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

« 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

jude

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. 

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." (Jane Austen) 

Mais il savait aussi que ce n'est pas grand-chose que d'aimer un être ou du moins qu'un amour n'est jamais assez fort pour trouver sa propre expression. Ainsi, sa mère et lui s’aimeraient toujours dans le silence.

[…], qu'il y avait toujours une heure de la journée et de la nuit où un homme était lâche et qu'il n'avait peur que de cette heure-là.

Mais la fatigue est une folie. Et il y a des heures dans cette ville où je ne sens plus que ma révolte. 

#wow im speechless . im just filled with so many feelings rn.

Car, étrangement, ce qui montait alors vers les terrasses encore ensoleillées, en l'absence des bruits de véhicules et de machines qui font d'ordinaire tout le langage des villes, ce n'était qu'une énorme rumeur de pas et de voix sourdes, le douloureux glissement de milliers de semelles rythmé par le sifflement du fléau dans le ciel alourdi, un piétinement interminable et étouffant enfin, qui remplissait peu à peu toute la ville et qui, soir après soir, donnait sa voix la plus fidèle et la plus morne à l'obstination aveugle qui, dans nos cœurs, remplaçait alors l'amour.

Notre amour sans doute était toujours là, mais, simplement, il était inutilisable, lourd à porter, inerte en nous, stérile comme le crime ou la condamnation. II n'était plus qu’une patience sans avenir et une attente butée.

Mais ils dormaient déjà en vérité, et tout ce temps ne fut qu'un long sommeil. La ville était peuplée de dormeurs éveillés qui n'échappaient réellement à leur sort que ces rares fois où, dans la nuit, leur blessure apparemment fermée se rouvrait brusquement. Et réveillés en sursaut, ils en tâtaient alors, avec une sorte de distraction, les lèvres irritées, retrouvant en un éclair leur souffrance, soudain rajeunie, et, avec elle, le visage bouleversé de leur amour. Au matin, ils revenaient au fléau, c'est-à-dire à la routine.

Alors que, jusque-là, ils avaient soustrait farouchement leur souffrance au malheur collectif, ils acceptaient maintenant la confusion. Sans mémoire et sans espoir, ils s'installaient dans le présent. A la vérité, tout leur devenait présent. II faut bien le dire, la peste avait enlevé à tous le pouvoir de l'amour et même de l'amitié. Car l'amour demande un peu d'avenir, et il n'y avait plus pour nous que des instants. 

[…] et que l'habitude du désespoir est pire que le désespoir lui-même. 

— […] Je ne crois pas à l'héroisme, je sais que cest facile et j’ai appris que c'était meurtrier. Ce qui m'intéresse, c'est qu’on vive et qu'on meure de ce qu'on aime. 

Rieux avait écouté le journaliste avec attention. Sans cesser de le regarder, il dit avec douceur : — L'homme n'est pas une idée, Rambert. 

L'autre sautait de son lit, le visage enflammé de passion. C'est une idée, et une idée courte, à partir du moment où il se détourne de l'amour. Et justement, nous ne sommes plus capables d'amour. 

Et des confins du monde, à travers des milliers de kilomètres, des voix inconnues et fraternelles s'essayaient maladroitement à dire leur solidarité et la disaient, en effet, mais démontraient en même temps la terrible impuissance où se trouve tout homme de partager vraiment une douleur qu'il ne peut pas voir : « Oran ! Oran ! » En vain, l'appel traversait les mers, en vain Rieux se tenait en alerte, bientôt l'éloquence montait et accusait mieux encore la séparation essentielle qui faisait deux étrangers de Grand et de l'orateur. « Oran ! oui, Oran ! Mais non, pensait le docteur, aimer ou mourir ensemble, il n'y a pas d'autre ressource. IIs sont trop loin. » 

Mais il vient toujours une heure dans l'histoire où celui qui ose dire que deux et deux font quatre est puni de mort. 

— Croyez-vous tout connaître de la vie? demanda celui-ci. 

La réponse vint dans le noir, portée par la même voix tranquille: 

— Qui vous a appris tout cela, docteur? 

— Oui, dit-il, vous vous dites qu'il y faut de l’orgueil. Mais je n'ai que l'orgueil qu'il faut, croyez-moi. 

