Albert Camus

The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine, each responding in their own way to the lethal bacillus: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame and a few, like Dr Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, Camus's novel is a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

The Plague

The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

Rieux could follow the vicissitudes of the struggle only in his friend's eyes, now open and now shut; in the eyelids, now more closely welded to the eyebal, now distended; and in his gaze fixed on some object in the room or brought back to the doctor and his mother. And each time met the doctor's gaze, with a great effort Tarrou smiled.

In short, they were gambling on their luck, and luck is not to be coerced.

So much energy was expended on illing up forms, hunting round for supplies, and lining up that people had no time to think of the manner in which others were dying around them and they themselves would die one day. Thus the growing complications of our everyday life, which might have been an affliction, proved to be a blessing in disguise. Indeed, had not the epidemic, as already mentioned, spread its ravages, all would have been for the best. 

The narrator cannot help talking about these burials, and a word of excuse is here in place. For he is well aware of the reproach that might be made him in this respect; his justification is that funerals were taking place throughout this period and, in a way, he was compelled, as indeed everybody was compelled, to give heed to them. In any case it should not be assumed that he has a morbid taste for such ceremonies; quite the contrary, he much prefers the society of the living and—to give a concrete illustration—sea-bathing. But the bathing-beaches were out of bounds and the company of the living ran a risk, asing as the days went by, of being perforce converted into the company of the dead. That was, indeed, self-evident. True, one could always refuse to face this disagreeable fact, shut one's eyes to it, or thrust it out of mind, but there is a terrible cogency in the self-evident; ultimately it breaks down all defenses. How, for instance, continue to ignore the funerals on the day when somebody you loved needed one?

Next day Tarrou set to work and enrolled a first team of workers, soon to be followed by many others. However, it is not the narrator's intention to ascribe to these sanitary groups more importance than their due. Doubtless today many of our fellow citizens are apt to yield to the temptation of exaggerating the services they rendered. But the narrator is inclined to think that by attributing overimportance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worse side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. 

And when one day Rambert told him that he liked waking up at four in the morning and thinking of his beloved Paris, the doctor guessed easily enough, basing this on his own experience, that that was his favorite time for conjuring up pictures of the woman from whom he now was parted. This was, indeed, the hour when he could feel surest she was wholly his. Till four in the morning one is seldom doing anything and at that hour, even if the night has been a night of betrayal, one is asleep. Yes, everyone sleeps at that hour, and this is reassuring, since the great longing of an unquiet heart is to possess constantly and consciously the loved one, or, failing that, to be able to plunge the loved one, when a time of absence intervenes, into a dreamless sleep timed to last unbroken until the day they meet again.

“I’d like you to understand, Doctor. I grant you it’s easy enough to choose between a ‘buy’ and an ‘and.’ It’s a bit more difficult to decide between ‘and’ and ‘then.’ But definitely the hardest thing may be to know whether one should put an ‘and’ or leave it out.”

It can truly be said of these exiles that in the early period of the plague they couldn’t account themselves privileged. For at the precise moment when the residents of the town began to panic, their thoughts were wholly fixed on the person whom they longed to meet again. 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. 

In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven't taken their precautions. Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for jour-neys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.

Chaos prevails when the bubonic plague strikes the Algerian coastal city of Oran.

🏹

I’ve been thinking it over for years. While we loved each other we didn’t need words to make ourselves understood. But people don’t love forever. A time came when I should have found the words to keep her with me—only I couldn’t.

I was very fond of you, but now I’m so tired. I’m not happy to go, but one needn’t be happy to make another start.

In a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.

Jena

…he seemed an addict of all normal pleasure’s without being their slave. 

Die Pest

Cristina

Und am Ende merkt man schließlich, dass niemand fähig ist, wirklich an jemanden zu denken, nicht einmal im schlimmsten Unglück. Denn wirklich an jemanden denken heißt, Minute für Minute an ihn denken, ohne sich durch etwas ablenken zu lassen, weder von der Haushaltsarbeit noch von der vorbeischwirrenden Fliege, noch vom Essen, noch von einem Juckreiz. Aber es gibt immer Fliegen und Juckreize. Deshalb ist das Leben schwer zu leben. 

