Reviews for The Plague

The average rating for The Plague based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-05-12 00:00:00 Paul Cooper Read The Plague free here. Coronovirus is the name of the 21stC plague. If you don't know what existentialism is, reading this and relating to the world we have today and how it's looking for the next week, month and perhaps even longer, will show you. Coronavirus has no favourites, everyone's in line to catch it, it's just a wrong-place-at-the-right-time disease. Some will die, and there won't be any huge funerals and memorial services either. Eventually there may be mass funerals, unattended as in the book. Let's hope it doesn't get to that. ________________________________ This was as much an existentialist tract as it was a book about the descent of a town into plague; the gradient of the decline increasing exponentially until they reach the pit. There it is death and smoke and groans and every bit the imagined hell of those with a religious consciousness. But the plague has no relationship to religion. The innocent die as much as the guilty. Shady people are sly by night, criminals escape justice, the great and the good sleep peacefully in their beds but the plague is the great equalizer: they all die. This is an atheist world where nothing has rhyme or reason and blaming it on fate or an angry god or questioning why the deities have ignored the supplicants increasing praises, appeals and desperate petitions is futile. Even they see it is pointless and in the end the comforting rituals of death and consignment of the remains have mostly been abandoned. The plague strikes almost all and those whom it leaves, aren't special in any way. Pacing is not something I tend to notice in a novel, but I did in this one, it is outstanding. The pacing matches the descent into hell and the recovery into sunlight in a brisk sea air absolutely perfectly. At the end, after all the pain and darkness I felt relieved and refreshed, an unusual feeling for the end of a book. 10 stars, golden ones. revised Sept 2019

Review # 2 was written on 2011-07-18 00:00:00 Mark Wallring Albert Camus' The Plague is a laugh RIOT! Just kidding, it is about the bubonic plague, really not very funny at all. However, it is a modern masterpiece of allegory, symbolism and imagery. The surface story is about plague in the early 1940s visiting the Algerian coastal city of Oran. While Camus tells a complete tale of disease, fear, despair, compassion and selfless heroism; the story of lasting significance is told between the lines with insightful observations and thought provoking dissertations on philosophy and theology. Camus uses the epidemic to explore relationships, community and existence. Critics have seen The Plague as an allegory on Germany's occupation of France, but I think it can also be read to represent man's propensity towards chaos and evil, while ultimately remaining good. Scholars will point out that Camus is primarily identified as an atheist, but his later writings revealed at least a sympathetic position towards religion. While some of the poetry of his French is lost in translation, his technique comes across as sparse but eclectic and his characterization and imagery evokes comparisons of such far ranging stylists as Hemingway and DH Lawrence. And Camus' individuality shines through his excellent prose. Here is not an anodyne essayist but rather a vibrant athlete and vocal member of the French resistance; Camus is a masterful but reluctant artist. Camus the fighter is revealed in page after page. That may be the central message conveyed: that life is worth living and worth fighting for, no matter the likelihood of victory or the seemingly overwhelming natural forces assailing us, or even the result of the fight. The enduring residents of Oran do not so much fight and prevail as they simply survive, but Camus emphasizes that the act itself of fighting, the performance of resisting the devastating force of nature makes them stronger, makes them worthy of survival regardless of whether or not they do survive.