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leehuf's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
fratboydave's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
My first camus I think I’m being generous with the 3.5 honestly. I’d say 3 but i dunno. it was just incredibly slow. infolding AF. however i enjoyed certain bits i just wished that we got more about tarrou and that his death took up more than approx. three pages. there was that portion at the end where we learn more about him and it makes him feel special. maybe the point was so we registered him as special but were reminded that his death was no more special than anyone else’s. though if he got half as much “screentime” as the little boy i mightve been a tad more pleased. the reveal about rieux being the narrator made me say outloud “alright bruh.” i enjoy the messages camus sprinkles in here and there. but i also dreamt that my bag got stolen and my first thought was “at least i dont have to read the plague anymore.” so.
i did love grand quite a bit. i loved his precariousness and i would have lovedif he turned out to be the author it maybe wouldve been too on the nose. i also loved reading how camus interpreted plague, because he got many things right and after living through plague, it gave me a new perspective. im sort of sad for people who read it and did not live through plague, but in reality there are probably very few who have— plague always comes back.
i was reading a vintage copy and at the end there was a little treat for me, where someone had underlined a portion of the page in ballpoint blue pen. it was a reward! so. but after typing this whole thing i think im going to be less generous and demote it to 3 stars. i just complained a whole lot. i think 3 is also being generous, now.
i did love grand quite a bit. i loved his precariousness and i would have loved
i was reading a vintage copy and at the end there was a little treat for me, where someone had underlined a portion of the page in ballpoint blue pen. it was a reward! so. but after typing this whole thing i think im going to be less generous and demote it to 3 stars. i just complained a whole lot. i think 3 is also being generous, now.
thaurisil's review against another edition
5.0
"Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise."
Plague hits the town of Oran, Algeria. The book follows the lives of a few key characters from the beginning of the plague, to its devastating heights, to its resolution. Reading this book in 2020, I could not help seeing the similarities between the people's experience and our experience with COVID-19. Like COVID-19, the plague in Oran has a mysterious origin. Initially it is sporadic and strange, and the people think it will pass quickly. Some doctors, including our protagonist and narrator Dr Rieux, give early warnings to impose measures to deter its spread, but the warnings are not heeded until much later, as the authorities do not want to take the responsibility for the consequences of the measures. As the plague spreads, people go about their lives as per normal, because the plague has not been factored into their plans for the future. Even Dr Rieux, who recognises that it is plague and knows the history of plague epidemics, chooses to be an ostrich because that is the easier thing to do. But soon it becomes unavoidable. The number of plague victims and deaths increases daily. Hospitals fill up and supplies are used up. The town goes into lockdown, and people find themselves isolated from their loved ones. The people find their lives and futures irrevocably changed. Initially they harbour hope for the end of the epidemic, but as the months drag on with no relief, their moods are dampened. Streets become silent except for the sounds of ambulances. Life, without its usual variety of pleasures and hopes, becomes monotonous. Some people try to escape, but most chip in to contribute to the efforts against the plague.
The similarities are uncanny, and yet I don't think Camus ever experienced an epidemic. Was it incredible foresight on his part, predicting such elements like our initial obsession with the numbers of the sick and the dead, our sense of isolation, and our eventual jadedness and hopelessness? Or was this all written based on his experiences in WWII, and as an allegory for the German occupation of France? If so, it hits home how similar any experience that terrorises a community over a prolonged period of time is, and how much we've been fighting a war against COVID-19 this whole year.
But the plague epidemic is not exactly the same as COVID-19. The main difference is globalisation. The plague remains contained in Oran, a town naturally isolated on a plateau, whereas COVID-19 spread like wildfire across the world. But there are benefits to globalisation. We have complained much this year about our social isolation, but thankfully we have the internet to communicate, whereas the people of Oran could only send inadequate telegrams to their loved ones. The plague was more devastating than COVID-19, partly due to the nature of the disease and the more advanced nature of our healthcare, but also partly due to our mask-wearing and social distancing which the people of Oran did not practise.
The book follows a few people in Oran who each fight against the plague for different reasons. Dr Rieux's reason is obvious – he's a doctor and he is devoted to fighting illness on an objective, non-personal level. For Grand, the municipal clerk who has engaged in menial low-paying work for most of his life, it's a natural extension of his job to collate statistics on the plague. But he is perhaps rightfully hailed by the narrator as the only true hero for humbly doing noble small deeds without wanting recognition. For Tarrou, who does not believe in God, participating in the fight is his attempt to do something noble, though he may be on the losing end, and to strive to be a saint even without believing in God. For Father Paneloux, a Jesuit priest who initially preaches that the epidemic is sent by God as punishment for sins, his stance softens, and his service in the epidemic is a way of showing his love for others. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Rambert, the journalist who finds himself trapped in Oran, away from his girlfriend, as the gates shut. He tries to find a way to escape, but the attempt is fraught with difficulties and delays, and in the meantime he realises it is better to stay and do his part against the enemy, rather than return shamefacedly to his girlfriend. Moreover, he idealises love, and he sees his participation in the epidemic as a form of love. The minor characters chip in too. M. Othon, the magistrate, helps in a isolation camp after his son dies from plague. Some of the actions are inappropriate, like when people burning down their houses in an attempt to burn away the disease.