Und von allen Enden der Welt, über Tausende von Kilometern, versuchten unbekannte brüderliche Stimmen unbeholfen ihre Solidarität auszudrücken und drückten sie tatsächlich aus, bewiesen aber gleichzeitig die schreckliche Unfähigkeit jedes Menschen, einen Schmerz, den er nicht sehen kann, wirklich zu teilen. 

Es muss einfach gesagt werden, die Pest hatte allen die Fähigkeit zur Liebe und sogar zur Freundschaft genommen. Denn die Liebe verlangt ein wenig Zukunft, und für uns gab es nur mehr Augenblicke.

«Ich denke schon lange daran. Solange wir uns liebten, haben wir uns ohne Worte verstanden. Aber man liebt sich nicht immer. Irgendwann hätte ich die Worte finden müssen, die sie zurückgehalten hätten, aber ich habe es nicht gekonnt.»

So wurde zum Beispiel ein so individuelles Gefühl, wie das des Getrenntseins von einem geliebten Menschen, schon in den ersten Wochen plötzlich von einem ganzen Volk empfunden und war zusammen mit der Angst das schlimmste Leid dieser langen Zeit des Exils.

The first new translation of The Plague to be published in the United States in more than seventy years, bringing the Nobel Prize winner's iconic novel ("A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair." —The Washington Post) to a new generation of readers. The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation, and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, as well as a timeless story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence. In this fresh yet careful translation, award-winning translator Laura Marris breathes new life into Albert Camus's ever-resonant tale. Restoring the restrained lyricism of the original French text, and liberating it from the archaisms and assumptions of the previous English translation, Marris grants English readers the closest access we have ever had to the meaning and searing beauty of The Plague. This updated edition promises to add relevance and urgency to a classic novel of twentieth-century literature.

Roger Amundsen

When war breaks out people say: ‘It won’t last, it’s too stupid.’ And war is certainly too stupid, but that doesn’t prevent it from lasting. Stupidity always carries doggedly on, as people would notice if they were not always thinking about themselves.

« La Peste » est un roman d'Albert Camus publié en 1947 qui permit en partie à son auteur de remporter le prix Nobel en 1957. Il appartient au cycle de la révolte qui rassemble trois œuvres de Camus: La Peste, L'Homme révolté et Les Justes L'histoire se déroule dans les années 1940. Elle a pour théâtre Oran durant la période de l'Algérie française. Le roman raconte sous forme de chronique la vie quotidienne des habitants pendant une épidémie de peste qui frappe la ville et la coupe du monde extérieur. Camus semble s'être documenté sur une petite épidémie de peste bubonique, survenue à Oran en 1945, succédant à une épidémie plus sérieuse qui avait eu lieu à Alger en 1944, mais son projet est antérieur à l'apparition de ces épidémies, puisqu'il y travaille depuis 1942 (comme en témoignent ses « Carnets »).

La Peste

giuli

Peut-être était-il plus dur de penser à un homme coupable qu'à un homme mort.

Et Rieux, au moment de tourner dans la rue de Grand et de Cottard, pensait qu’il était juste que, de temps en temps au moins, la joie vînt récompenser ceux qui se suffisent de l'homme et de son pauvre et terrible amour.

"Joy is not made to be a crumb." (Mary Oliver)

Rambert comprenait que tout lui serait rendu d'un coup et que la joie est une brûlure qui ne se savoure pas. 

Une chaleur de vie et une image de mort, cétait cela la connaissance.

Il avait seulement gagné d'avoir connu la peste et de s'en souvenir, d'avoir connu lamitié et de s'en souvenir, de connaître la tendresse et de devoir un jour s'en souvenir. 

Lived with it for a small period and i personally felt deformed after reading it. 

Joey Coffin

Agent of metamorphosis.

Lived with it for a small period and i personally felt deformed after reading it. 

