I guess Camus is supposed to be the prototypical existentialist novelist. I also guess I don't like existentialist novels. I liked this book even less than I did The Stranger. There was no plot to speak of. There was also relatively little character development or characterisation at all. The characters that there are seem relatively like stock beings, and we do see them react to and change in response to the plague, but we only see this on a superficial level, I think, never really getting inside any of the characters' internal lives. Perhaps this is because, for existentialists, there's "nothing" there. ( )

A book I had to read for French class in college. I loved the way it was woven. An old classic. ( )

When rats begin dying in legions in the small coastal town of Oran, it citizens are disgusted but otherwise uninterested. When cases of bubonic plague begin to crop up in the population, the officials hesitate to overestimate the severity of their predicament. When the plague at last becomes too pervasive to ignore and the entire city is quarantined, the citizens of Oran go about their business and try their best to live normal lives in the face of horrible epidemic.

Camus' The Pague follows a small collection of men in the city, each of whom reacts to the Plague in different ways. We have the reporter Rambert, who spends his time trying to escape back to his wife in Paris, the criminal Cottard who takes solace in the fact that everyone else is now suffering as much as he has suffered, and the doctor Rieux, who accepts the facts of the plague and does what he feels is the only thing there is to do, fight it wherever it reveals itself, among others.

While the plague is real and terrible in the book, Camus is not simply writing about a single epidemic. The lifeshaking event of the plague is not the terror itself in his novel, but rather a giant focusing crystal through which people are forced to look at the essence of our everyday lives. It shocks the characters and the readers into contemplation of what has value in their lives and how we should live when living is so full of struggle and uncertainty.

This isn't a book all about a plague and what it does to a city, it's a book about a city and what it does when faced with the plague. It is not a gut wrenching horror novel, but a book for serious contemplation. It is literature written to provoke thought in the reader, and if the reader is not interested in taking the ideas of The Plague and applying them to their own everyday life, the value of The Plague will be be lost on them.

The greatest part of this novel is in its dialogue. The characters in The Plague are all symbolic of particular mindsets, and their discussions are not just discussions between people but interactions of various ways of thinking. As a quick example here is a chat between Tarrou and Rieux, the two men who probably have the greatest understanding of each other in the book.

===

"What do you think of Paneloux's sermon, Doctor?"

The questions was asked in quite an ordinary tone, and Rieux answered in the same tone.

"I've seen too much of hospitals to relish any idea of collective punishment. But, as you know, Christians sometimes say that sort of thing without really thinking it. They're better than they seem."

"However, you think, like Paneloux, that the plague has a good side; it opens men's eyes and forces them to take thought?"

The doctor tossed his head impatiently.

"So does every ill that flesh is heir to. What's true of all the evils in the world is true of the plague as well. It helps men rise above themselves. All the same, when you see the misery it brings, you'd need to be a madman, or a coward, or stone blind, to give in tamely to the plague."

===

You can flip to any page in this book and find similar dialog, all contemplative and struggling with the reality of the plague and life. I've yet to read a work of existential thought so well crafted or that illuminated my own philosophy so well.

The Plague will not be for everyone. It is critical of certain aspects of religion, can be considered extremely depressing or nihilistic, and anyone looking for a 'page turner' will not find any narrative suspense to keep them interested here. This is a sober thinker's book, and one that I have mentally shelved (face forward) as reference as I continue my philosophical education. ( )

http://sarahbbc.wordpress.com/2009/03... ( )

I know it's a classic which is why I hated to not finish this book. But, in the end, it's just too dry/boring/naive to spend any more time on.

I know it's set in the 1940's, so maybe that's why they are so dumb? Let me see, a bunch of rats come out of the sewer and die, then people start dying and we just stand around and wonder if it's a plague... HELLO!

The style is dry (i.e. boring and un-engaging). You never get to care about any of the characters, so what does it matter if they all die in a plague? Again, I don't know if this is due to the era in which it was written, or the language it was originally written in, or maybe the author is just boring.

Anyway... if it wasn't a classic, I don't think I'd give it more than one star. ( )