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Summary: Camus reaffirms humanity as an altruistic will
Review: Resisting the existential deification of unlimited subjectivity, Camus presented his great faith in innate human goodness never more greatly than in this novel. It is a triumph of the human conscience over a dark era of tragedy and broken values.
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Summary: A GREAT HUMANIST BOOK
Review: Neither as bleak nor as depressing as some readers have found it, "The Plague" seems to me the work of a profound humanist. In this immensely fascinating work, Camus sides with the little man who does what he must in the face of great adversity. The reader really gets to know the book's (almost exclusively male) characters, and whenever one of them succumbs to the raging illness, it always comes as a shock. There are many powerful scenes in the book, and many quotable lines. One of my personal favorites is that "love is never strong enough to find the words befitting it." Through sentiments like this one, Camus reveals himself to be a humanist, in addition to an existentialist. Sure, the book can be read straight or on a number of symbolic levels, but on any one of them, Camus' great concern for man's lot shines through. This is an important book, and a damn fine read, to boot. A minor quibble: Has anyone noticed the mistake Camus makes in the book? Namely, in one scene, Monsieur Othon's son is called Philippe; 200 pages later, he is called Jacques! But this slip of Camus' copy editor should in no wise deter anyone from investigating this marvelous work.
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Summary: Human
Review: Camus lets us see, through the mist of allegory and fiction, the condition of humanity.
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Summary: The Perfect Novel
Review: Rarely in the history of literature has a work of art risen beyond its time period, beyond its own temporal moral lessons. Camus writes of the "rats," the metaphorical Nazis, that infect an empty city, rip it apart, plop it on its head, expose it nude. And he shows us those who fight back ("two plus two equals four") and those who wimp away. Camus wrote the novel in a small town called Le Chambon in 1944, where 5,000 Christian saved 5,000 Jews. And today, do we not witness those who slink from confrontation? those who carry forth Cicero's duties? those who profit? those who die? And is it not best to ask, in the end, where is the meaning? Camus answers.
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Summary: What's so funny about Bubonic Plague?
Review: I was disappointed to see a negative review about such a powerful work of art... until I read it. The only bad review on Amazon was, fortunately, based entirely on total ignorance of the subject of The Plague. Ignorance is easily forgivable and even more easily curable.Albert Camus, in writing the Plague, was not out to write a nice story... if it is even possible to write such a story using the Bubonic Plague as a vehicle. Camus' goal in writing the plague was the conversion of Catholics, disenchanted with traditional belief systems after the horror of Hitler's rise in WW2, to existentialism. While I certainly can't describe all the ins and outs of existentialism here, I can say that one astute observation the reviewer made was that there was no hope. Existentialism is (in part) the erradication of hope in onesself, thereby reaching "inner peace" and so happiness. If one doesn't hope, one has no Wants to be unfulfilled; he who never knows disappointment and who just lives his life as he sees best will be truly happy. To Camus hope was the quickest way to death of the soul and the body. If one observes while reading, the characters who hope die of the plague. The characters who are able to push aside hope and just live, doing what one must do, are the ones who survive and, in the end, are happiest. It would take pages to explain the whole novel and the whole message therein and to answer all of the "what about"s, but it is worth educating onesself just to be able to appreciate what Camus has accomplished. Armed with some knowledge of the true subject matter one can finally see that not a single sentence is out of place, not a single word does not contribute to Camus' purpose-- the gentle welcoming of readers into the arms of existential philosophy. Before reading The Plague one should learn something about existentialism and Camus' beliefs, or at least buy the Cliff's Notes. After education and reading, one may not agree with Camus (I don't, personally) but one must at least acknowledge the work of a master.
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Summary: A Kafka-esque journey into xenophobic paranoia
Review: _The Plague_ is probably a bit misrepresented in today's morbid society: It is not a dark, demented book about a town that loses its mind. Camus gives us a taste of bubonic plague in a shipping town and then shows how the city reacts. We have interesting insights into the doctors, the politicians, the criminal element who smuggle well people out before they can get the plague, and the bourgeouis reaction. Camus sets it up in a style that to me seems rather reminiscent of Kafka's _The Castle_ where you're never completely sure of what's going on.
If the novel has a failing, it is in the characters. Few of them really come to life, rather seeming manipulated by their situations. Still, it's a novel that will keep you thinking, and deserves its classic status.
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Summary: Construction without soul, without passion.
Review: Actually, this is the kind of book that confirms my prejudices against Nobel prize winning literature, it is a mere construction, the characters are not human they are robots. This is a book about one city's struggle against the plague, where we get to meet a variety of characters of which none are lovable or even believable. Why does Camus write a book when he obviously has no interest in the subject, and no passion for what he is doing. There are no humour in this book, only a few obscure details carefully planned out within the book. For example the guy who is trying to write the perfect novel, who is still working on the perfection of the first sentence, Camus does not seem interested in this character, instead you get the feeling he's just been sitting at home making up these characteristics. This book is indeed what intellectual bullshiters like to call "classic literature", the language is perfect and of course without any nerve or anything else indicating that the author is putting down a part of himself in the writing, and of course there is no change of tone in the book indicating any emotional commitment by the author, the book just struggles on in the same silent tone, on and on. For Camus literature doesn't seem to be an artform, it's just work, and the only part of him that goes in to it are his opinions. Did Camus commit suicide or was it really a caraccident that ended his life, one might ask, and it surely wouldn't soprise me if it actualy was a suicide, because there are no hope in his books, just mere depression, he can't even see how pathetic he seems painting the whole world black, convincing himself that he is the only one suffering. No, grant the nobel prize to authors like Boris Vian, Raymond Queneau, Georges Darien, Alfred Jarry and Paul Bowles instead, because boring pessimists as Albert Camus are not good representatives for 20th century literature.
My conclusion therefore is that I can recommend noone to read this book, because reading it doesn't give you anything back, it's so boring you have to struggle your way through it, and it has a tone that makes you depressed, because there's no hope, the world is black and nothing you can do will make anything better.
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Summary: illuminates the darkling plain we live on
Review: Camus' "The Plague" touched me in a way I like to be touched. Wanting to feel the slight warmth of human breath infusing cold darkness, a clutching of fingers across a chasm of hopelessness, I responded gratefully to the vision Camus creates in his metaphorical plague. I was particularly gratified by the swimming scene, a place in the book where two careworn men lay aside their baggage of horror and futility and tear joy from a macabre landscape, making it their own, ever so briefly, as we all do from time to time. This is the best we can do, he seems to be saying, and so we shall carry on
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Summary: The best from Camus can be found in this book.
Review: Albert Camus wrote one of (if not THE) best books ever wroten about what fillings the human soul can be trought when the freedom to come and go is taken away.. how the humans act when their lives are centered in one city, with no freedom to get out of there or even to go to the local beach. The book also shows how's like to an foreigner with no common life with the city can be afected by the taken away of his freedom to leave the city and how does it afect his relationship with his woman who is outside of the city.. Amazing, a real book, to be read with care and to think about
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Summary: Intriging
Review: The Plague is a detailed look inside the mind of humanity when faced with the kind of danger that the plague represents. The hopelessness and desolation that the city undergoes in "exile" is shown very well by the nararrator. The strain of feeling helpless in light of the plague induces the people of Oran to ravage the town and put themselves in danger that they have control over. They steal and rampage to regain some sense of life and the feeling of "being alive." A very insightful book striking to the very heart of mankind
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