« Est-ce un saint ? » se demandait Tarrou. Et il répondait: «Oui, si la sainteté est un ensemble d'habitudes. »

À quatre heures du matin, on ne fait rien en général et l'on dort, même si la nuit a été une nuit de trahison. Oui, on dort à cette heure-là, et cela est rassurant puisque le grand désir d'un cœur inquiet est de posséder interminablement l'être qu'il aime ou de pouvoir plonger cet être, quand le temps de l'absence est venu, dans un sommeil sans rêves qui ne puisse prendre fin qu’au jour de la réunion.

Le crépuscule envahissait la salle comme une eau grise, le rose du ciel couchant se reflétait dans les vitres, et les marbres des tables reluisaient faiblement dans l'obscurité commençante. Au milieu de la salle déserte, Rambert semblait une ombre perdue et Rieux pensa que c'était l'heure de son abandon.

Mais c'est difficile, disait-il. Il y a longtemps que j'y pense. Tant que nous nous sommes aimés, nous nous sommes compris sans paroles. Mais on ne s'aime pas toujours. 

— Cest stupide, docteur, vous comprenez. Je n'ai pas été mis au monde pour faire des reportages. Mais peut-être ai-je été mis au monde pour vivre avec une femme. 

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.

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.

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. "

Die Pest

Carlotta Herrmann

Well, I don't know if reading this in 2020 was a good or bad decision. Can recommend though.

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.

John Balek

It was interesting to read this book during this time. Personally, I didn't really get much out of the narrative. I felt it was like Brave New World where the concept was the main concept and the narrative was the component that was lacking, bringing down my overall enjoyment. It's amazing Camus could create such similar parallels to society during a pandemic, especially considering he didn't live during any. I enjoyed those comments on society but really didn't get much out of the book outside of that.

Luke M. Perez

A fantastic, gripping, story of plague, but really of the human condition

I began reading this during the stay-at-home orders for covid-19. It’s a fictional account of bubonic plague but captures the sociology, and psychology of such an experience. Although the catalyst is the medical crisis gripping the town, the real subject matter is the darkness in men’s hearts and the moral transformation necessary to overcome it. Although not strictly about the Nazis, Camus wrote this during World War II and reading it as an allegory serves as a useful springboard for thinking about the deeper truths Camus wants us to take away.

Victoria Simansjah

Reading this during the time of COVID-19 feels like reading a real-time news. Camus brings the perspective beautifully through the different characters of the book, and also talks about the high-level view of society during the time of plagues. The heartbreaks, the griefs, and the joy that consumes everyone once everything is uplifted. Relatable and reflective at the same time. Brilliant!

Brett Lister

Natalie Unsinn 

“Its relevance lashes you across the face.” —Stephen Metcalf, The Los Angeles Times • “A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair.” —Roger Lowenstein, The Washington Post A haunting tale of human resilience and hope in the face of unrelieved horror, Albert Camus' iconic novel about an epidemic ravaging the people of a North African coastal town is a classic of twentieth-century literature. 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 timeless story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

Basic Lit

Gabe Cortez

Josefina

Kyra Carson

Victoria Noelle Vaughn

Shreyaa

For use in schools and libraries only. Chaos prevails when the bubonic plague strikes the Algerian coastal city of Oran.

Liene Coenen

The Plague by Albert Camus is an extraordinary odyssey into the darkness and absurdity of human existence. 'On the morning of April 16, Dr Rieux emerged from his consulting-room and came across a dead rat in the middle of the landing.' It starts with the rats. Vomiting blood, they die in their hundreds, then in their thousands. When the rats are all gone, the citizens begin to fall sick. Like the rats, they too die in ever greater numbers. The authorities quarantine the town. Cut off, the terrified townspeople must face this horror alone. Some resign themselves to death or the whims of fate. Others seek someone to blame or dream of revenge. One is determined to escape. But a few, like stoic Dr Rieux, stand together to fight the terror. A monstrous evil has entered their lives but they will never surrender to it. They will resist the plague. 'A matchless fable of fear, courage and cowardice' Independent Albert Camus was born in Algeria in 1913. He studied philosophy in Algiers and then worked in Paris as a journalist. He was one of the intellectual leaders of the Resistance movement and, after the War, established his international reputation as a writer. His books include The Plague, The Just and The Fall, and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. Camus was killed in a road accident in 1960.

The Plague

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