The bubonic
plague has returned in
modern times to an average modern
North African town. And Albert Camus confronts
the crisis through the
perspective of an average
modern doctor in his signature existentialist
work, "The Plague." The
novel begins as Dr. Rieux steps on a dead rat, the harbinger of the plague about to devastate his town and his life. It is a profoundly individual and ordinary beginning to a novel that faces life’s most overwhelming philosophical challenges in an individual and ordinary manner. In a deceptively simple story, Camus presents the full spectrum of human reaction to life’s tragedies. When facing death, do you give up in hopelessness, abandon all morals and live for immediate pleasures, or seek refuge in religion and place all hope in the after-life? Or do you take the approach of the everyday hero of the book, Dr. Rieux, and use every bit of energy and ability you possess to fight for humanity when surrounded by death and desolation?
Drawing upon his experience opposing Nazism in the French Resistance, Camus presents a doctor working to overcome terrible tragedy and evil by doggedly fighting to preserve human dignity and life. This story is a great read on the simplest level for the understated eloquence of its writing and its unique and believable and amusing characters. The novel is also a brilliant read on a higher plane for the philosophical questions it invites. Read as a simple story of one town fighting one catastrophe, it is gripping and almost pastoral. Read as an allegory for any historical fight of good vs. evil in all of its forms, whether it be Nazism, colonialism and nihilism of Camus’ time or the evils of racism, terrorism and fanaticism which predominate the conflicts of our times. “The plague” will remain a classic novel that emboldens readers to resist evil in all its forms, without turning to nihilism, fanaticism, or any other “ism” in the face of death and defeat.