As the epidemic progresses, the narrator calls into question the reason why these people are all fighting against the plague. In a world where everyone dies, why do they spend so much effort fighting disease and death? For Father Paneloux, who sees the plague as a test of faith and looks forward to salvation, there is meaning to the fight. In contrast, for Dr Rieux, whose wife is deteriorating in a sanatorium outside Oran, and who eventually dies as the epidemic ends, what is there for him to hope for? Even as the epidemic ends, what is left for him in life to look forward to? Perhaps the meaning is found in the process of the fight itself. Fighting against a common adversity, in a time where there are no individual heroes but only a united spirit of endurance, the people form inevitable and unspoken bond. Even when the epidemic ends and loved ones return to Oran, there is a sense that although life goes on, those who did not participate in the epidemic will never fully understand the experiences of those who did participate in it. And while the end of the epidemic brings happiness to most, those who have lost their loved ones are left to suffer alone.
But there is one who does not participate. Cottard, a man who committed a crime prior to the epidemic, welcomes the epidemic as it averts his arrest. Through black market activities, he benefits from the plague. But when the plague ends, he grows increasingly fearful, and ends in a crazed shooting that leads to his arrest. He resembles the informers in a war, whose cowardly betrayals during wartime leads to their downfall after the war.
There's a question mark over who the narrator is for most of the novel. It is clear that he is one of the people of Oran, and one closely related to one of the main characters. I suspected early on that the narrator was Dr Rieux as Dr Rieux is the protagonist and the narrator repeatedly says that his narrative is drawn from personal experience. Furthermore the narrator places an emphasis on the themes of isolation and exile from loved ones, and Dr Rieux is separated from his wife. So why does Dr Rieux only choose to reveal himself as the narrator at the end? He says he does it so that he can write an objective narrative. Indeed the tone is detached, but it is often not purely objective. Dr Rieux, in narrating his experiences in third-person, focuses relatively little on his personal emotions at being away from his wife and more on the emotions and internal struggles of the people around him. And yet his frequent return to the theme of exile from loved ones makes it clear that his thoughts are never far from his wife, and gives a poignancy to his efforts to be objective.
I found the detached tone powerful. It contrasts with the deadliness of the plague. When it zooms in on the deaths of certain people, namely M. Othon's son, Father Paneloux, and Tarrou, the narrator tries to describe things objectively, but he fails and his emotion slips through the cracks in a way that is especially moving.
Camus matches the weather to the states of the plague. It starts in spring. As it moves into summer, the heat increases and so does the stuffiness of the plague and the lockdown. Then it moves into winter, and the gradual ending of the epidemic is accompanied by clear skies and refreshing bouts of clear winter skies. Tarrou's struggle before his death is accompanied by a thunderstorm.
On an ending note, the tone, the allegorical nature of the book, and the theme of the individual versus the state reminded me very much of Kafka's The Trial. And indeed, Camus was apparently influenced by The Trial, and tackled similar existentialist ideas. There's even a hidden reference to The Trial when Cottard says: "Only I've been reading that detective story. It's about a poor devil who's arrested one fine morning, all of a sudden. People had been taking an interest in him and he knew nothing about it. They were talking about him in offices, entering his name on card indexes. Now, do you think that's fair? Do you think people have a right to treat a man like that?" The Trial is not a detective story, but to Cottard, who is on the run from the police, he perhaps sees himself as a man being hunted down by detectives unreasonably.