Just finished another book this month!  The cover was very colorful, but the story within was quite depressing.  It was a truly interesting read. The writing, storyline, character development, and overall presentation were reminiscent of Albert Camus's work.  I thoroughly enjoyed it. The unexpected way the story intertwined with biblical themes was particularly hit me so bad. 🥹😭👍

div. ☆

La Peste | The Plague

Santiago Alejandro Crime

Read during Covid lockdown. Remember feeling really disappointed despite my high hopes, it felt flat. Will probably need to give it another go. 

hessensitive

This book offers a reflection on human nature, capturing the essence of life in the face of crisis. The portrayal of a society grappling with the plague serves as a powerful backdrop for philosophical exploration, inviting me to examine the complexities of emotion, resilience, and the human spirit. The parallels with the COVID-19 pandemic are striking, allowing me to revisit the shared experience of global suffering and the transformations it brings to our collective consciousness; how shared hardship fosters empathy and understanding among individuals, even in the most desperate of circumstances. The characters’ varied responses to the plague not only offer a spectrum of human perspectives but also challenge us to reflect on our own ways of coping with adversity. Their struggles and problem-solving strategies become a testament to the adaptability and strength inherent in human nature. This book doesn’t just explore the devastation of a pandemic but celebrates the resilience and compassion that can emerge even in the darkest of times, both a cautionary tale and a hopeful message for the future. 

The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease- some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

Cait🪼

I have no idea why it took me so long to actually read this, but I can guarantee I will re-read it within a year. Camus’ writing is so purposeful that he succeeds in creating both fleshy characters and locations/environments that feel tangible enough to touch - while forming a story of genuine significance. Such a wonderful (and unexpected) book.

hileahrious

A wonderful inspection of humankind. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much if I had read it before the covid pandemic, because now I am truly able to relate with the characters through similar experience. As for Camus, he simply has a way with words. I love the way he describes and involves the reader and conveys emotion so easily. In many instances I could compare his writing to a painting or poetry.

jess

Took quite a long period for this one. Now – with the advent of the current pandemic – the book works on the literal as well as metaphorical level. I think Camus intended such a literal – as well as allegorical - reading. Camus insisted that the next plague “would rouse up its rats again” for “the bane and enlightenment of men”, which is what happening to us now. Camus offers us a way of abandoning our pointless quest for “oneness” with ourselves, but carrying on nevertheless, fighting: For some ill-defined moral justice, even though we have ceased to be able to define it. At the conclusion to La Peste, Rieux – whose wife has died of illness elsewhere, unconnected with the pestilence – watches families and lovers reunite when the gates of Oran are finally opened. He wonders – in the wake of so much suffering and pointless struggle – whether there can be peace of mind or fulfillment without hope, and concludes that yes, perhaps there can, for those “who knew now that if there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love”. This bear me lots of ideas and perspectives I have sometimes missed, where upon us, generation after generation, are more and more likely to be blessed by the advancement of the population. How, as in the matter of fact, that we have been acquiring tremendous things but unable to appreciate each of it? How, that while we are being blessed with the advanced technology to communicate freely, to be able to seek out through the media of the internet, we still be able to relentlessly grumble for a month being quarantined? Why don't we step back and ponder for a while, how others sacrifices have shaped; paved us a way to the solution of this problem; Minority of us utilized this moment to come to appreciate this opportunity. "But for those others”, he says, “who aspired beyond and above the human individual towards something they could not even imagine, there had been no answer”. No answer. No description, even, of what that “something” else might be. And yet it nags, it makes demands of us, especially for those who hit the lowest and highest point during this pandemic, who; concurrently, some who steep into depression for the current pandemic, some who rise to spread positivity and encouragement with others, which evidently, the latter is prevailing, though the definition have been abandoned , for it is also meaningfully embraced. I can't come out any words left for this book, but the similarity of the book eeries me, and the implied messages are left for us, book devourers, to apply and take it to the heart.

Hannah Yang

"Query: How contrive not to waste one's time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. [...] By spending one's days on an uneasy chair in a dentist's waiting-room; by remaining on one's balcony all of a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language one doesn't know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth."

I started The Plague May 2019 and left it behind when I moved. Finishing it at the end of 2020, as an even more contagious strain of COVID-19 has begun to spread, filled its last sections with vivid relevance and unfortunate familiarity. Replace 'plague' with 'coronavirus' and the essential story — how humans think, feel, and behave in an epidemic; the various inequalities that surface; the role or lack thereof of religion in providing hope and peace; the cold equalizer of death — would still ring true today.

