The Plague by Albert Camus (1-Jul-2010) Mass Market Paperback

Given Nobel's history of doling out awards to the undeserving, I might have expected as much. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get it. Maybe a half-century ago the writing was cutting-edge. Maybe the painful boredom I felt while sludging through the pages was intended to create in me a sympathy for those shut up in the plague-infested town.

But where is the climax? The author takes a half-dozen pages attempting to point out the moral of the story, which I still failed to see. He does, however, make a great hububaloo about the identity of the narrator as if that somehow serves to justify him wasting so many hours of my life.

As a token of my generosity, I give the book two stars, admitting that I might well have missed the point.

Dr. Rieux, the main character of the novel, moves throughout the book in a detached surreal hopeless manner. He goes thru the motions of "doing his job" while death surrounds him from a wide spread and accelerating plague.

I find Jose Saramago's "Blindess" to be a far superior book to The Plague. Similar theme and concept but more descriptive and moving. The Plague was clinical in its approach - almost bloodless.

I found this highly acclaimed book to be very difficult to re-read, often having to re-read many pages over and over. I would pass on this book.

I liked this book as the story line was gripping. The reader felt as they were part of the going ons of the disease. The story was terrifying at times with it's description of the plague's symptoms. Very realistic in the human relations that we're present.

The book is fantastic; Edenbook's sloppy, negligent conversion to kindle is a waste of your time.

What Edenbooks does is take a public domain work, run it through a substandard text recognition program, then foist it on the public without so much as a proof read. It is basically one long text file, without chapter headings or Kindle-enabled sections.

There are so many typos (many of them confusing grammatical typos that lose sentence ends), and so much spelling-check word-swapping, and so many mangled and meaningless run-on travesties, that the reading experience is ruined.

These guys are parasites on the ebook world, trying to manufacture income from as little work or care as possible, and churning out unreadable garbage that gets good reviews anyway because all the reviewers are reviewing the original work, not Edenbook's incompetance. the store should shut them down.

Camus’ grim account of a North African city in the relentless grasp of the never totally-eradicated Bubonic plague in the 1940’s presents the stark reality of a medical pandemic whose very name evokes medieval horrors of suffering, ignorance and despair. Fatalists, realists and would-be saints and devoted husbands--all must come to terms with prolonged quarantine and painful separation from loved ones locked out of the gates.
Although there are no caped superheroes Dr. Rieux emerges as the central figure who resignedly accepts his role as having morphed from that of Diagnoser and Healer to Deathbed advisor. Some of the male principals (Cottard, Grand, Rambert, and Marrou) offer odd behavior or ideals with which he tries to grapple.

Actually there is little real plot, for all the residents of Oman are equally at risk and utterly powerless to stop the onrush of the death’s dark wings. What provides the length comes in the form of introspection, confessions from one man to another, and long sermons from Panelou, the Jesuit priest, who is tormented that it is a sin for priest to consult a doctor. Then there is the case of a newcomer to the city, Rambert, who insists that he does not belong there and should be allowed to depart. Receiving much advice from medical and other professionals, the Prefect tries to protect as much of the doomed populace as he can. But civil liberties no longer exist, as exhausted Rieux toils on while separated from his wife--ill in a Swiss sanitarium.

One of Camus’ two most famous works THE PLAGUE is remarkably readable—but expect to become enmeshed in the psychological underpinnings of multiple, flawed characters. For some reason Camus is coy about revealing the identify of his ubiquitous narrator, to whom
he attributes a variety of informational sources. Each character must examine his own conscience and react accordingly--in the prollonged
stasis of of public pandemonium and despair. Let readers not be hasty to judge...

May 18, 2017

The story centers around an outbreak of plague that ravages the city of Oran (still a French possession). The main point to make is that this isn't a scientific thriller a la Michael Crichton where heroes wrestle with the mechanics of the epidemic. The plague is an absurdist plague, an inexorable, impersonal force that kills without regard to persons. The plague results in Oran being quarantined, with communications limited to telegrams and emergency phone calls, thus creating a sense of exile. There is a good argument that the experience is also an analogy for Camus' time in Paris during the Nazi occupation. As a pied-noir (French-descended Algerian), his experience would've been one of being cut off from his home in the face of a force that was arbitrarily killing people. This is enhanced by the fact that two of the main characters are cut off from their romantic partners. The writing style itself is very restrained in its avoidance of melodrama.

For me, the most noteworthy characters are Dr. Rieux, Joseph Grand, Father Paneloux and Jean Tarroux as they manifest the different responses one can make to an absurdist universe.

Dr. Rieux focuses on his job. He is a doctor and tries to save people. Even if he loses many in the end, his struggle to maintain that focus is an ongoing rebellion against the absurd that seems closest to Camus' ideas. One can get that sense from his essay, "The Myth of Sisyphus" were he imagines Sisyphus happy. Joseph Grand is a similar character on a smaller scale, whose main focus is on rewriting ad infinitum the first sentence of his putative book.

Father Paneloux is a vivid character, moving from an approach of trying to see the plague as a chastisement of sins to abandoning an attempt to rationalize the plague and advocating seeing the death of innocents as God's will that should be not only accepted, but desired, because it is God's will, regardless of its clash with human morality.

Tarroux creates a link with events from the outside world. Further, having been in various parts of the world and having been politically active, he highlights the idea of absurdity as sometimes being a human invention and echoes the idea of the plague itself being, in part, a surrogate for Camus' experience in Paris.

The characters are all richly human. I particularly liked the theological torment of Paneloux and Tarroux's attempt to adhere to a higher moral code in an absurd universe as well as the friendship between Tarroux and Riehl.

