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bookishwelshie 's review for:
The Plague
by Stuart Gilbert, Albert Camus
After finishing this novel a few weeks ago its words have been stuck firmly in my mind, and one felt it so apt given the current global situation here in 2020. Overall, it does give hope for people stuck in a situation of quarantine or isolation that there is life as normal on the other side but that going through hardship is inevitable. The absurdism theme prevalent throughout highlights that there are three different options for humans; to either take their own life, to choose to believe in a divine entity or an order (to take a leap of faith), or to accept the absurdity and create their own meaning in life - and the third choice is the one that is advocated.
Through the different characters' eyes; a doctor, a journalist, a priest etc. Camus shows us how these individuals respond when faced with imminent suffering and probable death. It is based upon a cholera epidemic which had happened in Algeria in 1849, but the story is set in the 1940s. Camus stated that it was an "allegory of the French resistance to the pestilence of Nazism and German occupation during the Second World War."
It is most definitely worth the read, and I believe it to be one of the most important philosophical novels.
Through the different characters' eyes; a doctor, a journalist, a priest etc. Camus shows us how these individuals respond when faced with imminent suffering and probable death. It is based upon a cholera epidemic which had happened in Algeria in 1849, but the story is set in the 1940s. Camus stated that it was an "allegory of the French resistance to the pestilence of Nazism and German occupation during the Second World War."
It is most definitely worth the read, and I believe it to be one of the most important philosophical novels.