The Plague

Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking and deeply, profoundly human
Review: I think I actually prefer this to "The Stranger". That novel was excellent and concisely explained Camus' philosophy, but it lacks the humanity and realistic characterization that is so rich here. All the characters are well defined and believable, but also unique, and they never feel incompletely sketched or generic. Equally importantly, Camus does an excellent job showing the way these different personalities react to their horrible situation, which makes the plague in question seem all the more real.

"The Plague" is also a more uplifting slice of existentialism than "The Stranger". (What? Uplifting existentialism?) Yes, the novel creates a universe indifferent to mankind, but the novel's real stress is on individual responsibility and the necessity of struggling against evil. In a world full of various plagues, Camus encourages us to attempt to be healers. Here, he delivers the theme powerfully in a wonderful novel.

Rating:
Summary: Best Camus Book.
Review: All I can say is WOW! everyone must read this for themselves so that is why i will only say that.

Rating:
Summary: A Certain Theme Pervades
Review: With the fear of overshadowing the other excellant reviews posted here, I'll limit my response to what most struck me about this book: the implied lonliness. Dr. Rieux is one of the most lonely, yet appealing characters ever written. I don't recall his ever coming out and admitting his lonliness, but he works tirelessly without reward or fufillment. At the end of the day, he goes home to his mother, who leads such a different life than Rieux, it is hard to imagine that she can relate to him. His "friends"--Tarrou, Cottard, Grand, and even Paneloux are all lonely as well. As a result of the plague, Rieux has to connect with some people and abandon others. Through this, he discovers how alone he is, and that perhaps, is the ultimate curse of the plague--realizing just how alone in the world you really are.

Rating:
Summary: What is the plague?
Review: Is it a disease of the body or a disease of the mind? Is it both? Is it the cloak of ideas and ideologies we wrap around ourselves to protect ourselves from what is real? Is it the excuse we use to justify murder, war, slavery, etc? This book is a masterful metaphor for modern life...it is a question the reader must ask if he is at all serious about life. What is the plague and are you infected?

Rating:
Summary: Manifique
Review: This novel held my attention right from the grisly start as the narrator tells of the arrival of the plague in Oran. Just as important as the actual descriptions of the onset of the plague and the inhabitants' suffering, is their reactions to the ordeal they undergo. Camus seemed to be saying that we all live our lives as if we think we are immortal, or immortality will be ours after death (if that is not itself a paradox). Yet, the plague forces the people in Oran to face up to their mortality - the realisation of their forthcoming non-existence forces them to face up to the reality of their existence. Religious beliefs come under the closest scrutiny. The most important passages in the novel for me were the descriptions of the priest, Panaloux's continued assertion of his faith in a benevolent God in the face of the indiscriminate march of the plague. To Camus, it seems to me, such faith in a divine scheme or "good" deity is absurd. The only factor which tempted me to give this novel four rather than five stars were problems with the relationship between the narrator and the plot - you'll see what I mean if you read the novel, but the "problem" as such is neatly resolved in the final chapter. Smarter readers than myself will resolve it for themselves long before then.

Rating:
Summary: Life, Death and Human Attitudes.
Review: The plague is a novel told in the form of a chronicle by Dr. Rieux, the narrator, the principal character and the main "witness" of the epidemic in a city of northen Africa (Oran).

Dr. Rieux, as the narrator, tries to be as objective as he can be while telling the facts of the plague. Intentionally he tries not to do moral judgements about other characters and he tries not to qualify them as "heroes" or "cowards". However, the novel is inhabited by many heroes and many cowards and at the end is clear that the novel is, more than anything else, a moral novel.

The plague is pityless. It is like another character itself and behaves as a terrible statistic, constantly getting more and more victims which number is reported daly by the newspapaers.

Dr. Rieux and other few charcters fight consistently against death and suffering. There are no rewards, there are no punishments. There is only life, death, and different attitudes towards all of it.

Paradoxically, the "objective" style of the novel produces on the reader (at least on me) a great feeling of proximity. At the end you will be fond of Dr. Rieux, Rambert or even Cottard. The Plague deserves several readings and definetively five stars.

By the way, an interesting thing would be to compare this novel with "Blindness" by Saramago.

Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: A tremendous work that reads like a "relaxed" thriller. This is a must read for style, content, imagry, etc. Lots of meaning on several levels. I leave it to other reviewers to dissect it in their egotism, but I do want to mention that Camus was in Oran at the time of the plague.

Rating:
Summary: Plague=Stranger
Review: Picture yourself in a town where people were dying wherever you turned. You observed that there were dead rats on the ground and began to remember what the real reason was behind the rats. You finally discover that the bubonic plague resulted in the death of these people and now the living people in your town will have to be locked up so that the disease doesn't spread. This brings us to the theme of The Plague by Albert Camus, which is suffering and how human solidarity in the book helped to try to fight off the plague.

The main form of suffering in the novel is seen in the victims of the bubonic plague. The infected initially suffer from lumps and buboes, high fever with an early morning respite followed by delirium and a raging thirst. As the disease progresses, the pain worsens to the point of intolerance. Death is almost a relief.

