A review by magnetgrrl
The Plague by Albert Camus
3.0
I read this in college forever ago. I'm gonna guess like 98-99-00 because I think it was early in my college years, but who knows. I remember then thinking it was fantastic, because I had fallen deep into the existentialism hole and just loved everything existentialist and/or absurd.
In retrospect, I don't love this nearly as much as The Myth of Sisyphus. I confess this is because I just don't get Oran. A lot of this is a character study of a place and time I've never been to, and likely never will go to, and it is just too foreign to me. A lot of the "absurdity" that's not obvious has to do with cultural stuff that's going over my head. The book doesn't present this very other place to you from the perspective of "enjoy the otherness!" which, existentially, it could, but rather it presents this very specific other place to you from a perspective of "there are a lot of deep cuts here only someone familiar could know and you don't and never will" - I guess actually, now that I've written that, is totally Camus and very existentialist in the most metal "you can NEVER KNOW AN 'OTHER' THAT IS WHY THEY ARE 'OTHER'" kind of way, so. Makes the book more of a slog to read though.
Also, I read a TON of like, pandemic/outbreak type books this year, which I'll be adding to Goodreads shortly, as well as a ton of books on loneliness. An although I had remembered this one fondly, while some re-reads lifted me up or gave me new insights... this time around, this was just inscrutable and depressing. And I read it on Kindle which is so unsatisfying; I want to buy a nice like Vintage hardcover copy of the book with a cool cover, but I'll have to wait until used bookstores are open for in-person browsing again because who knows what you'll get when you buy a used copy online.
In retrospect, I don't love this nearly as much as The Myth of Sisyphus. I confess this is because I just don't get Oran. A lot of this is a character study of a place and time I've never been to, and likely never will go to, and it is just too foreign to me. A lot of the "absurdity" that's not obvious has to do with cultural stuff that's going over my head. The book doesn't present this very other place to you from the perspective of "enjoy the otherness!" which, existentially, it could, but rather it presents this very specific other place to you from a perspective of "there are a lot of deep cuts here only someone familiar could know and you don't and never will" - I guess actually, now that I've written that, is totally Camus and very existentialist in the most metal "you can NEVER KNOW AN 'OTHER' THAT IS WHY THEY ARE 'OTHER'" kind of way, so. Makes the book more of a slog to read though.
Also, I read a TON of like, pandemic/outbreak type books this year, which I'll be adding to Goodreads shortly, as well as a ton of books on loneliness. An although I had remembered this one fondly, while some re-reads lifted me up or gave me new insights... this time around, this was just inscrutable and depressing. And I read it on Kindle which is so unsatisfying; I want to buy a nice like Vintage hardcover copy of the book with a cool cover, but I'll have to wait until used bookstores are open for in-person browsing again because who knows what you'll get when you buy a used copy online.