Pale Horse, Pale Rider – a pandemic must read

THERE are times when literature helps us to make sense of life.

This seems particularly true over the last 16 months, which have mostly been defined by our struggle to deal with the covid19 pandemic.

With that in mind, there’s no better time to read or listen to the classic novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider, by journalist and fiction writer Katherine Anne Porter. Considered by academics to be the definitive piece on the 1918 Spanish flu, Pale Horse…presents a glimpse of life during the pandemic over a century ago and helps us to recognise and process many of the feelings in this pandemic that we can’t yet articulate.

The two viruses are not technically comparable. Covid19 differs from the Spanish flu, which is a misnomer for the 1918 pandemic that likely started in the US or France among World War I soldiers.

With Spanish flu, people died of secondary bacterial pneumonia. Covid19 triggers an overactive immune system, which causes organs to shut down. But both viruses are zoonotic diseases – one that crossed over from the animal kingdom to humans.

First published in 1939, the book Pale Horse, Pale Rider, includes three novellas, Noon Wine, Old Morality and the title story, Pale Horse, Pale Rider. All three novellas, each 50 pages long, show the struggle for survival, emotionally and physically.

In Noon Wine, a couple tries to save their family farm with the help of a stranger. When a second stranger arrives, years later, their lives fall apart. The latter two novellas, feature the same character, Miranda so that we get a picture of life before and during the Spanish flu.

Introduced in Old Morality as a twelve-year-old reflecting on a mysterious, beautiful aunt who died young, Miranda's story begins in 1885 when she dreams of life beyond her factious family and their conflicting memories of Aunt Amy, who watches all from a portrait in the family home.

By the end of the novella, Miranda breaks free from her family and leaves her husband. Life seems full of hope, cut short, of course, by the Spanish flu pandemic.

In Pale Horse…set in 1918, Miranda, a journalist, has just met Adam. They want time for their relationship to grow, but there’s the war and the Spanish flu, which no one understands. Adam, 24, a Second Lieutenant in an Engineers Corps, is about to ship out for war, and Miranda fears his fate.

Adam gets a temporary reprieve because as he says, “The men are dying like flies out there…This funny new disease.”

Miranda replies, “It seems to be a plague. Something out of the Middle Ages. Did you ever see so many funerals, ever?”

Adam suggests they make the most of his last four days of leave. Together they struggle to forget the sickness and death around them and live in the moment.

When Miranda falls ill, Adam faces the wrath and fear of Miranda’s landlady who wants to evict her. Fear and prejudice abound in this pandemic. Miranda and Adam must now fight for their lives.

Just before Miranda becomes delirious, Adam, who has gone in search of medicine tells her “all the theatres and nearly all the shops and restaurants are closed, and the streets have been full of funerals all day and ambulances all night.”

Descriptions in the novella bear an eerie resemblance to life under covid19 lockdowns. The nightmares, fear, uncertainty and sadness reflect much of what we feel in this pandemic. Porter’s novella helps readers to see how people coped and ultimately survived. But there are many feelings to process.

In these difficult times, Pale Horse, Pale Rider, named for a line in a Negro spiritual, evokes empathy and an understanding for what it takes to live through a pandemic when we haven’t fully processed the sadness and terror it has evoked in us. The novella connects us to history and to human experiences that we all share in a crisis. You can hear the novella on YouTube by searching for “a reading of Pale Horse, Pale Rider.”