rancidslopshop's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
spenkevich's review against another edition
5.0
The hardest part of a review is the first sentence. We’ve got that now so we can keep going I guess, but I found something endearing in the way I’ve struggled to being this review of The Plague by Albert Camus where in it’s story there is a character who spends the duration trying to perfect the first sentence of his novel. He wants a sentence that will have editors crying ‘hats off, gentleman’ and in his pursuit of the perfect sentence he finds himself beginning again and again in perpetuity. Those familiar with Camus’ [b:The Myth of Sisyphus|91950|The Myth of Sisyphus|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347654509l/91950._SY75_.jpg|48339830] will recognize his penchant for the absurdity for endlessly starting over, something the journalist Rambert observes about life under the titular plague in the novel: ‘it consists of starting over.’ And so goes the Sisyphian cycle of each day the same as the last in the Algerian city of Oran while quarantined with rampant plague, as the collective actions of key people attempt to fight against the surmounting death totals that strike and kill individuals seeming at random to the point where all feels absurd and hope is what you make it. Originally published in 1947, The Plague is widely regarded as an allegorical look at the Nazi occupation of Paris where Camus worked for the underground resistance as a journalist, though to read it now in a post-2020 world full of COVID is a starling experience that hits close to home. But there is no better time to read it than now in it’s recently retranslated form, brilliantly accomplished by [a:Laura Marris|16550834|Laura Marris|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], and feel Camus’ words resonate all the louder through an unsettling familiarity. A philosophical perspective (Camus refused the label of existentialist) on the human condition in the face of oppressive evil and a rallying call for collective resistance, this eerily prescient novel makes for an oddly comforting and darkly infectious read.
This book has lasting power not only for the subject matter but the ways Camus approaches them. There are an excellent cast of characters: the overburdened Dr. Rieux; the mysterious Jean Tarrou; Grand, the government clerk endlessly working death toll figures and his first sentence; the journalist Rambert and more. Their actions fighting the plague together make for a book that has been hotly discussed for decades with so much to consider like the ideas behind stylistic choices, the allegorical implications, the philosophical questions on death, god, and even Camus’ own life in relation. It is fascinating to run our current issues through the lens of Camus’ tale, and as [a:Alice Yaeger Kaplan|34149384|Et Al Alice Yaeger Kaplan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] writes in [b:States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic|60462029|States of Plague Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic|Alice Kaplan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1665284565l/60462029._SY75_.jpg|95283563], a book co-written with rotating essays from her and translator Laura Marris, ‘Camus allegorized war as plague, but plague, too, can be deployed as a political allegory.’ Examining the interplay of the two has made The Plague a fascinating read that is as striking today as ever before.
‘Stagnation was the order of the day, several hundred-thousand people kept on stagnating through never-ending weeks.’
There are moments reading The Plague where, had I gone in with no knowledge of the book, author or the year it was written, it would have read like a parody of the year 2020. There are so many little tidbits that made me laugh, roll my eyes, or cringe at the sheer familiarity of it. Talks of underlying conditions, a hoax to hurt business, faith over fear, the first to be caught breaking restrictions being an official who wrote them, empty streets, protests, the list goes on. I spent 2020 in Michigan where we didn’t have much of a ‘lockdown,’ especially not compared to Oran in this novel, but the passages of empty streets, empty skies, and endless longing resonated hard. ‘There is nothing less spectacular than a scourge,’ Camus writes, ‘the terrible days of plague didn’t appear as tall flames, sumptuous and cruel, but rather as an endless stagnation.’ While I personally had been very busy and productive during that time, it captures a feeling heard all over the world. In some ways reading The Plague today makes one feel nothing ever changes, human behavior in times of crisis is rather predictable, and while Camus’ allegory reads as hauntingly familiar, it never makes you despair and his hope for humanity burns bright in the dark.
Following his work [b:The Stranger|49552|The Stranger|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1590930002l/49552._SY75_.jpg|3324344], which was centered on the ‘I’, here we have the voice of ‘we’, as Camus captures ‘collective trauma rather than individual struggle,’ to remind that ‘the scourge concerns everyone.’ Laura Marris does an excellent job with the translation, delivering a fluid work that is highly readable but also capturing Camus’ intent behind his stylistic choices. Marris says she avoided using current phrasings to keep the novel separate from the 2020 events, like serum instead of vaccine, but it is most noted through the restraint intended in his language. For example, while Marris has translated ‘il fallait recommencer’ as ‘they must begin again,’ the original translation from [a:Stuart Gilbert|5744|Stuart Gilbert|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] has ‘they must set their shoulders to the wheel again.’ While this does sort of recall images of Sisyphus, Marris writes in the translation notes that Gilbert’s translation came under post-WWII bravado and added a sense of heroism throughout the book but ‘real hope, for Camus, isn’t heroic,’ she says ‘it’s quiet and necessary and it hurts.’
‘There is no heroism in any of this. It's about honesty.’
