Review: The Plague

The Plague by Albert Camus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My used copy here has an inscription stating this is a decent book by an author that has done better. Sure, I liked The Stranger better, but haven't read all Camus' works so I can't attest to this inscriber's accuracy. The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. I agree with his object. this is no The Trial and rather than being stark allegory of the human condition, it is so stark to be more allegory than novel. Perhaps a morality tale of sorts? The novel has been read as a metaphorical treatment of the French resistance to Nazi occupation during World War II, and that makes sense to me.

He implies heroism is ordinary people doing extraordinary things out of simple decency and need while some turn more pragmatic seeking to escape or exploit the situation sounds like resistance movement mentality. Camus started gathering material for the novel in January 1941, when he arrived in Oran, the Algerian coastal city where the story is set. He continued working on the manuscript in Le Chambon-sur- Lignon, a mountain village in central France where he went to recuperate from one of his periodic bouts of tuberculosis in the summer of 1942. But he was soon swept into the resistance, and it was not until the liberation of France that he was able to return his attention to the book. I can see the plague here as a visitation of evil that swarmed up out of his fetid pool and returned there to haunt mankind from afar.


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