Distractions in Isolation

"The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, 'doing business.' Albert Camus, The Plague.

If it is to be believed that the priesthood is a calling, then the same could be said about novel writing. To Jean Grenier it must have been as though writing a novel was his calling. While he was an excellent high school teacher and a great father and husband, he was burdened by the torrent of ideas that burst forth under their own volition and not his. This occurred whenever his mind was idle but happened most often when he was running in the morning. The thoughts were obsessive to the point that he had difficulty discerning whether they represented some suppressed natural talent trying to escape the prison of his good-enough life or if they were just the symptom of some form of unfettered OCD. Either way, after years of unsolicited thoughts, he finally had the time to put his ideas to the test. In truth, Grenier did not want to write a novel at all. There are so many other things that he could do with his time that would be easier and perhaps even provide him with more happiness. He was happy, extremely happy but there is a shallowness to happiness. In his darkest moments he despaired about his happiness. On the one hand, he realized how privileged he was to have conditions of life that were conducive to happiness. This was a source of guilt for him. “Why me and not others” he would ask himself. In another way he despaired that it was contentment that fueled his good, but not so great, life. ‘Happiness is such a pathetic goal’ he thought. “No one, whoever achieved greatness did so while being happy. It is the easiest answer to the question, what makes a meaningful life? Even a young child could come up with that answer. It requires no cogitation or imagination”.

Jean climbed up to the top floor of his home and entered his, never really used before, writing room accompanied by his little cat Meursault. Meursault was a sandy colored domestic short hair whose beautiful eyes would change shades with his mood. Jean and his wife, Elise, bought the cat from the Humane Society for their daughter Renee. At first, they had no interest in accepting the burdens of pet ownership but soon they fell in love with him. For no apparent reason though Meursault was completely attached to Jean but with everyone else, including Renee, Meursault had the indifference commonly associated with cats. Meursault was still quite small even though he was almost full grown but because he was not even one year old yet, he was still and very curious and active. 

Meursault was probably more familiar with the writing room than Jean was because she ordinarily spent all day with the run of the house. Usually when Jean and his family drove up to the house after work, they would see Meursault sitting up on the windowsill, in the writing room, peering out at the big Maple tree in the front. He made this noise that sounded like chattering whenever he saw a bird. He never did it to squirrels or chipmunks, only to birds. The first toy they ever bought Meursault was a stick with a long string with a bird attached. Meursault would make that same chattering noise, even with this toy. With all the birds hanging out on the bid Maple tree, the noise became incessant. His solitary life during the day was a series of naps interrupted by chattering at the birds. It was even worse now since it was spring, and the nests were full of hatching eggs. 

As Jean opened the door to his writing room, Meursault scooted in front of him, jumped up on his desk, and laid right down on Jean’s copy of Albert Camus’ book ‘The Plague. It was Jean’s favorite novel. He first read this dark novel in university and despite its ominous tone, he found it to be quite inspiring. In particular, Jean was inspired by the story's protagonist, Dr. Bernard Rieux. Throughout the book he was the doctor who refused to quit no matter how sick his patients were. Even when he knew that a patient would die, he continued to do his job. While most of the other characters slipped into despair, Doctor Rieux was driven with purpose. Now amid the Covid -19 pandemic there seemed to be Rieux-type people everywhere. Health care workers of all types operated with his spirit, risking their lives to save others. Philosopher Hannah Arendt, commenting on the holocaust, once observed that evil was banal because it was done by a bunch of people just doing their jobs. It quickly became apparent, during this pandemic, that heroism can also be banal as farmers, grocery store employees, police and other first responders all showed up everyday and did their jobs. The world had changed, the term ‘doing business’ now had an entirely new connotation.  

Meursault, still stretched out on the book, suddenly rolls on his back and looks up at Jean. Jean scratches him under the chin and Meursault sprints off leaving his hair on Jean’s book. As Jean picks it up to dust off the hair he wonders, “when did a plague become a pandemic. I guess it makes sense” he thought. “Pandemic sounds scientific and ephemeral like a technical problem that needs to be solved. The word plague, on the other hand, feels more nebulous, like the whim of a God who is displeased with humanity.” 

As Jean opens his laptop and double clicks on the Word icon he is confronted with an empty screen. He has ideas, millions of them, but each time he has decided on one, he gets this sudden and unwelcomed intuition that immediately convinces him that that idea sucks. After brainstorming with his friend Michel Gallimard, he decided he decided he would write a novel based on a thought experiment. He had come up with a list of questions that could guide his plot. What if there was an event that convinces everyone of God’s existence? What if God was no longer a conviction? What if he became as certain as gravity? How might the world change? What if it does not change at all? What if it turned out that God existed but was irrelevant? 

Jean typed, 'Proof of God' on the first line. He highlighted the title in order to bold it, underline it and center it. Meursault then jumps up onto the desk and sits by the window. The chirping birds in the nest must have been driving the frisky cat crazy. He begins his chattering. It is so annoying. Jean gets frustrated and yells at Meursault who completely ignores him. After yelling a few more times, Jean picks him up while the cat expresses his displeasure by swiping his unretracted claw and screeching at Jean. Jean carries Meursault out of the room making sure to keep the angry cat away from his body. Then he closes the door. 

