Doomsday Book
By Connie Willis
Reviewed by Gordon Kearns
The story takes place in a near future, when disease has mostly, but not completely, been brought under control, years after a terrible pandemic that wiped out most of the population in North America. When the universities of England are the cultural centers of the world. When time travel is possible.
It's the Christmas season, with its rushing crowds, last minute shopping, miserably wet weather, and ever present Christmas carols. At the university, Kivrin, a very young history student, is being sent back to 1320, over the objections of her beloved mentor, Mr. Dunworthy, a high-ranking history professor. Kivrin will be dressed as a lady named Isobel, whose wagon was waylaid by robbers as she was travelling. Kivrin has been inoculated against all the diseases known to have existed in the fourteenth century, including the dreaded black plague, even though the year 1320 was well before the plague had reached England. Unknown to anyone, Kivrin has already contracted a 21st century flu virus, which in days will ravish the university and environs, killing hundreds in the process. When Kivrin arrives in her target area, she is suddenly beset by the severe symptoms of the virus, and is taken in and helped to recover by a family of contemps (the people living in the time being visited). She almost dies in the process, but with the help and encouragement of a simple parish priest, Father Roche, who tends her needs, body and spirit, she recovers. Meanwhile, back in the 21st century, it's discovered that something terrible has happened to Kivrin's "drop." She has apparently been sent back to a time years different than intended, and no-one knows when or where or how to get her back. So the book tells two stories: the problems of the 21st century, as Mr. Dunworthy struggles desperately to find a way of bringing Kivrin back midst a massive deadly epidemic; and Kivrin's struggles in the 14th century, where she discovers it's not 1320, but 1348, the beginning of the Black Plague, and where, one by one, her dear new friends are dying of its horrors. There are other key characters in both eras. In the 21st century, there's Mr. Dunworthy's close friend Mary, the hospital medical director, on whose shoulders falls the job of finding a cure for the flu epidemic. She has no time for her visiting nephew, 12 year old Colin. Dunworthy agrees to watch over the indefatigable helter-skelter lad. The energetic Colin acts as Dunworthy's go-fer as the professor tries to find the key to retrieving Kivrin while at the same time contending with the massive human logistics brought about by the quarantine (housing, food, toilet paper, etc.). He is also helped by his administrative assistant Finch, and an unlikely group of friends, a team of women bell-ringers from America, at the moment stalled under the quarantine while touring England giving concerts. Colin's lot isn't all that rosy. In London, his mother has little interest in him; and here at the university, his aunt has no time for him. He feels a kinship with this Kivrin as she, too, is isolated by circumstances. As the 21st century story drives to a climax, his aunt, her resistance weakened by her 24 hour battles, catches the flu and dies; and Dunworthy himself becomes terribly ill. The boy, then, is every bit as alone as Kivrin as he continues his go-fer duties, and, in between, sits lonely vigil at Dunworthy's bedside. When Dunworthy starts to come out of it, he feels sure that all is lost for Kivrin - too much time has intervened; and all but gives up his efforts to save her. It's at this point that the young Colin's heroic character comes to full bloom. He rebels explosively and refuses to allow the good professor to give up. There has to be a way.
In the 14th century, Kivrin has become very close to the family who took her in when she was so ill, especially the two children, twelve year old Rosemund and five year old Agnes, and father Roche, of course. Young Rosemund must contend with an arranged marriage to a gross nobleman, a fate she has no choice but to accept. However, the wedding plans are interrupted when a guest at the Christmas feast put on for the nobleman and his party falls victim of the Black Plague. The party hastens away, leaving the family to deal with the sick man ... and their own unavoidable fate. The remainder of Kivrin's life in the 14th century details her and Father Roche's frustrating, but unwavering struggles tending the needs of the villagers as they one by one contract the plague. This sequence is an awesome experience for the reader. The personalizing of the dreaded disease and the descriptions of its gruesome effects strike to the heart. The modern/future world Kivrin takes on giant stature as she futilely battles the ravages of the plague, well after she's resigned herself to never being able to return to her own time. Her struggle against everything she knows of history makes of her a tower of strength. To the end, when she packs the donkey to take Rosemund and Roche to the safety of Scotland, she battles and rails against the inevitable and fate and history and religion and god. You can feel her complete despair when Rosemund's apple rolls across the floor past her feet. "Oh, Rosemund." What a literary moment.
I've placed the youthful Kivrin on a pedestal among my very favorite heroes of all literature.
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