A Enemy of the People

Early Sunday afternoon I finally fulfilled my promise to go find a library. Turns out there’s a small one called the Grinnell Library very close to my apartment complex. It’s a very interesting looking building and has a very homey feel to it.

It’s quite small and only has 2 floors. The 2^nd floor has a great room of sorts which really has the feel of a library or den you’d find in a mansion. It’s also weird how their books are catalogued by subject. For instance books about dinosaurs might all start with 675 while books about cooking start with 390. Anyway, I went in, applied and obtained a library card and checked out two books.

I got The Republic by Plato and a book of 4 plays by Ibsen. I had read A Doll’s House and Ghosts in high school and enjoyed them so I decided to read some more of his plays. I’m currently reading A Enemy of the People.

Based on the two Ibsen plays I’ve read his plays tend to not be really packed with action or violence, but they are exciting at a more cerebral level. He also has a knack for making dramatic, subtle, but powerful endings.

So I read through two acts of A Enemy of the People last night making it the first time in a good while that I’ve actually read something other than a magazine or website. It’s pretty interesting. Basically so far the plot centers around a family who lives in a town that has these baths (which are basically like therapeutic spas or natural springs). These baths are the source of the town’s livelihood and the main character Dr. so and so (don’t remember his name) actually works at the baths. The doctor’s brother is actually the mayor of the town and it appears the two kind of have a sibling rivalry going on. The doctor, although he is a doctor, doesn’t seem to command the type of respect you think he would. Instead, he’s overshadowed by his brother who besides being the mayor is also the police chief and serves on many boards. In one scene the brothers quibble over who should be awarded credit for coming up with the idea to build the baths that revived the economy of the town.

So the big news happens when the doctor receives a letter in the mail. He reveals it’s the results from a lab. It turns out the doctor has suspected the water in the baths is polluted and is actually making the clients sick. He lacked the equipment to verify this himself so he took samples and sent them off to be analyzed. The lab results allow him to conclude that his suspicions of poisoned water were correct! He happens to tell his family as well as several members of the local paper who are working with him to publish an article.

Of course he informs his brother of the news before deciding to publish the article. A huge conflict ensues. The brother realizes the impact that such an article would cause. He fears it will destroy the town as no one will ever come to the baths again after it’s deemed that the very water that is supposed to heal them is toxic. The doctor also states it’s necessary to completely reconstruct the town’s water system. The mayor points out this will cost “hundreds of thousands of crowns” (not sure how much a crown is) and will take several years. In the span of that time the town’s economy will die. And he brings up another fact that even if they manage to raise the capital and reconstruct the water system during this time rival towns will be sure to start their own baths and the market will be taken away from them. The mayor says the doctor’s tests could be inaccurate and he frankly doesn’t believe the validity of his claims. He also calls his brother “a enemy of society” and is furious that he’d consider unleashing such a claim that would destroy the very town he lives in (not to mention, put him out of a job).

The doctor is obviously quite conflicted. On one hand he feels a sense of duty as a citizen and a doctor to inform the public of the hazard but at the same time he knows what his brother says is probably true. Releasing this news would probably result in his unemployment and the economic collapse of the town. He also feels that the people who designed the faulty waterway should be held accountable so that the infallibility of the ruling class is degraded. The conflict is evident in his own family. His daughter Petra roots for the idealistic side to prevail while his wife weeps thinking about the fate of her family.

I’ll write more as I read more.