Die Pest (Ungekürzt)

Oran aan de Algierse kust breekt een pestepidemie uit. De jonge dokter Rieux voert een hopeloze strijd uit tegen de ziekte. Een serum van Castel blijkt te gaan werken. De stad herleeft en herstelt. Na alles wat de dokter heeft meegemaakt gelooft hij toch dat de mens meer goed dan slecht is en dat het kwade ontstaat uit onwetendheid.

The original review I posted was flagged so maybe I should elaborate more. I originally wrote: "Who wants to be stuck in a steamy, pestilence ridden city without cable? - bummer! If ever there was a Ad for the need for at least some form of socialized medicine for communities larger than say 10, well this would it." Camus succinctly describes how a large community can be utterly crippled by something microscopic and therefore invisible. The opportunities to turn around a disaster (or get out early enough) were there but none wanted to heed the signs. I guess an modrn day novel would be Outbreak, or even the Andromeda Strain, though Camus deals more with the psychology of contagion than these other novels.

Although I found this novel slow and found it difficult to connect in any meaningful way to the characters, I still found myself wanting to pick it up and read at any opportunity. The narrator, whose identity is not revealed for a long time, is telling of a town in which an outbreak of the plague has occurred. The descriptions of the direct effects of the plague on people is described well, and many times, and even though the greater effects are discussed also, I couldn't get a feel for what it would actually be like to be living this nightmare. The town is sealed off to people both wanting to come or to go. So instantly there is a case of everyone being in the same boat. People are left separated from their loved-ones, if not spatially, then eventually through death. Good people die, bad people do. Rich and poor, powerful and lowly. Disease, the ultimate leveller. There is a lot of existentialist discourse. No surprises there. But it came over to me as all rather banal. I expected there to be more practical concerns in a time of terrible illness, food and goods shortages and mass grief. It seemed to me to be a load of men sitting about theorising about life, fate, God and the human condition. So if that is what you are after, then you will love it. 3 stars.

This book was pretty interesting, a little slow, but interesting. It describes how a town, of around 200,000 in the 1940's, deals with being completely shut off from the rest of society while being quarantined for several months. They are not allowed to communicate with loved ones by letter because they don't want to spread the plague through the paper. Also, if anyone happened to be visiting or doing business at the time of the "closing" they had to stay. Although there is not a lot of action, the story really makes you think about how you might act in the same position.

I enjoyed reading The Plague by Camus. A short story in a style I found similar to Kafka in many ways. I enjoyed the suspense and good start of the story and the characters we were introduced to were all believable and real. Having travelled quite a bit in my life and being away from family/friends, I could relate well to how Camus wrote about longing and being separated from family for long periods. Another meaning I gather from the story is also the purpose of striving for good and benefit of society, despite conditions that may seem pointless or overwhelming.

Second reading. This is an essential book. If there's a canon, The Plague belongs in it. A few things interested me this time through. Mostly the narrator's penchant, most effective, for writing about the town's collective mood. This device struck me as an improvement on the Soviet worker novels of the day (1947). The prose is not pumped up to triumphalist proportions. (There must be a scholar somewhere who's addresses this. I'll have to search LC.) Neither is there an idealized superman worker, but portraits of individuals with both flaws and great strengths. One wonders to what extent the novel had didactic intent. By that observation I don't mean to trivialize the book's elegant high style, its sheer brilliance, its profound insights into life, death and duty. This is an astonishing book and I highly recommended it.

PS A new translation of Exile and the Kingdom appeared in 2007. Can a new translation of The Plague be far off? Let's hope not. This one was published in 1948!

It is fine for the blurb on my edition of this book to say that it is a disguised version of the suffering of France under German occupation during the Second World War, but to me, this is so much more - and so much less.Naturally, for Camus, the events in wartime France would influence his writing - particularly in this tome, written only two years after war's end. It certainly shows here but, the Plague, in common with most, if not all of his works, is much more the story of man told through the eyes of a man. The narrator of this tale keeps his identity under wraps until the final pages (by which time, I think that we have all guessed) but, I will not spoil the surprise by naming 'the man'. He is merely a man, or is he man? One thing is certain, the tale is not of a plague for, whilst the scene is of a village cut off from the outside world by an outbreak of plague, the medical details and even the direct suffering of both victims and their families is portrayed at a minimum level. One gets the feeling of a man deeply scared and traumatised who is just keeping the lid on things.The most well observed section of the piece is after the plague has passed. Camus paints a picture of, not just the joy and celebration but, also the loss and mistrust of this bright new tomorrow. Yes, this can be seen as an allegory of the world post WW II, but it is also a very perspicacious reading of fragile humanity following any major disaster. We live in a world of immediacy perpetuated by TV news. Once a disaster is over, we forget the people who have lived through it and expect them to recover with the speed of a cartoon character, blown to bits in one scene and, five seconds later, running around unhurt. This book reminds us that it isn't so and, for this reason, amongst many, it is well worth reading.