The Plague's narrator rejects ideas of heroism and seeks to ‘put heroism in the secondary role it deserves.’ Camus uses this to show that it isn’t individual heroism but collective resistance that gives hope. ‘There is a plague, we must defend ourselves,’ Dr Rieux remarks, emphasizing that resistance should be the natural response. To put emphasis on heroism has negative consequences the narrator warns:
French literary professor [a:Oliver Gloag|19110291|Oliver Gloag|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] criticizes the allegory of fascism as it removes ‘all agency from history’ those committing evil. Which is a fair point and I tend to prefer Alba Amoia’s perspective in her book on Camus that this novel is more an expression on ‘a paradigm of man’s ability, through individual choice, to mitigate the evils endemic in the human condition.’ Which complements Gloag’s notion that the plague is more a symbol through which Camus explores his concept of revolt best expressed in [b:The Rebel|11990|The Rebel|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547122397l/11990._SY75_.jpg|486408]. Akin to [a:Hannah Arendt|12806|Hannah Arendt|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1608634661p2/12806.jpg] writings on the mundanities of evil, Camus shows that resistance is the only reasonable choice, and while those who are passive are (in Arendt’s & Tarrou’s perspectives) thereby part of the evil they allow, this is not always necessarily wickedness as much as ignorance. ‘[T]he most desperate vice comes from the person who is ignorant but believes he knows everything.’ In a book where plague fatigue sets in, where people begin to protest the authorities confining them more than the plague killing them, or lash out at the doctor for not having enough pity as if that would save anyone, Camus shows how this is counter to the spirit of resistance and thusly welcoming evil. In this way, too, it seems a stern warning against misinformation and how ignorance can be just as dangerous as wickedness.
‘All human sorrow came from not keeping language clear.’
The above quote is key to his narrative style in, though critics have deemed it ‘rigorously and studiously unbeautiful’. As Tarrou says that ‘clear speech and action,’ is critical to preventing the loss of life, ‘the narrator has stuck to objectivity in order to betray nothing, and above all, to remain true to himself.’ Especially today where the way we market an idea tends to carry more weight than the validity or truth behind an idea, clarity is key when chronicling a history, as is remaining objective and removing emotion lest it be ‘thrilling with the evils of spectacle.’ Words are something people got hung on too (how often we saw this in 2020, like semantic debates or misunderstanding that science is testing theories and shifts direction with new information), hence when pressed by his colleagues early on about what measures to take, Rieux responds ‘I don’t care about the phrasing…we shouldn’t act as if half the city isn’t at risk of being killed, because then it will be.’ Sometimes it is more about the spirit than the semantics. Camus received heavy criticism for this style from [a:Jean-Paul Sartre|1466|Jean-Paul Sartre|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1475567078p2/1466.jpg] and [a:Roland Barthes|13084|Roland Barthes|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1651471223p2/13084.jpg], the latter he wrote a letter hoping to clear up what he believed was a misinterpretation of the novel by Barthes, ending it with assurances that he has utmost respect for Barthes.
However, there is another aspect to the style that speaks volumes about the ideas underlying the novel. In the end we discover the narrator is who sets out to be an ‘objective witness’. This chronicle of the history of the plague is a response to the ‘long series of similar scenes, repeated indefinitely’ (the most Sisyphean character of the novel would be Rieux and his daily grind fighting against a plague that always wins the battle over each individual life) that allows humanity to have the victors perspective on the past. But, in the face of absurdity, perhaps it is something more. In his notebooks, Camus wrote:
The narrator is, in effect, becoming God. Camus long fought against god-like authorities, and placing a human as the omniscient narrator usurps the authority of god, placing our destinies in the hands of humans. Rieux believes in the work of people and as the plague seemed an absurd, unpredictable, force of nature he must counter, he ‘believed he was on the true path, fighting against creation.’ As he explains to Tarrou:
He is a doctor and to put all in God’s hands would be to deny his own purpose against the onslaught of death. ‘The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world,’ Camus wrote in Sisyphus, and Rieux must resign himself to live on even in the face of absurdity.
The question of God looms large in this novel, particularly as God’s existence would imply God allowed all the suffering. In one of the more existential discourses in the book, Dr. Rieux and Jesuit priest Father Paneloux witness the painful death of an innocent child. Paneloux, a symbol of organized religion, moves from having seen the plague as God’s retribution against sinners to preaching that there is no picking and choosing what aspects of religion you believe and which you don’t: an all or nothing, and either/or. His acceptance of it all comes moments before his untimely death due to the plague. Rieux, on the other hand, states ‘I will refuse until death to love that creation where children are tortured,’ and his only moment of outward anger in the entire book is directed at Paneloux following the child’s death. Camus positions Rieux as defender of innocence and views the church as being too silent.
‘This epidemic doesn’t teach me anything new, except the need to fight by your side.’
