Comments on: What Camus Sees: The Plague Within

By: BW

BW — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:48:48 +0000

One can only imagine how much more Camus’s influence would have flourished had he not died in that damn accident. We all have our plagues, yet Camus reminds us of that eternal summer.

By: Theophanis

Theophanis — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:10:55 +0000

Interesting…

By: Anthony Steyning

Anthony Steyning — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:53:59 +0000

On strict literary merit The Plague is a significant be it somewhat somber work. (Even gloomy Nietzsche recognized the importance of strains of humor in an otherwise serious opus). Camus wrote The Plague while bedridden with tuberculosis in an Alpine sanatorium while all hell had broken loose in Europe of the early forties, and could not have fathomed the horrific outcome of what was taking place given his isolation and the early going of the war. When The Plague was published after Hitler’s defeat it received sudden acclaim for the wrong reason, namely that the novel was one huge metaphor with fascism equated with his deadly pest. I am a great admirer of Camus but not one either subscribing to this theory. The Plague is an Algerian based drama and stands on its own magnificent legs, with no ties to the Axis whatsoever I fear. All this as a point of background and curiosity.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:08:56 +0000

….He stays in Oran when he could have fled and risks his life to help others because it’s the right thing to do. That may sound simplistic, but Camus is, in a subtle way, showing you that mankind is basically good, as opposed to the Judeo-Christian concept of original sin.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:07:11 +0000

The Plague is Camus at his best. I don’t find him a ‘blank-slate’ at all. Dr Rieux does not need to have any divine rationale for all the innocent deaths, he does not need the shoulder of a priest to cry on because he cares about humanity at the deepest level, with no conditions and no strings attached. He stays in Oran when he could have fled and risks his life to help others because it’s the right thing to do. That may sound simplistic, but Camus is, in a subtle way, showing you that mankind is basically good, as opposed to the Judeo-Christian concept of original sin.

By: Litlove

Litlove — Sat, 19 May 2007 08:34:30 +0000

Type your comment here. I’m thrilled to find another fan of The Plague, which is, I think, Camus’s greatest work. I agree with you absolutely that the experience of the war altered Existentialism from being a pure phenomenologically based philosophy into an engaged form of literture deeply concerned with ethics. Camus was always a little further down this path than Sartre, although Sartre’s post-war lecture was the publicity-stealer for the change. Great review of the book!

By: Tom Watson

Tom Watson — Thu, 17 May 2007 19:08:41 +0000

Yeah, that’s a brilliant line - among many. He also follows this line from the sea to the rats to the bacillus infection to the wind and the restless population - ending back with the wind and sea. All movement.

By: Roger Hannagan

Roger Hannagan — Thu, 17 May 2007 18:52:28 +0000

Read The Plague about 10 years ago, found it strangely poetic. One line where a character sees someone in a darkened cafe as a ’shade among shadows’ hit me so hard.