Mr. Camus has written an interesting metaphor about life and the idea that we all carry a plague. The plot takes form of a story about a town besieged a terrible disease. Dr. Rieux is the main character, who searches about for dead rats and dead people. Our unknown narrator's voice almost seems to mimic Nabokov's, though he does not go to the extent as his Russian coeval. But Camus has written about a town that changes from the normal daily life to an enclosed society; a society where people talk or are suddenly silent and who do not walk the streets at night because the lights have been turned off by the Prefect. I feel that the book may be key to the literary world, but like Don Delillo, I have a hard time wading through the boring conflicts. Although I certainly appreciated him as a novelist, his characters and "plague" in general seems more like a common cold that suddenly killed two thousand people. It is not thrilling, but...I will say Camus' characters have very distinct personalities and their psychology is to a T. I would not be dissuaded from reading Camus again, yet I would be cautious to which one I choose.

Though I can't speak for the current translation of this book , the one I read in 1987 changed my life. I went from being a life is a dark twisted joke atheist to a hopeful atheist.
Though on one level the book appears to be an allegory for the French Resistance to the Nazis, it implies that the Resistance itself is an allegory for humanity fighting against a cold and absurd universe.
The one character specific to this is Jean Tarrou who works with Dr. Rieux. Tarrou has some Christ like characteristics while at the same time described as large and bear like.
Its during a sudden break from the plot where Tarrou talks about his life with the doctor and the aspiration to be a "saint" in a godless world. They then take a swim and the story resumes.
I read that portion over a few times. Its not hammered home or presented loftily but appeared to be central to the books spirit. Tarrou finds himself against a society that condones murder and by extension a world that accepts death and suffering. Yet in his fight he keeps running back into groups ultimately based around continuing the suffering. He then speaks of being a saint but not in a lofty sense but in a very modest sense.

I went from just thinking I was reading some clever intellectual book on so called existential themes, to one that breaks from that. It actually felt like Camus had tapped me on the shoulder and explained that all the superficial existentialism stuff was nice but in the real world we actually can do more than just snicker at lifes absurdity.

Rather than Existentialism the book leans more towards Humanism (I think Vonnegut considered himself a humanist). It was an electrifying feeling as I no longer considered it a book or a philosophical essay. It was Camus passing on to me and others the idea that, hey, when things are bad we just need to fix them. When the world is absurd we need to give it meaning.

I read the book over and found a lot to go along with this. In particular at the beggining where he talks of the people of the town as ones who enjoy life but at times when life requires must do more than just enjoy. Also he frequently speaks of those fighting the plague not as grand lofty beings but just those that see that this is what needs to be done.

I have read The Stranger and parts of The Fall. Those two seem to be the books most often spoken of with Camus. But I thought The Plague is where he really brings home his ideas. The title of the book and the onset of AIDS and possible other new onslaughts against us (Ebola, etc.) not to mention the madness of modern "terrorism" ) have probably made this a book people just dont reach for too quickly expecting it to be a bummer . And it is in many parts. But regardless to me it is perhaps a very basic "how to" reference on being human and aspiring humanism.

Rarely philosophical ideas and a vision about the human condition have been so brilliantly explained and illustrated in a work of fiction, as in ' The Plague' by Albert Camus. (This comment is based on the French version of the novel).

The fight of Sisyphus
For Albert Camus, the plague symbolizes anti-life, submission, everything that is opposed to human happiness. The fight against the plague is the same as the absurd task of Sisyphus. Albert Camus’s alter ego, Dr. Rieu, fights a war of attrition against the plague. But, he rejoices in it; in other words, Sisyphus is happy.

Man and Evil (ignorance)
For the hero of Albert Camus, Dr. Rieu, there is more in a human being to celebrate than to denigrate. But, goodwill can do as much damage as evil, if it is not enlightened. And, the most despairing evil is ignorance, which thinks that it knows everything and preaches that killing can be respectable.
The plague stands for totalitarianism, tyrannical political regimes, but, also for organized ignorance, like religion. Dr. Rieu sums up the core of the debate in one sentence: if a priest consults a doctor, there is a contradiction. For Albert Camus, religion equals fatalism, or in the words of the priest: perhaps we should love what we cannot understand. But, the doctor's answer is crystal clear: I fundamentally refuse to accept a world where children are tortured and killed.

Relevance
This masterful novel is still mightily relevant today, where ignorance (the plague) is institutionalized. It is spread all over the world through big media corporations monopolized by the money powers, so despised by Albert Camus. This ignorance is conveyed by the long arms of the powerful, covertly by the secret services and openly by corrupt journalists (the presstitutes). Where are the Albert Camus of today?
For Albert Camus, every man or woman has to be a rebel and should fight against those who are spreading the plague. Only a humanist mindset can create the core condition for human happiness: Kant’s Perpetual Peace.

Every man and woman of good will should read one of the greatest novels of all time, an unforgettable masterpiece of a genuine Nobel laureate.

Birthed during the reconstruction pangs of World War II, French author Albert Campus penned a multi-tiered plot with multi-leveled significance about the isolation of a city, the isolation of emotion, and the coping mechanisms with the various forms of isolation. On a purely as-is view, the story is a softly heroic tale of silent fortitude and the submission to fatalism. On another level, the isolation of the city symbolizes the isolation of the individual with numerous parallels between the city's plights and the ones experienced by those cut off from the rest of civilization and family. However, on a more historical and academic front, the story serves as an allegory to the French resistance (and assistance, at times) to the Nazi occupation of France (thank you, Wiki).

The Plague is a very literary read with subtleties abound, emotion ablaze, and hope adrift. I wasn't able to compress the number of reading days, so the full effect of the book's beauty was partially lost to me, but from what I gleaned off the multi-faceted gem left me in humble awe.

