DoomsDay Book

[McMurphy]

Kivrin, a young college student determined to take part in the routine yet undiminished time-traveling expeditions for history observation, gets her wish and travels to early fourteenth century Europe. She is respectful yet impatient with Mr. Dunworthy's parental-like paranoia in regards to her safety and reluctance to let her go. Every precaution was taken. Every possible situation thought out. What could go wrong?

After Kivrin arrives in the past with an immediate grave sickness and the technician running the procedure's computers flees to Mr. Dunworthy to tell of some grave mistake only to collapse before warning him, this Connie Willis novel is all about trying to figure out what exactly has gone wrong.

I thought it was well written and witty book that seems to offer readers themes larger than a simple time traveling story, although it succeeds quite nicely on just that front. Human faith and spirit first come to mind. I am especially interested in discussing the rat in the cage and the pestering cow as tools of foreshadowing and/or techniques in storytelling metaphors.

Has anyone else ever read Doomsday Book by Connie Willis?

 

[Leto]

I did and like it very much : smart, witty, original treatment of an old plot (time-travelling) and well documented on the century chosen. What could someone ask more ?

 

[Brian G Turner]

I've started reading this after I saw it come up in other discussions. I'm hoping it'll be interesting, but so far the first chapter has been nothing but exposition, provided mostly through dialogue - but to try and hide this fact, Connie Willis has spread it out among reams of chatter. And little if any character development. Here's hoping it get's more direct and to the point!

 

[kythe]

I really enjoyed Doomsday Book. It maintained a feel of historical authenticity to me as Kivrin attempts to fit in to 14th century society, only to find some details not at all as she would have expected. The tie between Kivrin's illness in the past and the future virus was well woven.

 

[Fried Egg]

Here's my review of this book that I read last year:

I felt a little bit of trepidation setting out to read this book. Firstly I was alarmed by it's size and then I was alarmed by some of the quite harsh criticisms of the book suggesting that very little actually happens. On the other hand, it is quite highly acclaimed by many and now featured in the SF Masterworks series.

Throughout most of the book I felt quite positive. I didn't find it boring or that not enough was happening. I felt quite caught up on the story and wanted to find out what happened next throughout. I did notice however that it started to drag a little in the middle. The narrative seemed to be needlessly and methodically plodding through minutiae and trivial details that did little to advance the plot or characters. Maybe the author wanted us to share the protagonist's sense of exasperation being beset by the selfish and menial concerns of others while they were just trying to get on and deal with the big issues. But I think she overdid it and most readers will just start feeling exasperated with the narrative itself.

The author had obviously done her research on the biological and historical aspects of the story. Her knowledge of life back in a thirteenth century English village felt well researched and her knowledge of diseases and pandemics felt convincing (to someone who professes no expertise in either subject). On the other hand the technological and social aspects of the story felt less well thought out. Although being set in 2050, it felt exactly like 1990 with the exception that time machines and video phones existed. Her failure to anticipate the rise to prominence of the mobile phone just a few short years after this book published is quite noticeable, particularly when so much of the narrative tension arises out of the communication problems that will seem silly to an audience so at home in an age of personal communications.

Ultimately the book was just too long for the story it had to tell. Even though most of it was split into two narratives that paralleled the experiences of a modern pandemic with an ancient one, it didn't really need to be as long as it was. And at the end, I felt slightly deflated, somewhat dissatisfied with the way it was all wrapped up. A good book but could have been better.

 

[Vertigo]

It is a bit slow to get going, but once it gets to the medieval part I think you'll enjoy it Brian. I'd agree with Fried Egg that the modern (future) parts didn't feel particularly future, but the medieval parts (which I think you are more interested in) are much better. Those medieval parts do dwell on minutiae but as it felt well researched I found that interesting. It's certainly not as bad on that front as Jean Auel's Earth's Children books which drove me mad with their level of minutiae.

 

[Zoe Mackay]

It's certainly not as bad on that front as Jean Auel's Earth's Children books which drove me mad with their level of minutiae.

Excuse me while I stop the narrative to discuss ice age flora for five pages. I love those books, but there are some completely ridiculous elements in them. All of which Ayla invented.

With regard to Connie Willis, it does seem that some of her books could do with a bit of a more disciplined edit. Black Out/All Clear (another Dunworthy time-travel thing) was two good books crying out to be one utterly fabulous one.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm afraid I gave up Earth's children after Shelter's of Stone and none of the reviews I've seen of the last have encouraged me to read it.

And yes, I've hear of issues with Black Out and All Clear and having less interest in that era I'm probably not going to read them. But I do think the detail was worth it in the medieval settings of Doomsday Book. I found it was the very detail that removed the romanticism and made those parts gritty and compelling.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Yes, it's for the mediaeval section I'm reading it for.

I'm only two chapters in, and it's not a bad book so far. The 2050 section is dragging somewhat.

But what astonishes me is that it has been mostly dialogue so far, and little else.

 

[Vertigo]

Yes I found the 2050 sections dragged rather and also largely seemed an irrelevance to me but then I was also more interested in the medieval sections as well!

