Based on events from 1939 and written in 1988 but only published in 2020 when it finally resonated it is a window on our relationship with the state as much as anything else.
A scientist working of an plague vaccine (is this work in preparation for the state using the plague as a weapon?) becomes infected. Summons to Moscow, unable to refuse the summons, he travels on a train spreading the infection. Once in Moscow he is visibly ill, and the secret police with brutal efficiency find and isolate the contacts – and the plague is contained, only 3 people die as a result.
The question I think this put before us is the authoritarian state was effective in stopping this plague so does that become a justification for state control – however if we use COVID as a worked example it shows we see a range of responses, some democracies dealt with it well, some authoritarian states didn’t.
One of the best things about this book is that it doesn’t try to answer the questions – they hang in the air, between the lines, we have the fact of the situation but we have to make our own moral judgements