Rear cover synopsis:
"The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a virulent plague.

Cut off from the rest of the world, living in fear, they each respond in their own way to the grim challenge of the deadly bacillus. Among them is Dr Rieux, a humanitarian and healer, and it is through his eyes that we witness the devastating course of the epidemic."

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The northern Algerian coastal city of Oran is home to 200,000 citizens, the city is as nondescript as the crated good which enter its port: "treeless, glamourless, soulless" (3). Centered on a plateau, Oran is ringed by a city wall and, further, ringed by hills. Populated by traders and common folk, among the listless souls linger "obscure functionaries cultivating harmless eccentricities" (45). The lethargic townspeople are oblivious to the passing time of the world, the influx of news and people, and the general entropy of life and love. Even the lethal portent of rats dying in the city's very streets isn't enough to jostle the worries of the people of Oran; their inherent fatalism simply accepts the situation as another link in their chain of events which they call life.

The balmy air of Oran's mid-April season ought to be a time of temperate diversions or sybaritic dalliances, but the ambiance is disrupted by the presence of rats vomiting blood: "they [the rats] emerged in long wavering files into the light of day, swayed helplessly, then did a sort of pirouette and fell dead at the feet of the horrified onlookers" (13). The commoners and medical practitioners alike ignored the ominous signs of bubonic death ascending from the sewers to their very feet, they ignored the chthonic exodus of vermin which died on their doorsteps and windowsills. Soon, the doctors whisper the word "plague" and measures are taken to isolate the city from the rest of the world.

The rats, having died by the thousands, were disposed of by the city but now the populace has begun to show similar symptoms as the rats had. Lethargic to the disease's lethal impetus, the ignorant and the knowledgeable all come within the influence of the plague's cynical, cyclic gravity: isolation means detachment, detachment means isolation... isolation from the world, isolation from their countrymen, and isolation from the sea which feeds the city's people. "Thus, too, they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of which they thought incessantly, has a savour only of regret" (69).

When official news of the Plague's existence is broken, people nearly rise to arms at the ghastliness of their fate and their hermetic existence. The spring and summer months beyond April become a barren landscape of hope for the townspeople of Oran; "The furious revolt of the first weeks had given place to a despondency, not to be taken for resignation, though it was none the less a sort of passive and provisional acquiescence" (174). Their war against the unseen viral crusader bent upon their destruction draew not flagrant hatred or resolute victory, but a fatalistic acceptance of the "deliberate progress of some monstrous thing crushing out all upon its path" (173). The once maturing metropolis of Oran descends into a decaying necropolis.

Designating confirmed cases of the Plague is Dr. Rieux, a practitioner detached from the emotional aspect of death and immune to significant social or familial ties. Once a healer, now the doctor sees himself like Archangel Michael--the good angel of death. Despondent by the Plague's relentless toll of death through Oran, the good doctor sinks further into his fugue with his 20-hour days lending no relief to his disconnectedness. However, his central importance is prominent and inclusive enough to provide an objective summary of the events during the Plague.

With Dr. Rieux at the hub of the story, the narrator offers radial spokes of additional narratives which capture the eccentricities of the hermetic city and the undulations of hope. The pestilence sweeps through the city in the humid summer months of northern Algeria and even into the autumn months. The newspapers keep tally of the number of deaths, the sermons from the local parish extol virtues and implore for exoneration by God's Hand, and the fatalism of the townspeople impel them to continue their daily existence of visiting cafes and drinking wine. From this salt of the earth of Oral come stories of stoicism, complacency, determination, schizophrenia, diligence, and maturation:

* M. Othan is the city's magistrate and remains vigil to the corpulent corruption which abounds in his city and soon surrounds his family.
* The complacent Joseph Grand, though poorly perceived by other as being unkempt and underpaid, starts his own novel; however, through the course of the Plague's savagery, Grand is only able to pen the first sentence, an introduction which he mulls over and rewrites time and time again: "One fine morning in the month of May an elegant young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne" (100).
* Raymond Rambert is a displaced man, a visiting journalist who is shut in by the Plague and shut out from his love in Paris; his determination of escape and reunion offers him entertainment more so than actual solvency.
* Ashamed of a spoilt attempt at suicide, the man named Cottard turns his life around by becoming more social, though his cynical side unabashedly beckons the Plague to wreak its havoc and consume the town's populace.
* The diligent Jean Tarrou is yet another displaced man, but his motivations lie far from self-emancipation; Tarrou calls for volunteers in assistance with his newly founded corps of gravediggers and disposers of bodies, a calling which draws him into friendship with Dr. Rieux.
* Lastly, the maturation of Father Paneloux begins through his volunteerism in Tarrou's copse when he witnesses the protracted pain and suffering, and ultimate death, of a child; his emotional reliance on the hope which medicine brings causes the Father to doubt his own stance in the church and sermonizes a borderline-heretic oration at Sunday mass.

The protracted residence of the Plague through spring, summer, and autumn doesn't cease with the temperate weather, but its corruption transmogrifies with the change in climate, a reflection of the seasonal swap from festering autumn to corpse-like winter; the bubonic manifestation of the Plague morphed into that of the pneumonic variety, a simple shift in anatomical focus though equally as deadly. Against this corruption is the hope of the people, latent yet set to effervesce into victory: "once the faint stirring of hope became possible, the plague would end" (259). And with the New Year came the respite of recovery, yet fear remained that their dogged perseverance through the Plague times would end with their inability to resist the Plague and unable to revisit the vista of love with their separate loved ones; this love fueled their resistance during the times of the Plague: "The egoism of love made them immune to the general distress and, if they thought of the plague, it was only in so far as it might threaten to make their separation eternal" (72).