Brilliantly paced, with the slow, then grueling spread of sickness spilling into almost-unbelievable recovery to normalcy. Many big, existential questions brought into consideration; many gems of general life wisdom. Perhaps unnerving or morbidly ironic to read right now, though maybe there is some comfort in coming to terms with the tragedy we are currently facing within the safe haven of literature.

"Dr. Rieux resolved to compile this chronicle [to] bear witness in favor of those plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure; and to state quite simply what we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise."

Die Absurdität des Todes ist, dass er dich belebt je präsenter er ist. 

Martin Meyer

-0,5 für die (für mich) manchmal zu graphischen Schilderungen der Pest 

ansonsten wunderschön geschrieben, z.T wirklich spannend, interessante Charaktere 

-0,5 für die (für mich) manchmal zu graphischen Schilderungen der Pest 

ansonsten wunderschön geschrieben, z.T wirklich spannend, interessante Charaktere 

sehr empfehlenswert 

Daniel K

a beautiful slog of a story that pedestals human resilience in the face of horror & sickness. oof. but wow.

Andrew Louis

im just speechless i dont have many words but amazing, breathtaking, wonderful, incredible, heartwrenching, emotional, mindblowing, etcetc. truly an incredible book.

Vojtech

Not as interesting as The Stranger but still good.

Fraser Simons

This has a narrative structure I wish The Emperor of all Maladies would have had. I found this captivating and engaging. Fantastic theme work, good dialogue. Not to mention prescient in these pandemic times.

Blazgorb Throxis

I cried three times while reading this. Heart breaking, visceral, challenging and evokative. All the characters practically jump off the pages and you quickly become immersed in the world of this novel. The ending is like a punch in the gut but in the best possible way. If I could rate it higher I would. 

Danial Imran 

As usual, I find Camus' style of writing as boring and akin to a ramble. And as usual, I enjoyed reading this book. Written perhaps at the time where Camus' was clipped into the Resistance Movement, Camus details his ideas of solidarity into this book - ideas expounded further in his speech 'The Human Crisis' delivered at Columbia University during the Post-War years. He bleeds a bit of his personal views of capital punishment into the novel, as well as some ideas akin to Arrendt's Banality of Evil, which muddles up the novel's themes (or perhaps makes the novel more complex?) but I do recommend this read. 

Amanda Rocha

“I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.” ― Albert Camus, The Plague 

this pandemic has me thinking of The Plague by Camus. it is eerily relevant and spooky accurate. on the surface, it is a story about surviving an infectious and deadly epidemic. but if we dig deeper, it stands as an allegory for coming together, fighting the problem as one collective group.

this is such big news right now that I am sure no one needs this reminder, but I hope everyone stays safe and healthy during this time of panic! keep washing hands, practice social distancing, and stay human! we are all going through this together―and we will get through it together and come out stronger.

“For its ordinariness is what strikes one first about the town of [insert your town here]...”

“But once the town gates were shut, every one of us realized that all were, so to speak, in the same boat, and each would have to adapt to the new conditions of life.”

“One of the most striking consequences of the closing of the gates was, in fact, this sudden deprivation befalling people who were completely unprepared for it.”

“Thus each of us had to be content to live only for the day, alone under the vast indifference of the sky.”

@voxdotcom wrote a great commentary on this here ➡️ https://bit.ly/2UgLzK3 & you can find the audiobook FREE on youtube here ➡️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKnCn...

Nick Chmura

terrific, resonating the key takeaway of myth of sissy “Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”

Sunyi Dean

The last time I read a Camus book was 17 years ago, and it was a life-changing experience. Ever since then, I have studiously avoided Camus' writing in case his other novels were similarly affecting. 

But with the onset of Covid-19 and so many people in my literary circles reading or re-reading the Plague, plus with it being Camus' best known and most commercially successful work, I thought this would be a good time to give it a go. 

Fortunately, The Plague wasn't life-changing for me. Merely very good! 