This is not an easy novel, probing the darkness of death in many ways, but Camus always looks for the light. Tarrou is another figure who represents Camus’ own existential forays into morality and mortality as he has fled his past and aims to be a secular saint making his life’s work fighting against death. His particular calling came when realizing the horrors of the death penalty, knowing his father—a judge—passed these sentences, and coming to understand that any silence in the face of it is complicity in these murders. Many of these ideas reflect Camus’ own ideas, which he wrote as [b:Reflections on the Guillotine|53403863|Reflections On The Guillotine|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601552685l/53403863._SY75_.jpg|2678626] alongside a similar argument for the abolition of the death penalty by [a:Arthur Koestler|17219|Arthur Koestler|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1663931844p2/17219.jpg]. Rieux and Tarrou make a perfect pairing, two men fighting against death, not bothering with a belief in God, battling exhaustion and chance to hopefully keep as many people alive before it is their turn to return to the soil.
‘The dying clutching at the living with a mixture of legitimate hate and stupid hope.’
The horrors of the plague permeate every page. It is interesting to see it set in Oran, Algeria, which represents a reversal of Camus own life where he returned to Paris under occupation while his wife remained in Algeria. Here, Rieux’s wife leaves Algeria while he stays under occupation. Perhaps it is also, Laura Marris theorizes, because Oran represents an isolated city, ‘a city with it’s back to the sea,’ as Camus wrote in his essay on Algeria in [b:Summer|2409779|Summer|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394421257l/2409779._SX50_.jpg|50370798]. Isolation and separations are major themes here, with Rambert spending the bulk of the novel trying to flee the city for his wife, only to end up in a Kafkaesque labyrinth of being passed from smuggler to smuggler and delayed again and again before opting to stay and fight. What works quite well is the way Camus triggers historical memory of plagues with his descriptions, recalling the great plagues of history (and now, our own current pandemic). The plague begins with rats coming to the surface to die, which he wrote based on a description of rat plagues by [a:Adrien Proust|14383713|Adrien Proust|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], the father of great French writer [a:Marcel Proust|233619|Marcel Proust|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1649882562p2/233619.jpg]. As Marris writes in States of Plague, ‘it must have pleased Camus, who felt shut out by the literary opulence of Proust’s milieu, to turn the Proustian teacake into a dead rat,’ done by utilizing Proust’s own family.
The Plague was a divisive novel, being a huge commercial success while also facing strong criticisms. The arguments over the book sometimes feel like the political debates over the 2020 pandemic itself. In [b:The Cambridge Companion to Camus|237700|The Cambridge Companion to Camus (Cambridge Companions to Literature)|Edward J. Hughes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548046209l/237700._SX50_.jpg|230248], [a:Margaret E. Gray|672583|Margaret E. Gray|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] argues the narrator as an oppressor silencing individualism the same as the plague silenced it’s victims, ‘privileging the collective over the personal' and weaponizing the government against the people. Which is an argument that was used frequently against any preventative measures such as masks. Which is interesting to see play out with this book, which is not without criticism. For a novel set in Algeria, there aren’t really any Algerians in the story and are instead the background people it is implied are dying in higher amounts in the poorer districts that were ‘more crowded or less comfortable’ (this, along with the high deaths in jails there also recalls issues of our recent pandemic). But women, too, are notably absent. Literally in most cases such as the various wives outside the quarantine, who’s only role is to wait for their men to come, or Rieux’s mostly silent mother only serving as his housekeeper, which isn’t a great depiction either. It is unfortunate to note that Camus spoke out against feminism, and particularly railed against [a:Simone de Beauvoir|5548|Simone de Beauvoir|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1555042345p2/5548.jpg]’s [b:The Second Sex|457264|The Second Sex|Simone de Beauvoir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327978178l/457264._SY75_.jpg|879666], which he said humiliated the French male. Not great.
There is so much to say about this imperfect yet rather impressive novel. When Camus died, [a:William Faulkner|3535|William Faulkner|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615562983p2/3535.jpg] wrote his obituary saying ‘When the door shut for him he had already written on this side of it that which every artist who also carries through life with him that one same foreknowledge and hatred of death, is hoping to do: I was here.’ Camus’s The Plauge, likely amongst the best books I'll read all year, reads like all of humanity with fists in the air proudly saying ‘I was here.’
5/5
‘When you see the suffering and the pain it brings, you'd have to be crazy, blind, or cowardly to resign yourself to the plague.’
