The Plague (Penguin Modern Classics)

It was at the suggestion of a friend that I read this and I’m so glad that I did. This book now sits pride of place on my bookshelves and is one that I know I will return to many times in the future. Also, this fast became a book that I was compelled to annotate throughout reading it! Suggested as the perfect read to accompany these strange times we find ourselves in after 2020, what a book this is! There are so many parts throughout this book that are incredibly relevant and life-like to the pandemic, albeit more so to the major psychological aspect of lockdowns, isolation, reactions, confusion, fear and death. Wonderfully emotive, descriptive and compelling in stages, it is also often a little heavy handed. But when you consider the allegory behind this regarding war, it’s entirely understandable. In many ways, you could say this book is a timeless response to many types of plagues, whether they be rats, war or a virus. I’m not sure if I would have picked this up pre-Covid, but I know that I would have been missing out if I hadn't. This book has made such a mark on me and in the process I have found a new favourite author.

Published 1947. A coastal town in Algeria is seized by bubonic plague. Camus draws allegorically on his experience of the Nazi occupation of France to chronicle the inhabitants’ responses. It’s no surprise that one of my two book groups, continuing via zoom in the corona pandemic, chose this one. It’s a fascinating read – as a story, for the human dilemmas it explores, and for the strong echoes of our present situation and of the variety of our feelings and actions. When I read it in my thirties, I found the philosophising heavy going, hoping for more gory details and drama. This time the philosophising was interesting if a little repetitious and there was plenty enough gore for my taste! I have two minor criticisms. First, though it’s a book of its time, it nevertheless grates that the cast, except for a few unnamed extras, is entirely male. The men act, think, write, argue; the women are absent or stare out of windows. Second, the town’s policies for controlling the disease are covered only vaguely and make no sense; for example, victims’ families have a period of quarantine, but instead of serving this in their homes, they are herded together with other victims’ families into tents in a sports stadium (madness!), and the townspeople continue throughout to gather in the streets and cafés, with no comment from the author, who perhaps was thinking more about Nazi occupation than about an infectious disease.

‘The Plague’ has become a best-seller again during the Covid-19 pandemic. It speaks to us as much today as it did to post-war readers in the 1940s. Humanity is always getting itself into trouble and never seems to learn fully from the past. Camus writes that ‘the plague bacillus never dies or vanishes entirely’. Inevitably, plague returns in other guises - war, drought, fire etc. We do, of course, have one massive advantage in the 21st Century because many people have access to the internet. It is possible for friends and families to keep in touch, so we don’t forget each other’s faces or voices as easily as they seem to do in ‘The Plague’. A Nobel Prize Winner for Literature, Albert Camus received many other plaudits in his lifetime and ‘The Plague’ is still widely read – rightly so. In addition, Robin Buss has created a masterly English translation in the edition I read. Many students must have dissected this book from myriad viewpoints, including existentialism, religion, and philosophy. For a relatively small book it packs a mighty literary punch. War and pestilence inevitably change people. Whereas the plague is the making of Grand when he eventually overcomes his paralysis, writes to his wife, and resumes his book, it slowly grinds down Dr Castel in his desperate search for an effective serum. Cottard flourishes during the plague and goes mad once it is over. The only option was to learn how to live as a human despite the ‘endless trampling that flattened everything in its path’. Camus refers to objectivity and this reminds me of the most powerful book I have ever read – ‘If This is a Man’ by Primo Levi, in which Levi recalls, with complete objectivity, his experiences as a Jew incarcerated in Auschwitz. Such horror needs no embellishment; indeed it is all the more powerful without it. I was reminded of Levi’s book when Camus refers to the mass graves and train convoys to the incineration ovens. We can be in no doubt he is referring to the Holocaust. When death, like the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, arrived in town, all eyes turned to Father Paneloux for succour and an explanation. At first, Paneloux preached from the pulpit that this was a judgement from God – the congregation were being punished for their misdeeds. But as the bodies piled up, he joined the volunteers in their fight against the plague. The populace pays less attention to him when he claims that God is testing their faith. Religion is seen as less relevant in this crisis. For me, the glaring omission of central female characters was disappointing. At the time of first publication in 1947, many women had fought bravely in the resistance and others worked in factories producing planes, tanks, and armaments. Women in this book have been reduced to absent ciphers. Rieux waves goodbye to his wife as she departs for treatment at a sanitorium and, later, dies. Rambert pines for his absent girlfriend in Paris and then hugs her at their reunion, after having chosen to stay in Oran to fight the plague. The only ‘present’ woman is Dr Rieux’s mother whose role is do housework, then sit nicely in a chair, mostly in silence, exuding ‘goodness’. To be fair to Camus though, even the men are representative and not the fully rounded characters we often anticipate finding in novels. Who can argue with Camus when he writes, ‘there is more to admire in men than to despise’, or, ’if there is one thing that one can always desire and sometimes obtain, it is human affection’? Despite the absence of strong women, I think this classic is an important and well-written novel with a powerful message for generations to come about what it means to be human in the face of adversity. I recommend it to other readers and give it 9 out of 10.

Great book, and very up to date and many thoughts to think about. It gives One much to think about.

One of best Camus novel .everyone should read this novel once

Esta novela no es solo un alegoría sobre la guerra o la maldad humana, sino también sobre la integridad de aquellos que evitan hacer daño a los demás, porque a veces luchar por tus ideas puede convertirte en lo que no deseas, lo difícil es vivir según tus ideas y respetar al resto. La historia te atrapa, la lectura, pese a su profundidad, es sencilla, hay reflexiones magníficas y la humanidad de los protagonistas te conquista. Una joya.

Camus' story is older than WWII, and it is timely for 2020 America. The plague that closed a North African metropolis in this fiction was carried by rats, and was ended by cold weather. While covid-19 behaves differently, people living through the current plague may see their situations and feelings reflected in Camus' story. Then and now, these range from hope and impatience at lockdowns, to loneliness, anxiety, and a need to live life fully right now - despite the dangers of crowding into bars and events, and being intimate with people, when anyone could be infected. Camus develops a range characters - dedicated doctors and volunteers, sick people and their family members, unemployed who become essential workers, a con artist who thrives on the chaos, an official who grows a heart when his son dies, a preacher who decides to embrace horrors to keep his faith, friends exulting in the release of a forbidden swim at sea, ...and lovers struggling to keep love alive when life demands hard hearts or enforced distance. Parallel to the plague, then and now, runs the threat of facism. Camus resists preaching politics openly, but the allegory is powerful, in the characters and their struggles, and in the disease fought like a war. The novel concludes with celebrations that the plague has ended, reunions of lucky lovers, and a caution. For the deadly germs can lie in hiding, for years, only to rise again. Did we think facism was defeated in 1945? Are new strains alive in 2020? The Plague by Camus does not have the answers, but it has some wisdom to help us better navigate the present and the future.

Greate book, good quality. Font is a bit on the smaller side, but the spacing inbetween sentences improves readability. However this copy is half the price of other editions so if you want to get into Albert Camus and don't mind the font, I would recommend.