My first (and, so far, only) Camus novel. It's a dark, sad journey down from the very first illness. There are no twists; every plot twist, every spoiler, is well-foreshadowed and (if you're paying attention) evident long before they're revealed. I do not speak or read French (much to my own chagrin), so I read Gilbert's English translation. I'm not sure how true this version stays to the original, but I must commend Mr. Gilbert as there are passages which are poetry, pure and simple.

In relation to timeline The Plague is simple. It covers the duration of a bubonic plague. The story begins with the death of rats. First, a few rats are found here and there until they are everywhere; dying by the thousands all across the Algerian city of Oran. Then, the plague increases in intensity and starts killing hundreds of people until finally, colder temperatures arrive and the plague is mercifully over. But, The Plague on a philosophical level is much deeper than the spread of a disease. Dr. Bernard Rieux is a doctor trying to save the community of Oran from the ravages of a plague. Even though Dr. Rieux patiently tries to care for everyone in the makeshift infirmaries most of his patients die. It appears to be a losing battle. Soon it is obvious the bigger question on Dr. Bernard Rieux's mind concerns humanity. For him, the struggle between good and evil is all apparent. He observes how people react to the disease, are influenced by the disease, and are changed by the disease. In the end, the whole point of the didactic lesson for Dr. Rieux is that we all need someone. Rieux's biggest discovery is that he is content to continue the crusade against any disease, any suffering, any pain or death.

This novel grew on me more and more as I read it. But still seemed to fall short. It tells the story of the arrival and departure of the plague from a French-Algerian town in the 1940s, largely told through the eyes of a local doctor. It is nicely structured, beginning with the ominous signs of dead rats and ending with the return of first rats, then cats, and then dogs marking the departure of the plague. It is all observed in great, with a somewhat less than fully omniscient narrator, who focuses on the impact the plague has on social relations and social order.

The observation is often very detached, the engagement with the characters distant and fleeting, which at times makes it more difficult to connect with the book.

The Plague is commonly described as an allegory for the Nazi occupation in World War II, but I don't see much beyond some obvious superficial analogies.

First thousands of rats come out in the streets to die a miserable death and then the people start to die in agony in their homes. Camus tale of the plague is a timeless story which shows how horrific events influence the way humans start to look at their lives and how that influences their behavior towards other humans. The plague is very often compared with the situation people were in during WW2, but in my opinion this story can be transfered to a wide range of events of the past and present, to demonstrate how humanity can survive whilst starring in the face of death. I have read this book already a few times and everytime does this stark story move me again and again.

The Plague presents so many layers of meaning that I find Camus entering the aerie realm of twentieth century writers inhabited by only the likes of Proust and Faulkner, Musil and Mann. On rereading I find that the trusted Random House Vintage paperback that I have read and reread is missing a key bit of text, the epigraph appended to the beginning of the novel by Camus. Its absence is inexplicable, especially since the same publisher has included it in the more recent collection of Camus' fiction for Everyman's Library. The epigraph follows:"It is as reasonable to represent one kind of imprisonment by another, as it is to represent anything that really exists by that which exists not!" - (Daniel Defoe, Preface to Volume three of Robinson Crusoe)The importance of this selection suggests Camus' story will be about more than the town of Oran in 194_ and points to motifs of imprisonment and existence. This is certainly worth considering as one enters Camus' fictional world as are most epigraphs. In his excellent survey of modern French writers, From Proust to Camus, Andre Maurois observes that:In The Plague Camus is mainly interested in the reactions of men faced with the collapse of everything they had believed to be secure: communications systems, trade, health. It is no longer a single Sisyphus but a city of Sisyphuses who themselves crushed by disaster.(p. 356)This aspect of the novel is certainly a rich topic for discussion as one nears the end of its second section. The work abounds with Sisyphean metaphors while even the structure demonstrates this theme as Camus has a virtual rebeginning at the start of the second part mirroring the opening of the novel and reminding us of the greater Sisyphean task before us. The failure of communication exists at all levels and we see reminders on almost every other page; for example in chapter 9 (the opening of Section two) we see "all these people found themselves, without the least warning, hopelessly cut off, prevented from seeing one another again, or even communicating with one another."In some sense the novel becomes one of creating a community within Oran to deal with the Sisyphean task of the ordeal of the Plague and the greater task of living one's life. The city and the people change as they try to deal with the cataclysm that has overtaken them. The community is infected and imprisoned and becomes obsessed with communication and the futility of communication with no response (more Sisyphus or merely the absurd?) The novel is written with simple complexity in that the seemingly simple prose reveals through careful analysis complexity that rivals any of Camus' favorite authors (Melville, Dostoyevsky, Kafka). The narrator claims to be writing a chronicle (see Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year), but there are contrasts and mysteries that arise immediately including the question of the identity of the narrator. On page 6 we read that "the narrator (whose identity will be made known in due course". When that will be will have to wait until quite near the end of the novel. At any rate the narrator claims to have access to both his own witness of events, the testimony of other eyewitnesses and documents that record the events (this will include a journal that forms part of the subsequent text). The first person to whom we are introduced is Dr. Rieux who encounters rats almost immediately, but does not think much of that. We wondered why, especially after he notices a bleeding rat, that as a doctor he does not think about plague and disease, but he does not and that will have to wait.

