I would never have read The Stand (1978) about a horrific virus for which there is no cure and one that wipes out the world's population. Doomsday, sky is falling characters are extremes in how they confront the world around them.
"Fear not," says Stephen King. King does not mean for the pandemic which is quite real in our 2020 world to be dismissed. It's serious. King suggests we should do what we are advised to do. This situation is not in his or any other author's novel; it is in our day to day lives. King tells his readers that the coronavirus outbreak pales in comparison to the fictional pandemic in 1978’s The Stand. The fictional disease from The Stand "could kick coronavirus’ butt."
Excellent writers fascinate me, especially those whose books tend to be taken as non-fiction when, in fact, they are totally fiction. The author's valid research for their novels can make fiction seem real. It's called "verisimilitude." ' A work of art, or any part of a work of art, has verisimilitude. The story is believed as true; it seems realistic. Authors strive to make their work realistic. The reader must recognize what's happening. Samuel Tayor Coleridge coined the term "willing suspension of disbelief," meaning that there should be enough "verisimilitude" in a novel so that readers can choose to set aside their rational and realistic thoughts The author carries the reader into his world and there's enough reality to have the reader "willingly suspend his rational understandings."
Novelist Dean Koontz' 1981 novel The Eyes of Darkness is not intended to predict this pandemic coronavirus but his descriptions do relate to a pneumonia like illness with realistic qualities. Koontz is a writer, not a soothsayer. He's an excellent researcher. Novelists conduct extensive research even into the "well, it could...and if it did..." to make their words tell a realistic, believable story.
Conspiracy theorists have jumped to say that 40 years ago Koontz predicted the current virus.The novel contains a section about a fictional biological weapon Koonz called Wuhan-400 because in his novel it was developed outside the city of Wuhan. Yes, it's coincidental, but it's still fiction.
In another extreme, in this case, the extreme of the ostrich mentality, I think of the classic 1936 novel Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Scarlett O'Hara never understood what was right in front of her. Pre-war, she was all about bar-b-ques at Twelve Oaks, flirting with anyone's boyfriend or husband, and eating like a bird. Scarlett believed in all possibilities and based her will and determination on the red earth of Tara and the attention that followed her like the gazes of the Tarlleton twins. She got what she wanted at major expense. Fiddle-de-de and all that.
When faced with the worst situation of her life - beyond the losses and the deaths, the demise of her familiar civilization, she looked forward with naive resolve and said, "Tara. Home. I'll go home, and I'll think of some way to get him (Rhett Butler) back."
"After all, tomorrow is another day."
I, too, look toward tomorrow with hope and I pray for that better day to come. And while I am being asked only to curtail social involvement, to stay home to avoid the virus' spread, I will not believe in the world's doom by this virus. American resolve will win the day. Nevertheless, it will take a concerted, combined national effort; it will take more than last memorable lines of a revered novel to confront and solve our current health crisis.
Keep calm and take all reasonable precautions,” says Stephen King.
(Thank you, Gail, for the conversation.))
