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The Death of Grass 3 - Wider society
At the start, the characters (reflecting wider British society) have an amused disdain of other countries and their responses to the virus. By the end, their world has closed down to a tiny and quite vulnerable enclave. How does this match with your experiences during COVID (positive and/or negative)?
Comments
A disdain of other countries except 'The Americans' who again are assumed will somehow once again come to the rescue. Unlike in Triffids, in this novel this heroic role is also extended to the Commonwealth.
The Canadian attitude would be that we can and will save ourselves. And once that's taken care of, we'll go and help others because it's the right thing to do, knowing our contribution will quickly be forgotten.
The overall trajectory of international co-operation at the start of the book rang true. Initial aid, then that dried up as the need stayed and people started to think charity began at home.
My experience of COVID lockdowns wasn't as insular as this book. The internet helped with that. I was able to remain involved in various communities and maintain contact with friends throughout. I didn't need to retreat to an isolated farm and deal only with a couple of dozen random people I had virtually nothing in common with.
Here in a Cumbrian village there was a lot of suspicion during the lockdowns about strangers, and certain factions within the village became quite accusatory about vehicles or people they presumed were outsiders trying to take advantage ("he was wearing a backpack", "they were driving a campervan" etc). The worst we had was when someone's tyres were leet down on the assumption they were a tourist breaking the rules, when in fact they were a nurse on respite care needing isolation. Things got better after that particular episode as there was near-universal revulsion at the act.
"This person doesn't belong here, so I'm going to deflate their tires so they can never leave." Doesn't seem very well thought out lol.
Reminds me of when I was in university, a fellow student did a huge bike ride through Asia. He later described being arrested in China for being somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, but they let him go a day later after they realized it was better to have him leave the restricted area than to incarcerate him there. Also, he said Chinese cyclists were so surprised to see him that they sometimes fell of their bikes.