Couldn't get involved. I couldn't find a way in. Perhaps the lack of a clear central character may have thrown me. I found it a bit cold and dry.

Not a bad book. I found that there were too many details that had little relation to the story at points.

At first I found the book merely interesting. Interesting characters presenting all kinds of views on life. But the story didn't really ring with me. I didn't feel committed to the characters. But at the end that changed, not completely, but more than enough to love this book. If you want to read a clever book, this one is yours. If you want strong emotions, I would choose another.

This novel grew on me more and more as I read it. But still seemed to fall short. It tells the story of the arrival and departure of the plague from a French-Algerian town in the 1940s, largely told through the eyes of a local doctor. It is nicely structured, beginning with the ominous signs of dead rats and ending with the return of first rats, then cats, and then dogs marking the departure of the plague. It is all observed in great, with a somewhat less than fully omniscient narrator, who focuses on the impact the plague has on social relations and social order.The observation is often very detached, the engagement with the characters distant and fleeting, which at times makes it more difficult to connect with the book.The Plague is commonly described as an allegory for the Nazi occupation in World War II, but I don't see much beyond some obvious superficial analogies.

The best stories of human tragedy are muted in emotion, objective, almost clinical. Camus achieves this objectivity and we are free to form our own emotional reactions. There is a quiet optimism, a faith in humanity in the book that overcomes the horror.

We have all heard stories about the plague. Rats running around dying in the streets, people coming down with the flu which later evolves into horrible symptoms like pus-filled buboes all over your body. But we always picture this happening in medieval Europe and definitely not with modern drugs and hospitals. But what if the Plague happened in modern times? How would people cope? How would people live knowing that there is a high probability that they could contract a horrible disease and die? This was an excellent story about human nature and society under the stress of a devastating crisis.

