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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsA wonderful timely interpretation of Camus' "La Peste," (The Plague).
Literary Hub: What We Can Learn (and Should Unlearn) From Albert Camuss The PlagueAs the story begins, rats are lurching out of Orans shadows, first one-by-one, then in batches, grotesquely expiring on landings or in the street. The first to encounter this phenomenon is a local doctor named Rieux, who summons his concierge, Michel, to deal with the nuisance, and is startled when Michel is outraged, rather than disgusted. Michel is convinced that young scallywags must have planted the vermin in his hallway as a prank. Like Michel, most of Orans citizens misinterpret the early bewildering portents, missing their broader significance. For a time, the only action they take is denouncing the local sanitation department and complaining about the authorities. In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves, the narrator reflects. They were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. Camus shows how easy it is to mistake an epidemic for an annoyance.
But then Michel falls sick and dies. As Rieux treats him, he recognizes the telltale signs of plague, but at first persuades himself that, The public mustnt be alarmed, that wouldnt do at all. Orans bureaucrats agree. The Prefect (like a mayor or governor, in colonial Algeria) personally is convinced that its a false alarm. A low-level bureaucrat, Richard, insists the disease must not be identified officially as plague, but should be referred to merely as a special type of fever. But as the pace and number of deaths increases, Rieux rejects the euphemism, and the towns leaders are forced to take action.
Authorities are liable to minimize the threat of an epidemic, Camus suggests, until the evidence becomes undeniable that underreaction is more dangerous than overreaction. Most people share that tendency, he writes, its a universal human frailty: Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky.
Soon the city gates are closed and quarantines are imposed, cutting off the inhabitants of Oran from each other and from the outside world. The first thing that plague brought to our town was exile, the narrator notes. A journalist named Rambert, stuck in Oran after the gates close, begs Rieux for a certificate of health so he can get back to his wife in Paris, but Rieux cannot help him. There are thousands of people placed as you are in this town, he says. Like Rambert, the citizens soon sense the pointlessness of dwelling on their personal plights, because the plague erases the uniqueness of each mans life even as it heightens each persons awareness of his vulnerability and powerlessness to plan for the future.
But then Michel falls sick and dies. As Rieux treats him, he recognizes the telltale signs of plague, but at first persuades himself that, The public mustnt be alarmed, that wouldnt do at all. Orans bureaucrats agree. The Prefect (like a mayor or governor, in colonial Algeria) personally is convinced that its a false alarm. A low-level bureaucrat, Richard, insists the disease must not be identified officially as plague, but should be referred to merely as a special type of fever. But as the pace and number of deaths increases, Rieux rejects the euphemism, and the towns leaders are forced to take action.
Authorities are liable to minimize the threat of an epidemic, Camus suggests, until the evidence becomes undeniable that underreaction is more dangerous than overreaction. Most people share that tendency, he writes, its a universal human frailty: Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky.
Soon the city gates are closed and quarantines are imposed, cutting off the inhabitants of Oran from each other and from the outside world. The first thing that plague brought to our town was exile, the narrator notes. A journalist named Rambert, stuck in Oran after the gates close, begs Rieux for a certificate of health so he can get back to his wife in Paris, but Rieux cannot help him. There are thousands of people placed as you are in this town, he says. Like Rambert, the citizens soon sense the pointlessness of dwelling on their personal plights, because the plague erases the uniqueness of each mans life even as it heightens each persons awareness of his vulnerability and powerlessness to plan for the future.
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A wonderful timely interpretation of Camus' "La Peste," (The Plague). (Original Post)
NNadir
Mar 2020
OP
kairos12
(12,861 posts)1. Timeless and so relevant. Reread last fall.
The only book he wrote I found equally compelling was La Chute. A life altering masterpiece.
NNadir
(33,518 posts)2. Three life changing, La Peste, La Chute, et L'Etranger.
For current events:
Une manière commode de faire la connaissance dune ville est de chercher comment on y travaille, comment on y aime et comment on y meurt. Dans notre petite ville, est-ce leffet du climat, tout cela se fait ensemble, du même air frénétique et absent.
I just looked. It's now on line, in French: La Peste
kairos12
(12,861 posts)3. I wish I could read all in French.
All life changing books.
NNadir
(33,518 posts)4. The Plague really rings true now...I took a few minutes to translate a small sequence over in a...
...post in the Science group.
It struck me as relevant.
History, mass loss, structure, and dynamic behavior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet
I'm a crummy translator, but even good translators ruin things sometimes.