None the less, he [the narrator] knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of a final victory. It could be only the record of what had had to be done, and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never-ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts, despite their personal afflictions, by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers. (297)

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Encompassing speculative fiction more so than that of science fiction, I was moved enough by The Plague to write a lengthier than usual review about it. I made a substantial number of notes during the reading and cross-referenced my data with Wikipedia. The loquaciousness of the book may have rubbed off on me when writing the review--my late apologies because the prose in The Plague trumps anything I've ever written, be it narrative or academic. The challenge in reading the novel derives from its sentence lengths and punctuation usage, a combination which is eloquent and circumspective, therefore open to interpretation as to its allegorical parallel.

I hesitate to connect the themes of "hope" and "cope" together simply because they rhyme; regardless, the novel evokes both feelings: the confidence of fulfillment and contention of suffering. As openly fatalistic as the townsmen are, there still lingers that errant bit of hidden hope which each tuck away as a coping mechanism for the community; if the proclamation of hope was as obvious as the death on the streets, the community would have withered into its own quiet death. Many continue their daily life as a way to combat the intrinsic fear of the plague which consumes all, yet they deny themselves the outward show of the future victory over their silent, unseen adversary.

Amid the metamorphoses the characters undergo, the most substantial and sudden occurs to the dynamic eulogist Father Paneloux. Witnessing the death throes of a child infected with the Plague, the Father pleads to his God to spare the child of the worst symptoms and grant him life or death rather than the transitional pain of purgatory. When Father Paneloux's prayers are unanswered, he relies on Dr. Rieux and his medical knowledge to ease the boy's suffering; thus, Father Paneloux doubts his spirituality against his reliance on the doctor's expertise--if God cannot answer a prayer to ease the boy's pain, why is it a simple doctor can answer that prayer? The following Sunday's sermon is a lengthy, philosophical, and borderline sacrilegious oration which spans seven pages of the novel (212-218). It's an excellent, excellent introspective look at one man's attempt of coping with the realities of the Plague and his once hopeful reliance of an ethereal miracle.

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Reading a book with that is so textually and contextually rich makes me feel warm and fuzzy, and perhaps makes me loquacious to a sickly degree. Thankfully, I don't have many novels of this caliber in my 121 unread book pile, so I won't spend so much time writing 2,000-word reviews instead of exploring the many facets, both good and bad, of the science fiction genre. Bless Camus though for this rich, rich narrative!

The Plague Final Book Review
The book I chose was written by Albert Camus called The Plague. The way it was fabricated had me puzzled throughout each chapter. However, once I grasped my own concept it became more interesting to me. The Plague is a good book even though you will get confused throughout once you keep reading you will understand it’s about strength. The book to me is a guide to survival when you’re in a bad situation. The book represents reality everything in life is not always warm, friendly, and comfortable. Occasionally we try to escape from things we can’t handle. It also shows you how others cope with their thoughts and moods during a crisis. Plague is also about the way one choose to live. Some people go through days without thinking taking everything for granted. Then there are others who take nothing for granted and are striving for better. Its seems to me that the people who took like for granted lived for a long period of time like Cottard. Then Rieux wife a woman who cared about life and her family passed away. That’s what I mean by it being a guide into reality because that’s how it is now good people suffer while others live that’s my opinion.
The main characters in my book are Rieux, Tarrou, Paneloux and Cottard. Rieux is a doctor who found a dead rat laying in the streets. Once Rieux found the rat people in the town became sick and died. He then began to do research in silence trying not to alarm the citizens. Rieux became worried when he lost another patient so he started to warn the people in town about an illness and its symptoms. Tarrous was a light minded person at first who agitated Rieux but later became his partner. Tarrous organized and lead volunteers to help Rieux fight the plague. Paneloux was a priest who came into town to tell people why they were sick. The priest told them because they are sinners god was punishing them. Cottard was a smuggler who tried to kill himself because he was want by authorities. Cottard enjoyed the commotion the plague caused in the city because it kept him safe and free.
The Plague stands out because it speaks upon affliction, death, world war and revenge that’s still going on today. The book brings you into reality that’s what makes it unique it also stands alone like all Camus books his own fabrication. How many books have you read that were horrific with realistic situations and resolutions? That’s why I think the book is still popular because it’s something that can really happen today. The way they handle the situation would be similar also some people going crazy while others would be praying.
My favorite character in the book was Rieux he was a brave doctor. The reason why I chose Rieux is because he was dedicated to his people in his town. Rieux didn’t care what others had to say he was about protecting them in any way possible. The doctor got with other specialist to see how they could prevent the spread of plague. Even though Rieux wasn’t the doctor the to diagnose he was the only one who was persistent in finding a cure. Rieux knows that people in the town only real vice is ignorance that’s why he handled it in a different manner. Even when it became clear that the anti-plague efforts weren’t effective. Rieux continued in putting all his effort in fighting the plague. Rieux was about the movement and embracing that people are different from one another and believed anything was true. Rieux heard so many rumors about the illness and disease before the diagnosis but he never listened. Rieux was very strong minded no matter what others said he didn’t let that get to him and effect what he was trying to do for the town.
The catholic priest Paneloux was the weakness to me. The priest talks to people about accepting what was done because it was gods will. Paneloux told the people that was not easy for him to say but it was god’s words not his own. The priest preached a sermon about the suffering of children being the bread of affliction, then he saw a child die of plague and abandoned his own faith. Everything Paneloux told the people about the will of god but yet he fell short.

