The Doomsday Book

The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis – 1992

'I, seeing so many evils, have put into writing all the things that I have witnessed. Lest things which should be remembered perish with time' – Brother John Clyn, quoted by Willis on page 526

A few weeks ago, I was in the library and noticed a particularly cool-looking book. It was in the excellent SF Masterworks series, and depicted a lot of grey, misty cogs and, dead centre, a black-clad, steampunk Plague Doctor, which instantly appealed to my somewhat dramatic heart. The author, who I had never heard of, was Connie Willis.
Already having an armful of books, I made a note of the name and left, intending to return for it a subsequent week. However, one of the books I checked out was the superb collection 'Rogues', edited by old character-killer himself George RR Martin, along with Gardner Dozois, and among the offerings of Neil Gaiman, Joe Abbercrombie and other such illustrious contributors, was a knife-sharp, yet lovingly affectionate satire of swashbuckling caper movies and the modern film industry called 'Now Showing'. It was one of my favourite tales in the anthology, and was written by, you guessed it, Connie Willis. The short bio before 'Now Showing' listed many of her works, describing her as 'the most honoured writer in the history of science fiction, and the only person ever to win two Nebulas and two Hugos in the same year'1. The novel she won for, was The Doomsday Book.

And by the gods did it deserve it!

Briefly, the novel opens to us a world in which time travel is in use by Oxford University as part of its History Department. Despite the deep reservations of her supervisor, Mr Dunworthy, Kivrin, a young student, travels back to the 1300s, and inadvertently arrives as the Black Death begins to sweep over England. Caught up in the lives of Eliwys Guillaume, her daughters Rosemund and Agnes, mother-in-law Lady Imeyne, their servants Gawyn and Maisry, as well as the local priest Father Roche, Kivrin does what she can to ease the suffering. Meanwhile the University have their own pandemic on their hands, rendering them unable to rescue Kivrin.

One of the novel's best devices is Willis' use of Kivrin's 'corder', a voice recorder implanted within her, that she activates by placing her hands together as if in prayer; a cunning disguise, they believe, as no one in the 1300s will questions someone speaking softly with their hands clasped. Though initially a functional tool on which a historian can record their findings, the corder takes on increasing significance once Kivrin, stranded in the past, determines to continue using it, speaking to a Mr Dunworthy she is sure will never hear what she says. When she does so, the line between her seeming to pray when using it and actually speaking to a loving father-figure who she is aware cannot hear her and would be unable to help her if he could, becomes increasingly blurred. This becomes ever more poignant as she works alongside Father Roche in caring for and comforting the sick, as he finds his faith deeply tested and together they wonder if God himself has crawled away sick, feeble and impotent, when at the same time Mr Dunworthy is lying ill in hospital, unable to even try to help her. Indeed, as the situation becomes more horrific, and characters we have grown to love, tolerate, pity and empathise with, begin their excruciating deaths, Kivrin begins to speak into the tricorder as if Mr Dunworthy is in fact God: 'You bastard! I will not let you take her. She's only a child. But that's your speciality, isn't it? Slaughtering the innocents?'2 Mr Dunworthy himself, although totally unaware of Kivrin's prayers, also ruminates on his role as God, having sent a younger person for whom he felt a fatherly love into a dangerous situation and struggles to deal with the guilt, asking, while in hospital, to be read from Matthew 27, verse 46: 'My God, my God, why hast though forsaken me?'

Having said all of this, I feel constrained to point out, somewhat incongruously, that The Doomsday Book is also hilarious. Much of this comes from the Oxford sections; Mr Dunworthy's sarcastic asides in church, the infighting of collegiate departments, Mr Dunworthy's assistant Finch frantic at their low supplies of toilet paper, the team of American bell-ringers who have descended upon Balliol College and the utterly Wodehousian character of Mrs Gaddson, continually panicking about the health of her poor son William, a strapping six-foot ladies' man. So deft is Willis' touch, however, that as the horror of both pandemics begins to set in, the humour begins to sour: Mr Dunworthy's sarcasm is scathing of himself, several of the bell-ringers are killed by the virus and Mrs Gaddson ministers to the sick by reading passages from the Bible in which God has sends 'every sickness and every plague'3 upon the unrighteous.

However, what has stuck with me most is the sheer force of Kivrin as a protagonist. It is not perhaps surprising that a recent science fiction novel, whose author is a woman, should have a well-written female lead, but in a world still plagued by the term Strong Female Character, and even more by the need for it, The Doomsday Book should be mandatory reading. Kivrin is not a Strong Female Character; she is a character who is female, and who is forced to discover, and drain, reserves of strength within her that could not be asked of anyone. She is by turns, cocksure, incapacitated, helpless, caring, fearful, resilient, loving, desperate, stubborn and despairing, and when Father Roche is dying, he reveals his belief that God sent a saint, Kivrin, to the village, to give them aid and comfort in their dying hours, we, who know how she really got there, are left to question the line between the serendipitous and the divine.

There are some lovely touches to the book, aside from the strength of Kivrin as protagonist; Willis' depiction of the sisterly, loving hatred between Rosemund and Agnes, the deep devotion and belief of Father Roche, the emotions between Eliwys and Gawyn that Willis keeps almost entirely hidden from us, the quiet fortitude of Dr Mary Ahrens and most of all, the resounding implication that perhaps where someone has come from, whether sent by God or by a tired, battered, old Oxford historian, doesn't matter. What matters is the love they give and the love they inspire.

1Martin, George RR & Dozois, Gardner, Rogues, Titan Books, 2015 pp. 747-8

2Willis, Connie, The Doomsday Book, New English Library, 1992, pp. 448

3Willis, pp. 430