In addition to the physical suffering described in the novel, the plague also causes psychological suffering. Because of its highly contagious nature, Oran must be cut off from the world. The isolation of the town creates all levels of suffering. People suddenly find that they are separated from their loved ones and suffer a great sense of loneliness and loss. Supplies of food and other necessities run low, causing the citizens, especially the poor ones, to suffer hunger and shortage. More importantly, they constantly fear that there will not be enough to sustain life in Oran. They also live under the constant fear of contracting the plague, as they grieve over the loss of family and friends who have succumbed to the disease.

Another major theme in the novel is human solidarity in times of trouble. Largely due to the efforts of Tarrou, a gifted organizer, many of the citizens of Oran band together to volunteer in the struggle against the plague. They work harmoniously and diligently to support the medical team as they battle the disease. Grand abandons his literary efforts in order to join the volunteers; he comes to give his help each afternoon after work. Othon joins the fight after the plague attacks his son. Rambert joins the effort after his attempts to escape are thwarted. Even Father Paneloux, who believes that a priest can have no friends and that the plague has been sent by God as a punishment, contributes his share to the fight against the Plague by joining Tarrou's team. Each link in this chain of human solidarity finds strength to fight the plague by joining with others.

Suffering and human solidarity were the major themes of this novel. Suffering was displayed throughout the whole novel but human solidarity developed when everyone got together to try to stop the disease. That solidarity was not only important in the past but is also necessary in modern times. The more human solidarity the more we can achieve. I recommend the book The Plague by Albert Camus because it not only includes historical facts but also develops a story for that time period. It gives you a first-person view of what it was like to live through the Bubonic Plague with all the hardships and low medical advancements at the time. I think that The Stranger and The Plague provide the same level of entertainment.

Rating:
Summary: Existentialism and despair from a good writer
Review: I read this book when I was researching the philosophy of existentialism. As far as the 20th century goes, Jean-Paul Sartre was probably more influential than Albert Camus in the movement. Camus wrote only in literary genres whereas Sartre wrote formal philosophical works in addition to novels and plays.

Anyway, the novel moves very slowly (about 10 months of people suffering from plague) in a town called Oran in Algeria in the 1940's. Camus' contribution to existentialism was the concept of the Absurd (the condition or state in which human beings exist in a meaningless, irrational universe wherein people's lives have no purpose or meaning) and this concept is present in this novel. Aside from the slow pace, I find the whole philosophy illogical and somewhat ridiculous. The despair of existentialism brings to a head the problems when one abandons God.

One of the most interesting parts in the novel is where Dr. Rieux (the narrator) and Tarrou discuss the Plague (which may be interpreted as a metaphor for the struggles of life). Tarrou says of the Doctor's medical struggle against the Plague, "But your victories will never be lasting; that's all." Then Tarrou asks, "Only, I now can picture what this plague must mean for you." The Doctor replies, "Yes. A never ending defeat." (page 128). In another instance, Tarrou and Rieux are discussing God. Rieux says, "Do you believe in God, Doctor?" "No... I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out." (page 126). On page 127, Rieux says that he is "... fighting against creation as he found it." This quote evokes the thought of an existentialist who shakes his fist against the Heavens and then seeks to live out his life in a struggle that is ultimately meaningless. One of the most poignant quotes describes the state of the townspeople, "Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men's justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars." (page 73).

This novel communicates how existentialists see life: despair, suffering, pain and evil. The "happy" ending could be seen as a mere lull in the storm and I think the novel would have had a more forceful impact if this ending were omitted. The one idea that I could draw from the ending was the idea that we must enjoy the ->moment<- for all its worth because we are only here a for a moment; life is ultimately ephemeral and meaningless. This could be called the existentialist "hope"; though existence has no meaning we can somehow bravely infuse meaning into it through our choices. Why after all this did I give a 4-star rating? I think this novel is a good example of literary existentialism and I think I now understand the philosophy better. However, the philosophy is desperately wrong so, I took off one star. For a Christian evaluation of the philosophy, see Ravi Zacharias' lectures and his book, "Can Man Live Without God?"

I wonder how this novel compares with Camus' two other well-known works, "The Fall," and the Stranger (L'Étranger). I will probably read them later this year.

Rating:
Summary: the best existential novel
Review: As a proper young existentialist, I read this in high school and loved it as a statement on the meaninglessness of life. But when I returned to it nearly 30 years later, this time in the original language, I felt a far deeper sense of awe at the characters and their interactions, all of which lead to their growth, even if in sorrow. WHile their dilemma is something I will probably never experience, I identified strongly with the characters and their philosophical dilemmas, this time as a middle-aged man whose life course is set and who has his own family and love. The French is spare, but utterly clear, giving the book a mournful texture in its North African context.

The book is so rich that I do not believe one can pin down or define the principal themes: we all interpret it from the perspective of ourselves and where we stand at the time that we read it and they are ever changing. I believe that that is what defines a true classic: it is universal yet endlessly reflects back to the reader's subjectivity.