This book has lasting power not only for the subject matter but the ways Camus approaches them. There are an excellent cast of characters: the overburdened Dr. Rieux; the mysterious Jean Tarrou; Grand, the government clerk endlessly working death toll figures and his first sentence; the journalist Rambert and more. Their actions fighting the plague together make for a book that has been hotly discussed for decades with so much to consider like the ideas behind stylistic choices, the allegorical implications, the philosophical questions on death, god, and even Camus’ own life in relation. It is fascinating to run our current issues through the lens of Camus’ tale, and as [a:Alice Yaeger Kaplan|34149384|Et Al Alice Yaeger Kaplan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] writes in [b:States of Plague: Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic|60462029|States of Plague Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic|Alice Kaplan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1665284565l/60462029._SY75_.jpg|95283563], a book co-written with rotating essays from her and translator Laura Marris, ‘Camus allegorized war as plague, but plague, too, can be deployed as a political allegory.’ Examining the interplay of the two has made The Plague a fascinating read that is as striking today as ever before.
‘Stagnation was the order of the day, several hundred-thousand people kept on stagnating through never-ending weeks.’
There are moments reading The Plague where, had I gone in with no knowledge of the book, author or the year it was written, it would have read like a parody of the year 2020. There are so many little tidbits that made me laugh, roll my eyes, or cringe at the sheer familiarity of it. Talks of underlying conditions, a hoax to hurt business, faith over fear, the first to be caught breaking restrictions being an official who wrote them, empty streets, protests, the list goes on. I spent 2020 in Michigan where we didn’t have much of a ‘lockdown,’ especially not compared to Oran in this novel, but the passages of empty streets, empty skies, and endless longing resonated hard. ‘There is nothing less spectacular than a scourge,’ Camus writes, ‘the terrible days of plague didn’t appear as tall flames, sumptuous and cruel, but rather as an endless stagnation.’ While I personally had been very busy and productive during that time, it captures a feeling heard all over the world. In some ways reading The Plague today makes one feel nothing ever changes, human behavior in times of crisis is rather predictable, and while Camus’ allegory reads as hauntingly familiar, it never makes you despair and his hope for humanity burns bright in the dark.
Following his work [b:The Stranger|49552|The Stranger|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1590930002l/49552._SY75_.jpg|3324344], which was centered on the ‘I’, here we have the voice of ‘we’, as Camus captures ‘collective trauma rather than individual struggle,’ to remind that ‘the scourge concerns everyone.’ Laura Marris does an excellent job with the translation, delivering a fluid work that is highly readable but also capturing Camus’ intent behind his stylistic choices. Marris says she avoided using current phrasings to keep the novel separate from the 2020 events, like serum instead of vaccine, but it is most noted through the restraint intended in his language. For example, while Marris has translated ‘il fallait recommencer’ as ‘they must begin again,’ the original translation from [a:Stuart Gilbert|5744|Stuart Gilbert|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] has ‘they must set their shoulders to the wheel again.’ While this does sort of recall images of Sisyphus, Marris writes in the translation notes that Gilbert’s translation came under post-WWII bravado and added a sense of heroism throughout the book but ‘real hope, for Camus, isn’t heroic,’ she says ‘it’s quiet and necessary and it hurts.’
‘There is no heroism in any of this. It's about honesty.’
The Plague's narrator rejects ideas of heroism and seeks to ‘put heroism in the secondary role it deserves.’ Camus uses this to show that it isn’t individual heroism but collective resistance that gives hope. ‘There is a plague, we must defend ourselves,’ Dr Rieux remarks, emphasizing that resistance should be the natural response. To put emphasis on heroism has negative consequences the narrator warns:
’this way, you allow people to suppose that honorable actions have such high value because they are rare, and that wickedness and indifference are much more frequent drivers behind human actions…The evil in this world almost always comes from ignorance, and goodwill can do as much damage as wickedness if it's not well informed.’
French literary professor [a:Oliver Gloag|19110291|Oliver Gloag|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] criticizes the allegory of fascism as it removes ‘all agency from history’ those committing evil. Which is a fair point and I tend to prefer Alba Amoia’s perspective in her book on Camus that this novel is more an expression on ‘a paradigm of man’s ability, through individual choice, to mitigate the evils endemic in the human condition.’ Which complements Gloag’s notion that the plague is more a symbol through which Camus explores his concept of revolt best expressed in [b:The Rebel|11990|The Rebel|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547122397l/11990._SY75_.jpg|486408]. Akin to [a:Hannah Arendt|12806|Hannah Arendt|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1608634661p2/12806.jpg] writings on the mundanities of evil, Camus shows that resistance is the only reasonable choice, and while those who are passive are (in Arendt’s & Tarrou’s perspectives) thereby part of the evil they allow, this is not always necessarily wickedness as much as ignorance. ‘[T]he most desperate vice comes from the person who is ignorant but believes he knows everything.’ In a book where plague fatigue sets in, where people begin to protest the authorities confining them more than the plague killing them, or lash out at the doctor for not having enough pity as if that would save anyone, Camus shows how this is counter to the spirit of resistance and thusly welcoming evil. In this way, too, it seems a stern warning against misinformation and how ignorance can be just as dangerous as wickedness.