When the plague stealthily but mercilessly struck Oran, Dr. Rieux and his friends had to fight in the dark a noiseless enemy and could only rely on their courage and resilience. Whether the plague symbolized the Nazi occupation of France or the general suffering of our human condition, Camus focused on the internal character and strength of Rieux and his friends rather than the storm's force and direction. Tarrou organized the sanitation team and Grand joined even though, as Rieux noted, their surviving it was only one in three. And the journalist Rambert could have left the city and returned to Paris, but was willing to risk not only his happiness with his girlfriend but also his life to struggle alongside Oran's inhabitants to defeat the plague.

Unlike Meursault in The Stranger, who stood alone and alienated, Dr. Rieux fought the plague alongside his comrades Tarrou, Grand, Rambert and Castel. Though in the end, the plague took Tarrou's life and those of several acquaintances, camaraderie had strengthened their resolve to fight this unknown and powerful enemy and highlighted the hope that in tumultuous hours and charred wastelands a few good men and women might sacrifice for the common good. And though when the city celebrated its victory, Rieux must mourn the loss of his wife, not through the plague but through a previous illness, newborn aroma seeped through the stench of the plague. As Rieux noted at the novel's conclusion, the enemy might return; and in the next battle victory might escape beyond the city, but their courage and sacrifice would carry the fight across desert and sea.

An allegory of our existential condition, The Plague sprinkles hope without relying on Pollyanna.

First off, this is good, but it routinely appears high on lists of the best books of all time, and I am not seeing it.

For my personal taste, it has too many characters, and they have foreign names that had no associations for me. That is alright for most readers, but I read too many books concurrently and it makes it hard for me to follow when I read in such short sections. That is entirely my issue and not Camus'. In fact, I probably shouldn't be reading Camus if I am not going to give him my full attention...

Other than that, here is a fine book and a very ambitious idea "let's give the city plague and see how people change." It is also managed quite brilliantly, in terms of choosing a narrator. This is the mark of a great writer, certainly. A narrator who is ever present but removes himself from the action in the telling? Interesting point of view.

I do not do well with gore or sickness and found some of the descriptions of the illness and treatment disturbing, but they are probably pretty mild, objectively.
The examination of the attitudes is, at times, utterly fascinating, and the examination of religion, as an idea, and how it is practiced.

There were some fine characters in the cast, for sure, but I spent the whole book unattached (by Camus' design, I expect) to all of them, until the end. Probably, if I were going to recommend Camus, I would put The Stranger first. Your mileage may vary.

If you are a fan of different styles of writing, you won't go wrong here, it is certainly written with a clarity of style that does not get in the way of the story. That it does that and remains both smart and stylish, sets it aside from so much of today's pop-writer vogue which is, largely, clear but boring.

When the plague stealthily but mercilessly struck Oran, Dr. Rieux and his friends had to fight in the dark a noiseless enemy and could only rely on their courage and resilience. Whether the plague symbolized the Nazi occupation of France or the general suffering of our human condition, Camus focused on the internal character and strength of Rieux and his friends rather than the storm's force and direction. Tarrou organized the sanitation team and Grand joined even though, as Rieux noted, their surviving it was only one in three. And the journalist Rambert could have left the city and returned to Paris, but was willing to risk not only his happiness with his girlfriend but also his life to struggle alongside Oran's inhabitants to defeat the plague.

Unlike Meursault in The Stranger, who stood alone and alienated, Dr. Rieux fought the plague alongside his comrades Tarrou, Grand, Rambert and Castel. Though in the end, the plague took Tarrou's life and those of several acquaintances, camaraderie had strengthened their resolve to fight this unknown and powerful enemy and highlighted the hope that in tumultuous hours and charred wastelands a few good men and women might sacrifice for the common good. And though when the city celebrated its victory, Rieux must mourn the loss of his wife, not through the plague but through a previous illness, newborn aroma seeped through the stench of the plague. As Rieux noted at the novel's conclusion, the enemy might return; and in the next battle victory might escape beyond the city, but their courage and sacrifice would carry the fight across desert and sea.

An allegory of our existential condition, The Plague sprinkles hope without relying on Pollyanna.

First off, this is good, but it routinely appears high on lists of the best books of all time, and I am not seeing it.

For my personal taste, it has too many characters, and they have foreign names that had no associations for me. That is alright for most readers, but I read too many books concurrently and it makes it hard for me to follow when I read in such short sections. That is entirely my issue and not Camus'. In fact, I probably shouldn't be reading Camus if I am not going to give him my full attention...

Other than that, here is a fine book and a very ambitious idea "let's give the city plague and see how people change." It is also managed quite brilliantly, in terms of choosing a narrator. This is the mark of a great writer, certainly. A narrator who is ever present but removes himself from the action in the telling? Interesting point of view.

I do not do well with gore or sickness and found some of the descriptions of the illness and treatment disturbing, but they are probably pretty mild, objectively.
The examination of the attitudes is, at times, utterly fascinating, and the examination of religion, as an idea, and how it is practiced.

There were some fine characters in the cast, for sure, but I spent the whole book unattached (by Camus' design, I expect) to all of them, until the end. Probably, if I were going to recommend Camus, I would put The Stranger first. Your mileage may vary.

If you are a fan of different styles of writing, you won't go wrong here, it is certainly written with a clarity of style that does not get in the way of the story. That it does that and remains both smart and stylish, sets it aside from so much of today's pop-writer vogue which is, largely, clear but boring.

... especially his reputation, awards and other works, I picked this one up on a suggestion from a friend "Read any of Albert Camus?".

First opinion is ... dark. Camus writes with a dark tone which, given the subject matter, is very fitting. His narrative explores all aspects of the individual situations the book takes us into. For me, the plague, is somewhat of an allegory that could be adapted to any situation. Like an invading army shored up at the borders, the Plague, creeps inward and decimates a small town. This could be likened to change, of any description, deemed for the worse. The town in the book becomes isolated causing introspection among the inhabitants.