The Plague is straightforward but philosophical; stark yet nuanced; distant, but still emotive. And it is utterly prescient for our times, despite being published in 1947. His explanations of human behaviour can absolutely be applies to how people have behaved regarding Covid-19; I wonder if he would be amused or saddened to know that. 

Camus writes always with such stark simplicity. I don't mean simplicity to say that his concepts are low-brow, but more that his statements are concise and accessible, and with hindsight amazingly obvious; you wonder why you never noticed before the things that he is pointing out. 

But the secret to that, of course, is that Camus' understanding of life and other people was extraordinarily good. He had a depth of insight that cut straight to the heart of things, and enabled him to hone in on the "heart" of the matter. 

Towards the end, Camus linked the concept of the bubonic plague with a wider human issue, a metaphorical and intellectual plague that society suffers from (which he describes as a kind of lack of empathy, cruelty in-built into the system.) 

Note: I'd like to give special mention to Grand, the aspiring author who the doctor befriends. Grand is obsessed with getting his first line perfectly right, so utterly perfect that a publisher will read it and buy the book on the spot. Consequently, he never progresses past the first sentence. I think we have all been there, Grand! 

I do not want to write spoilers for this review but I would like to leave some slightly spoilerific quotes at the end, in case you don't feel like sifting through all of my Goodreads highlights. Some of them are simply magnificent.


SELECTED QUOTES (minor spoilers)

###

"Pestilence is in fact very common, but we find it hard to believe in a pestilence when it descends upon us. There have been as many plagues in the world as there have been wars, yet plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared."

###

"When war breaks out people say: ‘It won’t last, it’s too stupid.’ And war is certainly too stupid, but that doesn’t prevent it from lasting. Stupidity always carries doggedly on, as people would notice if they were not always thinking about themselves."

###

"[T]hey did not believe in pestilence. A pestilence does not have human dimensions, so people tell themselves that it is unreal, that it is a bad dream which will end. But it does not always end and, from one bad dream to the next, it is people who end"

###

"The people of our town were no more guilty than anyone else, they merely forgot to be modest and thought that everything was still possible for them, which implied that pestilence was impossible. They continued with business, with making arrangements for travel and holding opinions. Why should they have thought about the plague, which negates the future, negates journeys and debate? They considered themselves free."

###

"Figures drifted through his head and he thought that the thirty or so great plagues recorded in history had caused nearly a hundred million deaths. But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has fought a war, one hardly knows any more what a dead person is. And if a dead man has no significance unless one has seen him dead, a hundred million bodies spread through history are just a mist drifting through the imagination."

###

"‘Have pity, doctor!’ said Mme Loret, mother of the chambermaid who worked at Tarrou’s hotel. What did that mean? Of course he had pity. But where did that get anyone?"

###

"Every evening mothers would shout like that, in a distraught manner, at the sight of bellies displaying all their signs of death; every evening hands would grasp Rieux’s arms, while useless words, promises and tears poured forth; and every evening the ambulance siren would set off scenes of distress as pointless as any kind of pain. At the end of a long succession of such evenings, each like the next, Rieux could no longer hope for anything except a continuing series of similar scenes, forever repeated. Yes, the plague, like abstraction, was monotonous. Only one thing may have changed, and that was Rieux himself. He felt it that evening, beneath the monument to the Republic, aware only of the hard indifference that was starting to fill him, still looking at the hotel door where Rambert had vanished.

At the end of these harrowing weeks, after all these evenings when the town poured into the streets to wander round them, Rieux realized that he no longer needed to protect himself against pity. When pity is useless one grows tired of it. And the doctor found his only consolation for these exhausting days in this feeling of a heart slowly closing around itself. He knew that it would make his task easier."

###

"For them the plague was only an unpleasant visitor which would leave one day as it had entered. They were scared but not desperate and the time had yet to come when the plague would seem to them like the very shape of their lives and when they would forget the existence that they had led in the days before."

###

"‘And this is something that a man like yourself might understand; since the order of the world is governed by death, perhaps it is better for God that we should not believe in Him and struggle with all our strength against death, without raising our eyes to heaven and to His silence.’"

###

I can imagine what this plague must mean to you.’ 