What would happen to a town turned in on itself: a town whose gates were locked to the outside world, a town that was a pariah to the rest of humanity, a town that must fight alone against a pestilence that threatened to consume all of it's citizens. This scenario was not an unusual occurrence in the fourteenth century at the time of the Black death, but Camus has transposed this idea to the twentieth century and asked the question how would modern man cope when his very existence was threatened on a daily basis. Camus answer was that humanity would fight back against a situation that was both absurd and terrifying. A band of hero's would emerge doing nothing more heroic than carrying out their tasks to the best of their ability, organising and working to the point of exhaustion to save the town and the lives of their fellow men. Camus overriding message in this remarkable novel is that the world (mans absurd human condition) cannot be transformed, but it can be resisted. The setting for the novel is the town of Oran on the Algerian coast, a town that Camus knew well and a place that he did not like. In his novel the outbreak of plague is preceded by an inundation of rats, these rodents seem to erupt from the pavements, drains, and foundations of the houses to die in the public places, the authorities are at a loss to know what to do but the deaths of these rodents seem to solve the problem and the townsfolk can get on with what they do best: making money from their commercial enterprises. Soon the first cases of plague are reported, but again the authorities are loathe to introduce measures that will disrupt their commercial life: it is only when the daily death count reaches thirty that they decide to act and a state of siege is declared. Without warning the town gates are closed, nobody is allowed in or out and the army set up camp to impose these measures. The citizens of the town are trapped as are all visitors, there is no communication with the outside world apart from the telegram system. The town and its people are on their own. It is from this imposed isolation that the inhabitants suffer most, and Camus focuses on a group of men who suffer this isolation most keenly either because their loved ones are separated from them in the outside world or because they themselves were trapped alone in the town when the gates were closed. These men band together to revolt against the pestilence and they fight with all means at their disposal. Dr Bernard Rieux is central to all that takes place working to the point of exhaustion to alleviate the suffering of the plague victims and fighting an uphill battle against it's spread. It is Jean Tarrou an older man who had just recently come to settle in Oran who along with Dr Rieux's assistance organises the volunteer groups who will put themselves out amongst the victims in the firing line of the plague. They are helped eventually by Raymond Rambert who is working clandestinely to escape from the town, but when he eventually gets a chance to leave chooses to stay and fight and then they are joined by Father Paneloux a Jesuit who had preached a sermon at the start of the plague whose theme was that it was Gods vengeance on a community who were deserving of everything that they were suffering. Perhaps the real hero however is Joseph Grand a minor clerk in the City Hall, who is writing a novel in his spare time and is the epitome of a man quietly working for the common good.The novel was published in 1947 and was greeted by the critics as an allegory of the Nazi's occupation of Paris in the second world war and while certain pointers in the novel lead the reader in this direction I think it is misleading to read The Plague in this way. The Plague is not the Nazi's but it could be an allegory for any dogma that entraps people and obstructs their ability to act as human beings. Camus message is that we must revolt against any such imposition and it is up to the individual to revolt, usually outside of official channels, but on no account should that revolt lead to the death of our fellow men. Many of the characters in the band of volunteers seem to be endorsing Camus philosophy and it is intriguing to wonder as to which of them Camus identified with most, perhaps all of them. It would be wrong however to paint this novel as some obscure allegory or philosophical tract, because there is a real feel for the characters and the town of Oran. Camus writes superbly and we care about the characters although in typical modernist fashion we feel just a step away from them, as emotions are kept in check and it is only on rare occasions we get an insight as to their inner thoughts. The descriptions of the town under siege are atmospheric as is the effect of the weather which again is a key feature of this novel. Camus also does not spare the reader the vicissitudes of the effects of the plague on individuals: the deaths of the Mayors young son and also of one of the leading characters is full of horror and poignancy. Again as in his first novel [L'estranger] the reader is left with a text in where hardly a word seems out of place and one which can be read on many levels.Having read more of Camus recently I am struck by this authors love of his fellow man. It is love that must in the end lead us to a life that is fulfilling. Camus idea that we are all alone in an unfeeling universe and that the absurd (death) can strike us at any moment is almost too much too bear if we do not have the capacity for love."Tears were running in a steady stream down the old Civil Servant's face. And these tears were devastating to Rieux because he understood them and he also felt a lump in the back of his throat. He too recalled the unfortunate man's engagement, in front of a shop, at Christmastime, and Jeanne leaning towards him to say how happy she was. From the depths of years long past, in the very heart of this madness, Jeanne's fresh face was speaking to Grand, that was sure. Rieux knew what the old man was thinking at that moment as he wept and he thought the same: that this world without love was like a dead world and that there always comes a time when one becomes tired of prisons, work and courage, and yearns for the face of another human being and the wondering affectionate heart."Camus manages to pull off these moments with real pathos when his characters exhausted by their work and their stoicism are able to reach out to each other. The moments are few but all the more effective for that.This novel is a magnificent achievement and will lend itself to many re-reads. Themes of separation, exile, revolt and love are bound inextricably into a story that plays itself out in its own very modernist world. A five star read.

"Classic." "A perfect achievement." "Masterpiece." Big words with significant meaning. I have a better one. "Eh."

The question I have is whether The Plague should be viewed as a work of literature, or something entirely different: philosophy, perhaps? Had I gone into this book expecting a creative work of philosophy, I may have been able to enjoy it. (A little). Essentially, The Plague is a metaphor for Europe under WWII and asks the big questions of life and crises. I went into it expecting a great work of literature, however. And I can only judge it as such.

The Plague starts off well. Sprinkled throughout are wonderful scenes, putting the plague in its proper context, but they are few and far between. For the most part, it reads too much like a text book. The narrator is detached from the characters, making it difficult to differentiate from one to the next and leaving me unattached to all of them. The scenes are largely descriptive, giving a brief overview of the events without showing them. The dialogue is stilted. One character speaks for pages with no break, explaining things the narrator already knows for the sake of the reader. This book is filled with all the things students of writing are told not to do.

So, I say "eh." The metaphor is well done. There is some potential in some of the scenes. But it's not enough for me to care. And what's more damning in a book about thousands of people dying than a lack of care?

