It’s become a bit of a habit to read a classic in January and what book more apt than The Plague.
The Plague – the blurb
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.
Covid or Nazis?
I picked up this book expecting to read about a virus sweeping through a town. Lockdown, weekly statistics and queueing at shops all followed and the parallels between Camus’ Oran and current day were uncanny. I hadn’t realised that The Plague was also an allegory which became apparent when the trams started ferrying bodies to the morgue to be burnt and the likelihood it would all be over by Xmas disappeared alongside the good cuts of meat.
It was a tad indulgent at times (a paragraph or two may have been skipped) but overall I really enjoyed it. I liked seeing myself in it ‘reduced to wandering round and around in their mournful town….in aimless walks’ I liked the allegory and how the book worked on both fronts
The last paragraph in particular will stay with me: “The plague never dies or vanishes entirely, it can remain dormant for dozens of years in furniture or clothing, it waits patiently in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, handkerchiefs and old papers. Perhaps the day will come when, for the instruction or misfortune of mankind, the plague will rouse its rats and send them to die in some well-contented city.”
If you like me enjoy reading about Covid but not Covid books, try the best one I have read so far Station Eleven.