‘Yes,’ said Rieux. ‘An endless defeat.’

###

"Without memory and without hope, they settled into the present. In truth, everything became present for them. The truth must be told: the plague had taken away from all of them the power of love or even of friendship, for love demands some future, and for us there was only the here and now."

###

"Thank goodness, at least, that he was tired. If Rieux had been more alert, this smell of death everywhere might have made him sentimental. But there is no room for sentimentality when you have only slept for four hours. You see things as they are, that is to say in the light of justice – ghastly and ridiculous justice."

###

"‘Nothing in the world should turn you away from what you love. And yet I, too, am turning away, without understanding why.’"

###

"Already at that time he had been thinking about the silence that rose from the beds where he had left men to die. It was always the same pause, the same solemn interval, the same lull that followed a battle, it was the silence of defeat. "

Brianna Best

Daniela V.

J'ai fait une petite "critique littéraire" (plus une appréciation qu'une critique) pour le magazine de l'Alliance Française Bariloche (L'AFicionado) sur ce roman que j'ai lu pendant le confinement. Voici le texte!

Le confinement aux yeux d'Albert Camus


  À l’intérieur même de la ville, on eut l’idée d’isoler certains quartiers particulièrement éprouvés et de n’autoriser à en sortir que les hommes dont les services étaient indispensables. Ceux qui y vivaient jusque-là ne purent s’empêcher de considérer cette mesure comme une brimade spécialement dirigée contre eux, et dans tous les cas, ils pensaient par contraste aux habitants des autres quartiers comme à des hommes libres. Ces derniers, en revanche, dans leurs moments difficiles, trouvaient une consolation à imaginer que d’autres étaient encore moins libres qu’eux. «Il y a toujours plus prisonnier que moi» était la phrase qui résumait alors le seul espoir possible.



Non, c’est n’est pas un extrait d'un nouveau roman sur la pandémie COVID-19, c’est l'un de La Peste d’Albert Camus, publié en 1947. Si vous voulez une lecture pour ne pas vous sentir seul dans cette situation de confinement, c'est un choix idéal.

La Peste raconte la vie quotidienne des citoyens d’Oran (parti de l’Algérie française) pendant une épidémie du peste vers 1940. Elle commence avec l’apparition des rats qui se tordent et agonisent dans la rue et évolue, en affectant des humains. Au début, les autorités nient l’extension du problème et hésitent, néanmoins ils ferment la ville, en laissant plein de familles et d’amants séparés et isolés. La vie humaine est réduite juste à la lutte pour leur survie, comme celle des animaux.

Albert Camus, écrivain, journaliste et philosophe français né en Algérie française, est connu comme le plus grand référent de l’absurde en la littérature. L’absurde est le contraste entre la recherche du sens intrinsèque de la vie et son apparente inexistence. Quel meilleur moment pour illustrer l’absurde qu'une épidémie? Mais, au contraire de L’Étranger, La Peste montre comment on peut répondre à l’absurde et le dépasser: à travers la révolte. Après quelques mois dont Oran a perdu beaucoup de citoyens, un groupe de personnages très particuliers décident se joindre pour faire face à la maladie, malgré leur fatigue et désespoir. 

Même si ce roman raconte à la perfection le confinement et l'isolement, son épigraphe invite, depuis son début, à une autre interprétation: «Il est aussi raisonnable de représenter une espèce d’emprisonnement par une autre que de représenter n’importe quelle chose qui existe réellement par quelque chose qui n’existe pas». C'est ainsi que l'auteur a laissé entrevoir que l'épidémie d’Oran peut être lu comme un analogie de l’expansion de “la peste brune” ou nazisme en Europe, et particulièrement à l'Occupation allemande en France. En fait, la lutte de personnages pour éradiquer la maladie symbolise les actes de la Résistance.

Il s’agit d’un classique et très riche roman qui a augmenté considérablement ses ventes pendant la pandémie courante. Profitez du confinement en lisant La Peste! 



  – Admettons, lui dit Cottard, admettons, mais qu’appelez-vous le retour à une vie normale ?
– De nouveaux films au cinéma, dit Tarrou en souriant.

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