 

[Brian G Turner]

I am really struggling with this book. I'm a third of the way through, but barely anything has happened. There's an immense amount of chatter, and huge amounts of repetition.

The mediaeval section doesn't feel mediaeval at all. There's no sense of living history. Instead, the narrative stops to highlight any point of information the author found. It doesn't sit naturally in the text at all. Most of the research appears to be about language, local Oxford history, and a little political history. If that. And Willis points it out every time it enters the text.

The future section is worse. There's a snide humour running through all of these chapters. We are meant to laugh at Mrs Gaddson because she frets about her son not taking his vitamins. Yet Oxford has its transport links severed and the entire city put into quarantine just because a university tech gets a temperature. If we are to find Mrs Gaddson ridiculous, then we must also accept the future chapters the same.

Another problematic issue is Badri. At first, it's said he's from Pakistan. We're told that because he's a third-generation immigrant to the UK, he will have no relatives in Pakistan. Er, right. Then he's described as Indian. And that he's a New Hindu - which from the description sounds like Jainism, popular in south-east India. So - Badri is a Hindu Pakistani from India, with no relatives overseas because he's an immigrant. Okay...

Even worse, what little plot we have is inconsistent and contradictory. For example, we're told that disease cannot be brought from the past to the future, because it would cause a "paradox". Which makes no sense to me - science has already revived bacteria that has been dormant for thousands of years. And Willis is clearly aware that some mediaeval diseases are not known in the modern day.

I can accept the argument that disease cannot travel from the future to the past because it would cause a paradox - and yet that happens anyway!

In the mediaeval period, Willis shows that these people understand the danger of contagion. So what do they do when they find a traveler apparently dying of disease? They take her straight into the Lord's Manor...

There seems to be no reason for the time travel, either. We're dumped with a load of information about Kivrin's cover story - repeated to us various times - only for it to be dropped the moment she's lucid. Yet what's her actual mission on this time traveling expedition? What's her brief? What is she supposed to discover? There's mention of a tomb to look at, and visit a village - but for what purpose? What are the future historians trying to discover? It doesn't feel clear to me.

So far, this is just a book about miscommunication and disease symptoms. And we're inundated with both, with very little focus as to any point behind these.

I know this is a popular book - not just award-winning, but enjoys many positive reviews on Amazon. But this just isn't working for me. Perhaps because I prefer to read a more disciplined and focus standard of writing, but there's little in the future or mediaeval narratives that sounds authentic to me.

Perhaps with this book winning so many awards my expectations were simply too high?

 

[Vertigo]

I was disappointed with it based on its reputation but it doesn't sound like I was as disappointed as yourself. As mentioned before my main complaints were about the future sections rather than the medieval ones. So, sorry if both are not doing it for you.

Overall I did only give it 3/5 and one of my comments, which does resonate with you complaint about repetition, was:

I also had problems with the writing itself. Willis has a tendency to treat her readers like morons with the attention span of a gnat; she constantly tells us the same piece of information many times over, which I found not just annoying but actually insulting.

 

[Mangara]

I'm off Connie Willis since reading Blackout. The issues raised here by Brian could easily be applied to blackout too. I tried to start All Clear but it was equally as lacking in pace, overly wordy and just not very enjoyable.

 

[Ogma]

Interesting points, Brian. I had a very different experience with the book. I found the book very moving, particularly the revelation by Father Roche at the end.

For me, the future thread was there to provide a contrast to the medieval thread, and dilute a little of its sense of impending doom. The future has already suffered at least serious pandemic, if I remember rightly. People are given shots for known viruses, so when somebody comes down with an unidentified disease, it’s no surprise there are strict quarantine protocols in place. I didn’t find the humour snide at all. I think it was intended to bring some relief to the impending sense of doom (and of course, explain why Kivrin )

Kivrin’s mission was pretty clear to me. After ending up at the wrong time and location, and being incapacitated by sickness, so her only focus then would be getting home.

I could be wrong on this, but the disease ultimately came from the archaeological dig at the village Kivrin was supposed to visit, not from the past.

Badri was Church of England, not New Hindu.

 

[hitmouse]

I thought Doomsday Book was terrific. Quite funny in places but also tragic. The characters were excellent. The sense of futility at the end in the face of the plague was deeply moving and was probably the most significantly accurate and useful historic part of the novel. The book was a bit difficult to get into, especially as I had bought it after loving To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is an easy and delightful sparkling comedy of manners, with echoes of Wilde and Wodehouse. Willis does dialogue well, but it can be a bit of an effort to follow when there are multiple new characters. So what? Lots of good authors do the same thing (Robertson Davies is another) and it is worth the effort when done well.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I wasn't thrilled with this book. I thought the whole medieval section was boring and repetitive, as though she was working too hard to drive her point home, and the main character began to annoy me. She seemed so self-righteous telling people over and over that it was a disease rather than the interpretation they put on it to make sense of their world, because the fact was that she was just as helpless as they were.

I know many people whose opinions I absolutely respect, who think that everything she writes is terrific, but somehow whatever it is they love about her writing goes right past me. I don't know why.