Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

The Plague by Albert Camus

5 reviews

toffishay's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

There exploration of collective grief and suffering in this book reached into my chest, grabbed my heart and squeezed, and won't let go. I think that this will stay with me for a while. The straightforward writing perfectly and bluntly described the despair of dying and living in a plague. Simple sentences described unimaginable death and sadness. 

The book is explicit that in a situation like this, there are no heroes. There are people hurting and healing and hurting all over again. Life is both paused and unending in a time of isolation and confinement. While not being heroes, the names characters that we do follow help connect with the world and give you something to hold onto in the midst of a huge collective event. Dr. Rieux especially won't get out of my head, but all of the characters are complex and layered. Through their inner thoughts and especially through their interactions with each other and their community, you see the tiny ways that people seek control, connection, or commiseration in the midst of death where everything, even the next day is uncertain. 

What I have come to like about Camus, that I think could turn people away or be very polarizing, is that he offers a very particular brand of hope. His books, this one included, have a theme of the necessity of human hope. We are looking for distractions, but that can only get us so far and often alienate us from our true selves. Hope offers a window for something new and encourages you to fight for what matters, but hope doesn't always mean that things will be better. There will be pain again. There will be death again. All we can do is work through it and find what's worth fighting for. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Terminal illness, Grief, Confinement, Medical content, Child death, Medical trauma, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Suicide attempt, Forced institutionalization, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Body horror, and Animal death

Minor: Excrement, Death of parent, Xenophobia, War, Police brutality, Gun violence, and Mass/school shootings

risemini's review

dark reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child death, Death, Grief, Medical content, Violence, and Confinement

changbineyeskz's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Body horror

Moderate: Confinement, Death of parent, Mental illness, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Blood, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Animal death and Animal cruelty

begentile's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Vomit, Alcohol, Blood, Child death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Suicide attempt, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

brnineworms's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Reading The Plague in the midst of a pandemic is an odd experience. It’s hard to say whether it makes the story more impactful or less. The idea of a city going into lockdown isn’t particularly shocking to me now, but, at the same time, I can appreciate the accuracy of the depiction in a way I wouldn’t have been able to previously.

At the heart of the story is Camus’s absurdist philosophy. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say it has genuinely changed my life. I’ve often struggled with hopelessness and pessimism, so the insistence on fighting losing battles – on knowing you can’t fix the world but doing the best you can regardless – was something I took to heart. This philosophy most obviously manifests in the actions and beliefs of the protagonists (“Your victories will always be temporary, that’s all.” [...] “Always, I know that. But that is not a reason to give up the struggle.”) but there’s also something to be said about the way it intertwines with other themes. Take language, for instance. There is initially some debate over whether or not the plague should be called a plague, the citizens of Oran struggle to verbalise their anguish when the city is quarantined, and Grand is stuck writing and rewriting the first line of his novel. Words are not enough to accurately describe the human experience, but we try to communicate with them anyway. The irony of this message being conveyed through a work of literature does not escape me.

Speaking of language, my copy of The Plague features a sub-par translation, and I’m going to attribute the clunky sentence structure and wonky grammar to overly-literal translation from French to English. Nevertheless, Camus’s skill as a writer shines through. Something I picked up on was the way he set the mood through careful pacing. The book starts off slow and meandering when discussing the banality of life in Oran before the plague, then pivots to quick, urgent clauses when the plague strikes. It’s masterful.

There are some aspects of the book which deserve criticism (for example, women exist only in their relationships to men) but there’s also so much to love. I think this is the best novel I’ve ever read? I will definitely be checking out the rest of Camus’s work.

Hats off, gentlemen!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Grief, Gun violence, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Ableism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Confinement, Medical content, Murder, Police brutality, Sexism, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Child abuse, Colonisation, Death of parent, Gore, Infidelity, Mass/school shootings, Racism, Sexual content, and Slavery