‘All human sorrow came from not keeping language clear.’
The above quote is key to his narrative style in, though critics have deemed it ‘rigorously and studiously unbeautiful’. As Tarrou says that ‘clear speech and action,’ is critical to preventing the loss of life, ‘the narrator has stuck to objectivity in order to betray nothing, and above all, to remain true to himself.’ Especially today where the way we market an idea tends to carry more weight than the validity or truth behind an idea, clarity is key when chronicling a history, as is remaining objective and removing emotion lest it be ‘thrilling with the evils of spectacle.’ Words are something people got hung on too (how often we saw this in 2020, like semantic debates or misunderstanding that science is testing theories and shifts direction with new information), hence when pressed by his colleagues early on about what measures to take, Rieux responds ‘I don’t care about the phrasing…we shouldn’t act as if half the city isn’t at risk of being killed, because then it will be.’ Sometimes it is more about the spirit than the semantics. Camus received heavy criticism for this style from [a:Jean-Paul Sartre|1466|Jean-Paul Sartre|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1475567078p2/1466.jpg] and [a:Roland Barthes|13084|Roland Barthes|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1651471223p2/13084.jpg], the latter he wrote a letter hoping to clear up what he believed was a misinterpretation of the novel by Barthes, ending it with assurances that he has utmost respect for Barthes.
However, there is another aspect to the style that speaks volumes about the ideas underlying the novel. In the end we discover the narrator is
Spoiler
Dr. Rieux‘[T]here is no other objection to the totalitarian attitude than the religious or moral objection. If this world is meaningless then they are right. I do not accept that they are right. Therefore…it is on us to create God. He is not the creator. That is all of Christianity's history. Because we have only one way to create God and that is to become God.’
The narrator is, in effect, becoming God. Camus long fought against god-like authorities, and placing a human as the omniscient narrator usurps the authority of god, placing our destinies in the hands of humans. Rieux believes in the work of people and as the plague seemed an absurd, unpredictable, force of nature he must counter, he ‘believed he was on the true path, fighting against creation.’ As he explains to Tarrou:
‘Since the order of the world is ruled by death, perhaps it’s better for God if we don’t believe in him and if we fight against death with all our might, without raising our eyes to the heavens where he keeps silent.’
He is a doctor and to put all in God’s hands would be to deny his own purpose against the onslaught of death. ‘The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world,’ Camus wrote in Sisyphus, and Rieux must resign himself to live on even in the face of absurdity.
The question of God looms large in this novel, particularly as God’s existence would imply God allowed all the suffering. In one of the more existential discourses in the book, Dr. Rieux and Jesuit priest Father Paneloux witness the painful death of an innocent child. Paneloux, a symbol of organized religion, moves from having seen the plague as God’s retribution against sinners to preaching that there is no picking and choosing what aspects of religion you believe and which you don’t: an all or nothing, and either/or. His acceptance of it all comes moments before his untimely death due to the plague. Rieux, on the other hand, states ‘I will refuse until death to love that creation where children are tortured,’ and his only moment of outward anger in the entire book is directed at Paneloux following the child’s death. Camus positions Rieux as defender of innocence and views the church as being too silent.
‘This epidemic doesn’t teach me anything new, except the need to fight by your side.’
This is not an easy novel, probing the darkness of death in many ways, but Camus always looks for the light. Tarrou is another figure who represents Camus’ own existential forays into morality and mortality as he has fled his past and aims to be a secular saint making his life’s work fighting against death. His particular calling came when realizing the horrors of the death penalty, knowing his father—a judge—passed these sentences, and coming to understand that any silence in the face of it is complicity in these murders. Many of these ideas reflect Camus’ own ideas, which he wrote as [b:Reflections on the Guillotine|53403863|Reflections On The Guillotine|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1601552685l/53403863._SY75_.jpg|2678626] alongside a similar argument for the abolition of the death penalty by [a:Arthur Koestler|17219|Arthur Koestler|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1663931844p2/17219.jpg]. Rieux and Tarrou make a perfect pairing, two men fighting against death, not bothering with a belief in God, battling exhaustion and chance to hopefully keep as many people alive before it is their turn to return to the soil.
‘The dying clutching at the living with a mixture of legitimate hate and stupid hope.’
