Covid in our stories- should it be or not?
I’m in two minds about representing Covid in pop culture, especially books.
On the one hand, I am intrigued to see how writers depict the tediously convoluted times that we live through in their writings. On the other, I am wary of confronting a shade of reality that I am not yet detached with, in books which I read for solace- and really, whatever book we read, we read in search of some kind of solace, isn’t that so?
I was looking up the internet to see what other readers have to say about it. One thing I found was that many people share my views- the push and pull of intrigue and dread about the whole thing.
As I write this, there is talk that the city where I live- Bangalore- is going to go into a another lockdown in the near future. And at least in my imagination, that’s the only scenario in which I would actually read a story or a novel set in covid times.
When I am going out every day for work or for some other reason, there is no need for me to reminded of the virus once I am back home at night, trying to find respite in the pages of a book. But if I am forced to stay in every day, then, the idea of reading about people who are not me going about their tasks out in the world , grappling with the pandemic and its after-effects would appeal to me, at least I think so.
This idea- of possibly enjoying a pandemic novel only during lockdown- brought home a realisation: Learning demands peculiar circumstances. In this case, I would like to learn about how other people live in the pandemic only if I am at home and so insulated from the outside world that’s now reshaped by the pandemic.
Reading fiction, for some reason, is not associated with learning. There seems to be a consensus or at least a majority opinion that only non-fiction — or “raw facts” as they call it- would bring you knowledge.
I have always found this to be a limiting perspective on learning at best and grossly mistaken at worst.
For one thing, the mode of language learning that fiction brings is unparalleled, and is hardly likely to be replicated in a non-fiction book. For another, very few things in life keeps your mind fresh- and so perceptive to learning- like fiction can.
And that’s without taking into account the obvious help that fiction provides with developing our inter-personal skills. Why obvious, you ask? Because of the sense of empathy that fiction instils in us- for characters who are quite different from us in many ways, and by extension people who are not us.
Another lockdown is the only way that I would read a novel about the pandemic. And it would only be through a novel that I would like to learn about how people live in this pandemic- at least for the short run. Because the reality is quite close to home and I need that one-step divide from reality which only fiction can provide to make reality palatable.