The beginning of this book is surreal, and rather enchanting--Camus' masterful setting of scene is a delight, even if one does remember what's to come. Through the first part, I had difficulty remembering what I was slipping into, the book was so calm and enveloping. After that, I have to admit that at times the middle was slower-going, but by mid-way through Camus' style and characters had brought me back to the suspense of the beginning, to the point that putting down the book was nearly impossible.Certainly, this is a dark book, but for all of that it is also beautiful, hopeful, and nearly other-worldly in its telling, which is, of course, part of the point. The world here is meant to be both so far removed as to be readable, and seem far far away, while at the same time feeling too close for any true sort of distance. Camus' technique and prose here are wonderful, and the book is a necessary one. Absolutely recommended.

The Bubonic Plague makes a comeback in an Algerian town. The town is quarantined, and the characters of a doctor and his patients and helpers share their thoughts. A bit boring to tell you the truth. I was expecting more.

How does one review a classic? I have always had major issues with doing that. I do enjoy reading classic literature, probably more than any other genre, but when it comes to actually reviewing it, I get anxious. Classic literature is, after all, art. And I do not consider myself an art connoisseur or an art critic in any way. Therefore, I struggled with an idea of writing a review of The Plague by Albert Camus. My inclinations were to dive instantly into analyzing, interpreting and playing that torturous game of 'what the author wanted to say'. In the end, I realized that such approach was not going to work unless I would be writing a thesis on Camus, which I have no desire to do.The action of The Plague takes place in the '40s, in the town of Oran. It is a town just like any other all over the Western world. The inhabitants are busy living their materialistic lives consumed with careers, successes, money and goods that can be bought for it. The lives they lead are, in short, industrial lives with no place for emotions, existential thoughts and spiritual insights. Until, one day the rats start coming out and dying right in the open. The reader already has an idea of what's to come but not the residents of Oran. They are still preoccupied with their orderly lives and the phenomenon of dying rats is nothing more than an inconvenience and an annoying intrusion upon their 'in the box' reality. However, slowly, but surely Oran drowns in the plague, people, instead of rats are dying by hundreds every week and those who are not infected yet find themselves imprisoned in their own homes, their own town, having no choice but to look on their lives from a different, emotional perspective. Camus tells the story through the eyes of an objective narrator, intertwining it with accounts of personal experiences of major characters: Tarrou, Dr. Rieux, Cottard, Rambert, Grand and Father Paneloux. They are all very different people, who would otherwise never have met and gotten close, but the disease devouring the town brings them together in many, sometimes unpredictable, ways. As it goes with almost all classics, there are various ways The Plague can be looked upon. And not one single opinion will be the correct one. My thoughts on it are many. But the most important one is that it has to be read. Whether one likes it or not, whether the writing seems tedious or there is not enough action going on, and whether it seems difficult to comprehend or not deep enough, it is a novel that is worth the time and effort. Besides Camus's word artistry, the universal theme is what everyone should have the time to ponder upon at least once in their lifetime. The plague is not just a medical affliction, it is a phenomenon which, in its cruelty and indifference, cuts those afflicted with it off from the rest of the world, from their own families even and leaves them utterly alone with their individual suffering. Now, with death glaring at them and coming ever so closely, they question their lives, their morals, they ask who brought it upon them and why, and they never really get one satisfactory answer. How many plagues have afflicted our world since The Plague was written? I think that every misery that brings death, isolation and suffering of the innocents is that plague.

This book takes a wonderful look at human nature, and how a disaster such as this plague would be dealt with. However, I found it a little boring and hard to get through. The last 10 pages or so were definitely the most interesting part of the whole novel.

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.

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.

It's amazing how relevant it is to post-9/11 America.

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.

This is an incredibly boring book. I laboured all the way to part three in the hopes it would improve, but I was sorely disappointed. The language is too dense and the style is condescending - I feel as though I'm being talked down to. The blurb states that this book is supposed to be a metaphor for the German occupation of France - I simply cannot see it. anyhow, this is not a book I would recommend.

Surprisingly straightforward after "The Stranger," it's an engaging story about a bubonic plague outbreak that serves as an allegory for the sickness and "nausea" that permeates humankind. It has some strikingly beautiful passages and many important insights into human nature. Camus comments throughout on love, death, and the purpose of existence, more elaborately explaining his existential theory than he does in "The Stranger." It even includes a reference to Meursault: the man who killed an Arab on the beach in Algiers. It is not only an engaging story, but an insightful discussion of philosophical ideas.