I will have to return to the ongoing uncertainty of living amidst the coronavirus pandemic. It makes perfect sense to retreat to fiction, even if said fiction mimics reality.
“And finally, there comes the aftermath, both for our bodies and for our culture. Whether in illness or in observation, our own bodies are busy now. They are recording our pandemic, setting in place the reverberations that will echo into our future.”
As the events of post-apocalypse life in Station Eleven occur, the novel focuses on both the primary plotline of a traveling performing arts symphony of survivors as they hike back and forth throughout the United States East Coast, putting on theatrical performances for whoever is left. What’s interesting about the novel however, is that the flashbacks that occur throughout the story belongs to that of one member of the symphony; the rest of the flashbacks are pockets of time on individuals connected to her life who are not part of her present story. Elizabeth Outka brings an interesting point about pandemics and what they can do for creativity/literature. Her piece introduces intriguing questions as to what can come out of the coronavirus pandemic, when it or should it ever end, and how years down the line, will we be introduced to a new wave of health crises-inspired memoirs, poetry, novels, etc. The pandemic itself has already introduced an influx of new kinds of art and while the virus itself may usher us into a new era of life, I wonder what is to come. For the symphony in Station Eleven, it took several years of recovery before these various survivors can come together to bring back the arts in post-apocalyptic United States, continuously performing even twenty years after the world’s downfall. They put on Shakespearean plays and recruit musicians even when the world feels as if there is no place for the arts. I think the miraculous thing both Outka and Mandel address is the immortality of ‘fiction’. So badly, as people we hope to escape from the real world or at the very least, try to make some sense of it. Outka talks about the 1918 influenza pandemic inspiring literature with elements that reflect how the authors lived through the Spanish Flu, the coronavirus pandemic will no doubt do the same. This past summer, while reading Mandel’s work, I had also been working with a small team of young creatives to develop the brand’s annual print publication. One of the sections was titled “Quarantine Reflections” and I had managed to curate a selection of art that was inspired by the ongoing covid-19 life. From Facetime photoshoots by a photographer who couldn’t conduct them in person to poetry discussing the mundanity of quarantining at home, the pandemic had still inspired us to create little blips art that reflected our realities. Outka and Mandel convey that interesting thought. We are people who will inherently create – in any kind of form – and while a pandemic may be our daunting subject matter or inspiration, we’ll find comfort in the certainty that it was ours.