Jean walks back to his computer and begins to type. He writes, “In a moment like no other in human history-” “No! No!” Jean thinks, “that’s not right”. ‘The first line of this novel has to be perfect. This is the event, the proof of God. It can, in no way, be ordinary’. As he begins to type again, he hears Meursault meowing loudly at the door. "Be quiet Meursault, go downstairs!" Jean turns back to his computer and thinks, “maybe I shouldn't start with the event. It is too important. I should begin with an easier part and get warmed up.”

Meanwhile, Meursault's meowing hasn't stopped, in fact, he can now hear scratching on the door. It even sounds like the determined little brat is banging his head on the door trying to get it open. Jean jumps up from his chair and runs over to the door. He opens it and Meursault zips inside the room. Jean then calls out to his daughter Renee. "Renee, can you please come get Meursault and maybe play with him downstairs?" Renee replies quickly, "Okay, daddy I’m coming''. When Jean comes back into the room, there is Meursault, back at the window chattering. "You really love those birds don't you Meursault?" Meursault ignores him and continues to call the birds. As Renee walks into the room, Jean says, "Hi baby". Renee replies, "Hi, daddy...oh look how cute he is at the window. Oh, my little Meursault talking to the birds, Oh, you look so cute". Renee's enthusiasm and general happiness always makes Jean smile. As Renee attempts to carry Meursault like a baby, she asks, "Daddy can I have a snack, I am hungry?". Jean answers, "Sure, my girl, what would you like?” Can I have some chips?" She asks hopefully. "No, how about some hummus with crackers instead", replies Jean, "Ya, that is good too’, Renee responds with a tinge of disappointment in her voice. 

After Jean makes a snack for Renee, he goes back upstairs to find Meursault napping on his copy of Camus', "The Plague". Jean smiles, "You are right Meursault maybe I do need some inspiration". Jean pulls the book out from under his cat, opens it up, and notices all the passages he had highlighted over 20 years ago. Jean had only recently rescued this book from the boxes of books in the basement after it was announced that all schools would be closed indefinitely. Jean thought there was probably no better time to reread this book. After all, Camus had spent months researching the history of plagues before writing it. Jean on the other hand has not done any research or any preparation at all. Jean wondered “Did I really think I could just sit down and start writing with the kids and the cat and no research?” Jean began flipping through the book reading over the parts he had highlighted. Surely Camus' wonderful style would inspire Jean's writing. After flipping through a few quotes, he found one with a red star scribbled next to it,

"What's true of all the evils in the world is true of the plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves. All the same, when you see the misery it brings, you'd need to be a madman, or a coward, or stone blind, to give in tamely to the plague."

He remembered using this quote in the essay he wrote comparing 'The Plague' with the Nazi occupation of France. This was actually Camus' intention. The entire book was a metaphor and Dr. Rieux, the hero, was an idealized version of Camus himself. While Dr. Rieux stood face-to-face with death by risking his life in defiance of the plague, so too did Camus who was part of the resistance force and who wrote, printed, and distributed a subversive newspaper called Combat. Camus had friends who were killed in the middle of the street for being part of the resistance. Anyone caught distributing Combat faced imminent death.  

As Jean continued to read the passages he highlighted, he came across some quotes that seemed quite appropriate to the state of the world today. This one was particularly prescient, "The public lacked, in short, standards of comparison. It was only as time passed and the steady rise in the death-rate could not be ignored that public opinion became alive to the truth." Thinking about "The Plague’s" again, Jean realized that this could be especially useful for his book. After all, seeing how Camus’ characters and people in the real world reacted to such an event could inform how his characters would react to his event in, Proof of God. They too would lack standards of comparison. The characters in his book would have only read about miracles, now they were going to experience one.

After reading through 15 or 20 such quotes Jean had his inspiration. He had just thought of his opening line. Hoping he wouldn’t lose it, Jean began to type hastily, “An event is the effect that seems to exceed its causes. For a wife, it could be the discovery that the husband has been cheating without any idea of why? For the society, it could be a pandemic-” no he presses the backspace to erase the word pandemic and replaces it with the word ‘plague’. He begins to type again. 

“An event unveils itself only after the fact, when the whole is annihilated and all that remains are vestiges. The wife is but a semblance of the person she was. The society with the same roads, buildings, and natural wonders, nevertheless has a new character made up of fragments of an obsolete epoch. It makes the sclerotic malleable by offering a creative impulse that was hitherto lacking...”

Jean continues to type while Meursault is still incessantly chattering. His typing seems automatic as the words come into his mind faster than he can process them. It is almost as though he is just a conduit, not filtering or creating, just typing. It was never Meursault that was the distraction, it was the confrontation with failure. Nietzsche once wrote, “If you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you”. Maybe it is the same with failure. Jean still has not figured out whether his uncontrollable thoughts that plagued him every morning were ideas or insanity, but he is doing exactly what he always dreamed about doing. On this day there is no verdict, he will leave the anxiety of failure for tomorrow. One must just imagine Jean happy. While he always wanted to be a hero, like Dr. Rieux, when the plague struck, he ended up being more like Joseph Brand[1]. 

[1] In “The Plague” Joseph Grand suffers from an intense anxiety over finding the ‘right words’ to express himself. He is trying to write a book, but he wants to create the perfect manuscript, so he has never gotten beyond the opening line.