The Plague - Albert Camus

The Plague
by: Albert Camus
ISBN: 0-679-72021-9
Publisher: Vintage Books (1948)

OVERVIEW:
Throughout his work, Camus has shown himself to be deeply concerned with the problem of human suffering in an indifferent world. In The Plague, Camus addresses the collective response to catastrophe when a large city in Algeria is isolated due to an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Although the effort to alleviate and prevent human suffering seems to make little or no difference in the ravages of the plague, Camus asserts that perseverance in the face of tragedy is a noble struggle even if it ultimately fails to make an appreciable difference. Such catastrophes test the tension between individual self-interest and social responsibility.

PRO'S
"? Camus' excellent use of existential philosophy as a background for the novel. An isolated town stricken with the bubonic plague lends itself well to examine the meaning of live in the shadow of death.

"? Excellent translation from what I can tell (translated by Stuart Gilbert). I wish I could read the book in its native French, but this translation is good enough for me.

"? Excellent use of historical fiction to make the story a realistic account of what could happen in plague stricken city. Camus also blends existential philosophy into the book to form one of the best examples of what a philosophical novel is capable of achieving.

CONS
"? Not much to not like about the book. The Plague is a 20th century classic novel by one of the era's greatest French thinkers.

NOTABLE QUOTES:
"?He tried to recall what he had read about the disease. Figures floated across his memory, and he recalled that some thirty or so great plagues known to history had accounted for nearly a hundred million deaths. But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination."? (p. 38)

"?Thus, too, they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with memory that serves no purpose."? (p. 73)

"?Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death."? (p. 132)

"?The habit of despair is worse than despair itself."? (p. 181)

"?Though theoretically immunized by periodical inoculations, he was well aware that at any moment death might claim him too, and he had given thought to this."? (p. 220)

"?The newspapers, needless to say, complied with the instructions given them: optimism at all costs. If one was to believe what one read in them, our populace was giving "?a fine example of courage and composure.'"? (p. 237)
"?There was no room in any heart but for a very old, gray hope, that hope which keeps men from letting themselves drift into death and is nothing but a dogged will to live."? (p.261)

"?The lovers, indeed, were wholly wrapped up in their fixed idea, and for them one thing only had changed. Whereas during those months of separation time had never gone quickly enough for their liking and they were always wanting to speed its flight, now that they were in sight of the town they would have liked to slow it down and hold each moment in suspense, once the brakes went on and the train was entering the station. For the sensation, confused perhaps, but none the less poignant for that, of all those days and weeks and months of life lost to their love made them vaguely feel they were entitled to some compensation; this present hour of joy should run at half the speed of those long hours of waiting."? (p. 294)

"?As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself""so like a brother, really""I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."?

My Rating(1-10): 9.6 "" There is not much to fault with The Plague, other than its dark brooding mood and the sense of hopelessness and despair that sets into the city when there is no identifiable reason the town was stricken by the plague, and no answers as to when the plague is going away. The material at hand is very heavy in the existential sense, but gives of a vibe of hope in the face of the absurd, inevitable, and unexplainable.