Why us? Well, why not us? What did we do to deserve this? Well, in all honesty, nothing. Change happens regardless.

I like his work, I like the detached aspect of his writing. It's very moody and there's a sort of helplessness that, at first resisted, becomes accepted. He does, very beautifully, highlight the amazing human ability that is adaptation. Humanity survives above everything else.

It can be a struggle in places and, to be honest, there was more than once I wished I was reading something else. Reading other critical reviews, this translated version is not the best. Again, I'm not a Camus expert so I have nothing to compare it too. I'll read more of Camus' work as, already mentioned, I like his mood setting and exploratory nature.

Oran, "a large French port on the Algerian coast," is ordinary and unprepossessing, "treeless, glamourless, [and] soulless." In the spring, sometime in the 1940's, the townspeople notice a strange and unsettling phenomenon. Dead and dying rats are appearing in alarming numbers. It turns out that these doomed creatures are a portent of a virulent epidemic that is about to bring Oran to its knees. "The Plague," by Albert Camus, translated from the French by Stuart Gilbert, is an account of a city under siege, its inhabitants in the iron grip of a deadly bacillus that picks and chooses its victims, regardless of gender or age.

Dr. Bernard Rieux has other preoccupations. His sickly thirty-year old wife is about to catch a midday train. She is going to a sanatorium in the mountains where, Dr. Rieux hopes, the bracing air, nourishing food, and peaceful atmosphere will reinvigorate her. After Madame Rieux departs to take her rest cure, Bernard and his fellow physicians notice that various individuals in Oran are exhibiting alarming symptoms: high fever, swollen ganglia, raging thirst, and lumps of fibrous matter under their skin.

"The Plague" is a study of how average men and women--aside from Rieux's wife and mother, few females have speaking roles in the narrative--handle extreme duress. Raymond Rambert, a journalist, hopes to escape Oran and reunite with his lover; Monsieur Cottard exploits the emergency to enrich himself; Jean Tarrou jots down his observations in a notebook and organizes a voluntary group of helpers to improve sanitation; Father Paneloux, a scholar and Jesuit priest, delivers fiery sermons exhorting his congregants to accept the Divine will; and the municipal and medical authorities arrange for quarantines, organize special hospital wards, and implement various measures to counteract the disease. As the death toll mounts, people begin to panic, since there is no sign that the plague will abate in the near future. What will become of them all?

Eventually, Oran is cut off from the outside world; no one may leave or enter. The people wait and, in some cases, pray that they and their loved ones will be spared. Camus' evocative descriptive writing enables the reader to smell Oran's fetid air and picture the unfortunate victims as they writhe in a fevered delirium, waiting for death. After a while, burials become hurried affairs. Even those who remain healthy "drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows...." Oran became "a defunct city in which...darkness had effectively silenced every voice."

What can we derive from this allegorical work? Some will conclude that human existence is meaningless and capricious, and that our endeavors to thrive in business and carve out a successful niche for ourselves in society may be so much wasted effort. We might want to place more emphasis on the here and now, since tomorrow does not come with a guarantee. Others will applaud the altruism of people like Dr. Rieux, who wears himself out tending to the sick and dying. Since "The Plague" was published in 1947, it is possible that Camus was indirectly indicting Frenchmen who collaborated with their Nazi occupiers during World War II. Whatever interpretation we accept, "The Plague" clearly demonstrates that crises bring out the best in some and the worst in others. Those who have compassion for their fellow citizens offer support and assistance; they take part in cooperative measures to fight the pestilence. The self-centered worry only about themselves and their families. This classic work of fiction is an indictment of man's folly, shallowness, and short-sightedness and also a tribute to his selflessness, generosity, and grace under pressure.

More than just well written, this book was well-translated. Beyond the difficulty of changing lines from one language to another, this beautifully shows that phrases can be crafted also. The story is really about plague, and what contagion can and cannot do to people. There are some oddly offensive bits, that strike the ears as harsh; this is because the society we live in likes to sanitize things to a point where everyday occurrences are glossed over.

Because, after all, death is an everyday occurrence. The idea that a plague can happen again is hardly revolutionary, and yet the novel shows the incredulousness of those who don’t want it declared. It will surely strike modern readers as familiar that the government doesn’t want to alarm ‘unnecessarily’ the populace at large. In fact, there is so much completely possible and plausible about the novel that readers may not look more deeply into the novel than to accept at its surface level. The book can definitely be read this way. But there are deeper resonances, too.

I just finished reading "The Plague" by Albert Camus. It's a novel about a French colony in Northern Africa that becomes infested with the bubonic plague. The town is cordoned off, preventing anyone or anything from coming or going to prevent the spread of the disease.

About the inhabitants, Camus writes, "...they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of which they thought incessantly, had a savor of only regret. For they would have wished to add to it all they regretted having left undone..." Thus there are many parallels to prison life here.

He also writes, "On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of ignorance that fancies it knows everything, and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness."

The story examines the different ways the main characters deal with the threat of death, the loss of their loved ones, and their isolation. I was most interested in the criminal, Cottard, who actually welcomes the plague and resulting quarantine because it means the authorities are too busy to deal with him. "The thing he'd most detest is being cut off from others; he'd rather be one of a beleaguered crowd than a prisoner alone." I've met people in prison with life sentences like this. They wish the world would end tomorrow and they'd rejoice because they would know that they're not going alone.

