Albert Camus - The Plague

in January 1941 the 28 year old French writer Albert Camus began work on a novel about a virus that spreads uncontrollably from animals to humans and ends up destroying half the population of a representative modern town it was called la peste the plague eventually published in 1947 and frequently described as the greatest European novel of the second half of the 20th century the book written in sparse haunting prose takes us through a catastrophic outbreak of a disease in the lightly fictionalized town of aha on the algerian coast as seen through the eyes of the novel's hero a doctor here a version of Camus himself as the novel opens an air of eerie normality reigns aha is an ordinary town writes camu nothing more than a French Prefecture on the coast of Algeria the inhabitants lead busy money centered and denatured lives they barely noticed that they are alive then with the pacing of a thriller the horror begins dr. Theo comes across a dead rat then another and another soon the town is overrun with the mysterious deaths of thousands of rats who stumble out of their hiding places in a daze let out a drop of blood from their noses and expire the inhabitants accused the authorities of not acting fast enough so the rats are removed in the town heaves a sigh of relief both dr. Theo suspects that this is not the end he has read enough about the history of plagues and transmissions from animals to humans to know that something is afoot soon an epidemic ceases aha the disease transmitting itself from citizen to citizens spreading panic and horror in every street in order to write the book Camus immersed himself in the history of plagues he read books on the black death that killed 50 million people in Europe in the 14th century the Italian plague of 1629 that killed 280 thousand people across northern Italy the Great Plague of London of 1665 as well as plagues that ravaged cities on China's eastern seaboard during the 18th and 19th centuries in March 1942 Camus told the writer Andre Malraux that he wanted to understand what plague meant for Humanity said like that it might sound strange he added but this subject seems so natural to me Camus was not writing about one plague in particular nor was this narrowly as has sometimes been suggested a metaphoric tale about the recent Nazi occupation of France Camus was drawn to his theme because in his philosophy we are all unbeknownst to us already living through a plague that is a widespread silent invisible disease that may kill any of us at any time and destroy the lives we assumed was solid the actual historical incidents we call plagues are merely concentrations of a universal pre condition they are dramatic instances of a perpetual rule that we are vulnerable to being randomly exterminated by a bacillus an accident or the actions of our fellow humans our exposure to plague is at the heart of camis view that our lives are fundamentally on the edge of what he termed the absurd proper recognition of this absurdity should not lead us to despair pure and simple it should rightly understood be the start of a redemptive tragicomic perspective like the people of a Hall before the plague we assume that we've been granted immortality and with this naivety come behaviors that camu abhorred a hardness of heart an obsession with status a refusal of joy and gratitude a tendency to moralize and judge the people of a heart associate plagued with something backward that belongs to another age they are in their eyes modern people with phones trams aeroplanes and newspapers they are surely not going to die like the wretches of 17th century London or 18th century Canton it's impossible it should be the plague everyone knows that has vanished from the West says one character yes everyone knew that can be add sardonically except the dead for Camus when it comes to dying there is no progress in history there is no escape from our frailty being alive always was and will always remain an emergency as one might put it truly an inescapable underlying condition plague or no plague there is always as it were the plague if what we mean by this is a susceptibility to sudden death an event that can render our lives instantaneously meaningless and yet in the novel still the citizens deny their fate even when a quarter of the city is dying they keep imagining reasons why the problem won't happen to them the book isn't attempting to panic us because panic suggests a response to a dangerous but short-term condition from which we can eventually find safety but there can never be safety and that is why for Camus we need to love our fellow damned humans and work without hope or despair for the amelioration of suffering life is a hospice never a hospital Camus writes pestilence is so common there have been as many plagues in the world as there have been Wars yet plagues and Wars always find people equally unprepared when war breaks out people will say it won't last it's too stupid and war is certainly too stupid but that doesn't prevent it from lasting the citizens of a heart were like the rest of the world they were humanists they did not believe in pestilence a pestilence does not have human dimensions so people tell themselves that it is unreal that it is a bad dream which will end the people of our town were no more guilty than anyone else they merely forgot to be modest and thought that everything was still possible for them which implied that pestilence was impossible and they continued with business with making arrangements for travel and holding opinions why should they have thought about the plague which negates the future negates journeys and negates debate they considered themselves free and no one will ever be free as long as there is plague or pestilence or famine at the height of the plague when five hundred people a week one of CAM use particular enemies in the novel steps into view a Catholic priest called panel ooh he gives a sermon to the city in the cathedral of the main square and seeks to explain the plague as God's punishment for depravity but cam whose hero doctor who loathes this approach the plague is not a punishment for anything deserved that would be to imagine that the universe was moral or had some sort of design to it but doctor vo watches a young innocent child die in his hospital and he knows better suffering is entirely randomly distributed it makes no sense it is no ethical force it is simply absurd and that is about the kindest thing one can say of it the doctor works tirelessly against death he tries to lessen the suffering of those around him but he is no saint in one of the most central lines of the book Camus writes this whole thing is not about heroism it's about decency it may seem a ridiculous idea but the only way to fight the plague is with decency a character asks via what decency might be and Doctor Who yours response is as clipped as it is eloquent in general I can't say remarks the doctor but in my case I know that it consists in doing my job despite the horror Camus who in an earlier essay had compared humanity to the wretched character of Sisyphus but then asked us to imagine Sisyphus happy maintains a characteristically keen sense of what makes life worth enduring his doctor who appreciates dancing love and nature he is hugely sensitive to the smell of flowers to the colors at sunset and like Camus adore swimming in the sea slipping out after an evening on the wards to surrender himself to the reassuring immensity of the waves eventually after more than a year the plague herbs away the townspeople celebrate it is apparently the end of suffering normality can return but this is not how come you sees it Doctor Who you may have helped to defeat this particular outbreak of the plague but he knows there will always be others in CHEM whose words via knew that this Chronicle could not be a story of definitive victory it could only be the record of what had to be done and what no doubt would have to be done again against this terror as he listened to the cries of joy that arose from the town via recalled that this joy was always under threat he knew that this happy crowd was unaware of something that one reads in books which is that the plague bacillus never dies or vanishes entirely that it remains dormant for dozens of years that it waits patiently in bedrooms cellars trunks handkerchiefs and old papers and that the day will come when the plague will once again rouse its rats and send them to die in some new well contented City Camus speaks to us in our own times not because he was a magical seer who could intimate what the best scientists could not but because he correctly sized up human nature and knew about a fundamental and absurd vulnerability in us that we cannot usually bear to remember in the words of one of his characters Camus knew as we do not that everyone has inside it himself this plague because no one in the world no one can ever be immune if you're interested in trying psychotherapy the School of Life offers a service by Skype around the world click on the link for further details you

Channel: The School of Life

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Rating: 4.9590297 out of 5

Keywords: the school of life, schooloflife, education, relationships, alain de botton, philosophy, big questions, love, wellness, mindfullness, psychology, how, to, hack, PL-LITERATURE, Albert camus, the plague, coronavirus, covid-19, the plague 2020, the plague albert camus, the plagues prince of egypt, the plague documentary, albert camus the stranger, albert camus interviews, albert camus philosophy, albert camus nobel prize speech, albert camus the fall, albert camus the plague audiobook

Id: vSYPwX4NPg4

Length: 10min 34sec (634 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Treeeefalling]

Such great insight into the human psyche, especially the “it can’t happen to me” mentality.