Forget about The Stand -- Defoe's account of the bubonic plague in London is frightening and true. Though not an eyewitness account, since Defoe would have been five years old at the time, it is still largely based on fact, and perhaps to some degree on the diary of one of Defoe's uncles, who actually was in London during the plague. Defoe's sweeping journalistic picture of a city in crisis is both haunting and mesmerizing.Told from the point of view of a London merchant, the book is a collection of sketches, facts, documents, and statistics that vividly paint the scene of desolation and despair. Locked and abandoned houses, doomed families, manic displays in the streets, pseudo-religious hysteria, mass burial grounds, persevering physicians, stoic public servants, desperate escapees, and the nightly rounds of the dead cart all paint a chilling picture of a suffering city.
In a particularly moving scene, the narrator walks about the abandoned docks of the Thames and meets a boatman whose wife and children have been infected. We see the man leave food and money on a dock, and watch hopelessly as his wife and oldest son crawl out of his house to get it after he is a safe distance away. Banished from his family, his heart is broken at their plight, and he is unable to come near them, but at the same time he refuses to abandon them. We never learn what happens to them, but it is a picture of steadfast love in the midst of tragedy.
With stark and methodical realism, Defoe tries to portray as much of the turbulent time as he can, and he does a very good job. This is a book that will get you thinking.
Arbitrary rating: 4 out of 5 desperate escapees
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