Review Written by David Allan Reeves
Author of "Running Away From Me"

Somehow Camus brings humanism, optimism and the role of love to a depressing story of bubonic plaque in 1940’s Oran, Algeria. First all the rats die and then we go from there. After much bureaucratic bungling and delays, the city is cut off from the outside world by quarantine. A lot of the focus of the story is on those separated by chance from loved ones for several months. There is intrigue as some plot to escape the town. But mainly a dreary perseverance and indifference takes over many in the city. Camus uses the suffering and deaths of children to reflect on the role of God and religion. The barren, dry, windswept, desolate town is so well portrayed that it is like a character in the story. I’m reminded of the religious theme and the desolation of the Mexican town in Graham Green’s The Power and the Glory. If you are put off by the thought that this is an incredibly depressing book, don’t be.

Who is Albert Camus? Albert Camus was a French philophser, author, and journalist. Camus was November 7, 1913 and died January 4, 1960. One of the novels Albert wrote about was called “The Plague”. “The Plague” was published in 1947 and then published in English in 1948. The novel is believed to be based on the cholera outbreak that killed a large proportion of Oran’s population in 1849 following the French Colonization, but the novel is placed in the 40’s. It is also philosophical fiction book. I think “The Plague” is an interesting book because it leads you into a mystery. It also gives you an image of how it was so difficult to leave through that time frame and deal with a plague.
“The Plague” is about a plague outbreak in Algerian city of Oran. In April, thousands of rats was coming into the opening and dying. When more rats start to come in the opening of the population, the newspapers start demanding for actions. The authorities finally arrange for the dead rats to be collected and cremated daily. After that, M.Michel, the caretaker of the building where Dr. Rieux works, who is one of the main characters suddenly dies after becoming ill with a strange fever. When a group of similar cases pop up, Dr. Rieux’s colleague, Castel, becomes assured that it is the bubonic plague. Castel and Dr. Rieux are forced to confront the authorities and other doctors. After that, the authorities tries sanitization the whole city from the outer world.
I think this book withstood the test of time because you can relate the plague of this book to any modern day disease or plague that have killed several thousands of people. What make “The Plague” unique is that it leads you in a mystery. It doesn’t hit straight forward; it tends to give you bits of it having you to read more and more to find a resolution. Marina Warner, of the guardian, said, “The Plague” is about courage, about engagement, about paltriness and generosity, about small heroism and large cowardice, and about all kinds of profoundly humanist problems, such as love and goodness, happiness and mutual connection.” I think this book is very popular because it gives different points each character, and how they endured the plague.
One thing I think Mr. Camus did well is how he use Dr. Rieux. Dr. Rieux was the narrator, but he also uses as if he was in third person. My favorite character is Dr. Benard Rieux because who doesn’t like the guy who the hero, but Dr. Rieux said he was just doing his daily job. One of the quotes I like the most is at the beginning of the book. The narrator says, “in Oran everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, ‘doing business.’”
In conclusion, I think the “The Plague” is a intersing book because it leaves you thinking throughout the book wondering what going to happen next. It change my outcome how I think book like this.

Albert Camus' magnificent novel, "The Plague," is the only book I've read a dozen times. This month, I'm reading it yet again with ever-increasing respect for the author's skill and radical commitment to honesty. Only George Orwell comes close, in my opinion.

SO WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL, ANYWAY? "The Plague" was first published in 1947, just two years after the close of World War II. The storyline is relatively simple:

-- Thousands of rats start dying in Oran, Algeria, an ugly seaside city that was then part of the French empire. (Note: A real plague scare swept Oran in 1944.)
-- The disease quickly spreads to human beings, who begin dying in ever-greater numbers.
-- To prevent a wider epidemic, the local government closes down all routes to the outside world.
-- Inside this grim, pestilential setting we witness the best and worst of human nature.
-- More importantly, the novel raises huge questions about morality, God, fairness, praxis and human suffering.

Unlike lesser writers, Camus doesn't offer up any easy answers. He never accepted the label "Existentialist" and his work certainly can't be forced into a box, literary or philosophical. And no matter what your high school English teacher said, "The Plague" isn't an allegory about fascism, atheism, nihilism or any other "ism." It's far more ambitious, and far less formulaic, than any allegory.

In his own powerful way, Camus forces us to confront the most uncomfortable question of all: What if life really is meaningless? What if all of our suffering, joys, effort and achievements count for nothing in the grand scheme of things? Simply put, what if there is no "grand scheme of things"?

Each character in "The Plague" is both a real person and a symbol for something deeply perplexing about the human condition. They are living contraditions who slowly tear apart the false fabric of conventional wisdom.

Our lead character is Dr. Bernard Rieux. He's a humble champion of human dignity but also a fatalist without much faith in anything - except practical action and perseverance. On the other side of the spectrum is Father Paneloux, a militant Jesuit priest of Oran who insists the plague is God's punishment on the local population. Paneloux is a classic example of dead faith masquerading as certainty. He reveals the emptiness of "true believers" who abandon humility in favor of arrogance.

Even the novel's strangest characters pose difficult questions: Monsieur Cottard begins the novel by trying to commit suicide, but then finds new reason to live as death sweeps across the city. Why? What does this signify about hope in the face of doom? Other characters are by turns greedy, loving, selfish, delusional and even comical (e.g., the man whose hobby is spitting on cats). The one thing you won't find in "The Plague" is a neat, tidy ending that resolves everything for you.

As a Christian, I find myself coming back to Camus often because he challenges my faith and understanding of the world. He not only "overturns the applecart" of simplistic theology, he sets it on fire and throws it off a cliff. In fact, Camus' radical honesty reminds me of a certain Jewish carpenter who uttered these words just before he was executed: "I came to bear witness to the truth." But what is truth?, asked Pontius Pilate.

Jesus (like Camus 2,000 years later) remained silent, refusing to answer that question. The implication is clear -- at least for me.

