bananabell 's review for:

The Plague by Albert Camus

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Like a long slow monotonous tread in l i m bo , which is what a plague feels like. Style was very documentarian and dry but not without instances of humanity. Camus’ love for people keeps the story together, evinced in the few moments of life and warmth, as well as his elegant/sharp/ haunting descriptions (which are also unfortunately too few in number). *Kinda spoiler* the long sigh of relief as the plague receded I felt, too. Not sure I can say I’ve felt something so resolute and transitional but I can certainly understand the relief. The narrator refuses to give into ‘abstractions’ but nevertheless ends up formulating a philosophy which encompasses a whole way of seeing the world. All about how to just tread on in an attempt to be a middling saint or healer. Noble, but not fully convincing in hope. All in all, respect to Camus for chronicling what is not an easy thing to document compared to its other sinister parallel, war, and its purgatory of morbid boredom.