The horrors of the plague permeate every page. It is interesting to see it set in Oran, Algeria, which represents a reversal of Camus own life where he returned to Paris under occupation while his wife remained in Algeria. Here, Rieux’s wife leaves Algeria while he stays under occupation. Perhaps it is also, Laura Marris theorizes, because Oran represents an isolated city, ‘a city with it’s back to the sea,’ as Camus wrote in his essay on Algeria in [b:Summer|2409779|Summer|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394421257l/2409779._SX50_.jpg|50370798]. Isolation and separations are major themes here, with Rambert spending the bulk of the novel trying to flee the city for his wife, only to end up in a Kafkaesque labyrinth of being passed from smuggler to smuggler and delayed again and again before opting to stay and fight. What works quite well is the way Camus triggers historical memory of plagues with his descriptions, recalling the great plagues of history (and now, our own current pandemic). The plague begins with rats coming to the surface to die, which he wrote based on a description of rat plagues by [a:Adrien Proust|14383713|Adrien Proust|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png], the father of great French writer [a:Marcel Proust|233619|Marcel Proust|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1649882562p2/233619.jpg]. As Marris writes in States of Plague, ‘it must have pleased Camus, who felt shut out by the literary opulence of Proust’s milieu, to turn the Proustian teacake into a dead rat,’ done by utilizing Proust’s own family.
The Plague was a divisive novel, being a huge commercial success while also facing strong criticisms. The arguments over the book sometimes feel like the political debates over the 2020 pandemic itself. In [b:The Cambridge Companion to Camus|237700|The Cambridge Companion to Camus (Cambridge Companions to Literature)|Edward J. Hughes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548046209l/237700._SX50_.jpg|230248], [a:Margaret E. Gray|672583|Margaret E. Gray|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] argues the narrator as an oppressor silencing individualism the same as the plague silenced it’s victims, ‘privileging the collective over the personal' and weaponizing the government against the people. Which is an argument that was used frequently against any preventative measures such as masks. Which is interesting to see play out with this book, which is not without criticism. For a novel set in Algeria, there aren’t really any Algerians in the story and are instead the background people it is implied are dying in higher amounts in the poorer districts that were ‘more crowded or less comfortable’ (this, along with the high deaths in jails there also recalls issues of our recent pandemic). But women, too, are notably absent. Literally in most cases such as the various wives outside the quarantine, who’s only role is to wait for their men to come, or Rieux’s mostly silent mother only serving as his housekeeper, which isn’t a great depiction either. It is unfortunate to note that Camus spoke out against feminism, and particularly railed against [a:Simone de Beauvoir|5548|Simone de Beauvoir|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1555042345p2/5548.jpg]’s [b:The Second Sex|457264|The Second Sex|Simone de Beauvoir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327978178l/457264._SY75_.jpg|879666], which he said humiliated the French male. Not great.
There is so much to say about this imperfect yet rather impressive novel. When Camus died, [a:William Faulkner|3535|William Faulkner|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615562983p2/3535.jpg] wrote his obituary saying ‘When the door shut for him he had already written on this side of it that which every artist who also carries through life with him that one same foreknowledge and hatred of death, is hoping to do: I was here.’ Camus’s The Plauge, likely amongst the best books I'll read all year, reads like all of humanity with fists in the air proudly saying ‘I was here.’
5/5
‘When you see the suffering and the pain it brings, you'd have to be crazy, blind, or cowardly to resign yourself to the plague.’
juliakobielska's review against another edition
5.0
Na zawsze przepiękna i wzruszająca. Czytana po doświadczeniu pandemii robi jeszcze większe wrażenie, przytula prawie ten jeszcze nie do końca uleczony kawałek serca lub duszy po stracie, po traumie, po strachu przed chorobą.
Chyba najpiękniejsze jest w tej książce to, że nie próbuje moralizować, usprawiedliwiać. Po prostu jest i daje miejsce na miłość i zrozumienie.
Chyba najpiękniejsze jest w tej książce to, że nie próbuje moralizować, usprawiedliwiać. Po prostu jest i daje miejsce na miłość i zrozumienie.
cptnpresident's review against another edition
From the moment the plague is declared over a weight is lifted off my chest. Like when you’ve finally landed after a 9-hour flight and you suddenly feel this weird wave of hope wash over you. Come to think of it maybe we’ve judged the passengers who’ve chosen to express that hope in the form of applause too harshly (it’s still kind of egregious, ngl).
The effectiveness of camus’ writing, be it the creation of atmosphere and environment or characters driven purely by joy in the face of misery, is quietly sweeping and so deeply heartfelt.
The effectiveness of camus’ writing, be it the creation of atmosphere and environment or characters driven purely by joy in the face of misery, is quietly sweeping and so deeply heartfelt.
roqireads's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
linashnewer's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Death
Minor: Gun violence and Colonisation