To an extent, all of Camus' novels are vehicles for his philosophy. Camus' philosophy begins with a simple idea, that life is absurd. Camus did not believe in God -- did not believe human actions hold any ultimate higher meaning -- he thought "death would undermine the value of anything that precedes it." From this, Camus drew that life was "absurd." In The Stranger, Camus illustrates this principle of the absurd. Only towards the end of The Stranger does Camus bring up another point in his worldview, and that is, that life is worth living. In The Plague, Camus introduces a concept he called "Revolt"; that is, revolting against the absurdity and meaningless of existence. It seems like an oxymoron, but here Camus wants to try to make sense of an absurd life.

There you have a brief overview of Camus' philosophical ideas. In the Plague, Camus briefly criticizes the Catholic Church. If you are a Christian who is particularly sensative to opposing world-views, you may find Camus' non-faith to be offensive. With an open mind, however, it is likely you will find much said by Camus that is true. Actually, this book often feels a lot like a christian parable.

If you want a straight and simple story as opposed to Camus' philosophical ideal laced story, then you might look elsewhere. Still, read the rest of my review. You may find the plot, which I will discuss next, is something that interests you regardless of philosophy.

The city of Oran is quarantined due to the outbreak of a deadly plague. No one is allowed to leave or enter. The narrative focuses on a handful of people living in the quarantined city, as well as on the general conditions of life in Oran while the plague wreaks havoc. Actually, the native begins just before the plot, and ends shortly after the quarantine is lifted. The characters discuss life during plague conditions. Their activities range from writing a book, to trying to escape, to discussing football, above all, the main focus is given to combating the plague. About the Oran--bureaucracy, religion, burial procedures, and quarantine conditions are popular plot points, as is attempting to define the general outlook of the populous during the hard times of Plague infestation. One of his common themes is separation from a loved one.

I hope I have been of some help. Personally, I find Camus' ideas to be captivating. I loved the Stranger and the Plague, and look forward to reading more of his books soon. Although the Plague reaches farther than the Stranger, I cannot conclude that it is the better of the two novels. Personally, I felt Stranger to be more to my liking; Stranger felt more natural and therefore more complete as a novel; whereas the people, places, and events of The Plague felt constructed as if only for novelistic purposes.

I strongly suggest you at least look at this The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays (Everyman's Library) before you buy the Plague, or any other work by Albert Camus. Thought it is Five Dollars more expensive, it includes 4 books and 2 essays (The Plague, The Fall, Exile, Myth of Sisyphus, and Reflections on the Guillotine) and a helpfull introduction from David Bellos. It draws from two translators (Gilbert and O'Brien) and has a durrable cloth bound frame that should outlast any paperback.

In the 21st century we expect to control and conquer disease. How can we imagine the horror of The Plague? Albert Camus gave us a chilling story, set in the Algerian city of Oran. First the rats bleed and die, and then people begin to fall sick with the dreaded bubonic plague. As the weekly death toll rises, officials seal off the city and the long exile begins.

The hospitals fill up and public buildings are requisitioned for makeshift plague wards. Quarantine camps are established. The usual burial arrangements are inadequate so the corpses are eventually interred in communal graves without the presence of mourners.

The narrator is unnamed until the end. The central character is Dr. Rieux who goes about his rounds of caring and organizing, somehow able to carry on in the absurd atmosphere of death, exile, deprivation and bereavement. "There lay certitude, there in the daily round...The thing was to do your job as it should be done."

The other characters find their own way of carrying on -- the civil servant in pursuit of the perfect opening sentence for his book, the priest preaching God's flail of retribution, the journalist on assignment when the city is was sealed and now frantic to escape to his wife, the fearful criminal living for the first time in a community of fear, the vacationer sharing his passion for collective responsibility with Dr. Rieux one starry night.

Of course The Plague is about an epidemic only on its most superficial level. Camus, Algerian-born himself, was a committed anti-totalitarian fresh from the French Resistance in 1947 when THE PLAGUE was published. His characters act out his personal philosophy in the absurdist 1940s world: they keep doing the right thing while believing that it won't make a difference, while knowing that to do anything else is to be complicit in the wickedness of the world. The book is easy to read but much more challenging to think about, which makes a good case for the reading.

Linda Bulger, 2008

When an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague occurs in a fictional French colonial port city in 1940s Algeria, its inhabitants are coalesced into a collective existence, one where despair displaces hope and death permeates the very core of their existence. But worse than the aura of death is the prison atmosphere of the city, for all its denizens are cut off from the outside world. In this supreme isolation, the citizens are separated from their loved ones and live their days in a futile, meaningless manner.

Death is treated as having no moral value. There is no martyrdom or purpose in death, it is just a natural occurrence that we will inevitably succumb to. Death takes the lives of young and old, rich and poor, wicked and saintly, without regard to the merits of those lives it takes. Indeed, any rebellion or fight against Death is ultimately futile. Tarrou fought death, while Father Paneloux did not resist it, but they both met the same fate.

Another aspect of "The Plague" is the inefficiencies and inadequacies of the colonial government. The first reaction of the government is to deny that there is a plague, and then to repress information. Although Dr. Rieux, the character's narrator, pleads with the government to take drastic actions to stem the outbreak of an epidemic, his pleas go unanswered. It is only after the epidemic has spiraled out of control, that the government executes a plan to control it. However, they can never really expunge the plague from their city, for the plague dies naturally after many months.

This existentialist novel is narrated in a dry, detached tone by Dr. Rieux, who claims to be an impartial witness to all of those who suffered. This makes it a somewhat tedious read, especially when Rieux summarizes the diaries of Tarrou. Most of the action takes place by a third person account and the narrative can be dry and tedious at times.

However, "The Plague" is certainly worthy of your time, for it presents deep questions about death and the meaning of life. Even after you have finished reading this novel, its questions, and lack of answers, remain for us to ponder.