Book Review #1- 'La Peste' by Albert Camus

Yes, I finally finished yesterday. I would've posted this straight away but it's one of those books that you have to think carefully about before you understand it properly. Even after sleeping on it, I still doubt I understand it fully. I suppose that's the best thing about books- you can interpret it in your own way.

For this review, I'm going to quote bits from the French, then tell you what it means in English using the English version my mum downloaded on her Kindle.



This was the version of the book I read.

I truly don't know where to start. I suppose firstly I'll say that this was an amazing book. I admit that at the start I was thinking "Where is this going?" and "How much can he write about a plague?", but by the time I had read the first part, I was loving it. 
'La Peste' or 'The Plague' is set in the 1940's in Oran, an Algerian town. The main character, Bernard Rieux, is a doctor who at the beginning of the book steps on a dead rat outside his surgery. In the next few days, more and more dead rats appear around Oran, and eventually, this leads to a plague that lasts for almost a year.

What I found interesting is that reading this book is very unlike learning about the Black Death in history. I suppose this is obvious, but it's about how the people of Oran live life during the plague. When you learn about the Black Death or other plagues, you learn how many people died, what living conditions were like and how it spread, but you very rarely look at it like a story.

The plague has often been interpreted as a metaphor for Nazism, and this was the thing that took me a while (and the help of my mum with whom I spent about half an hour last night discussing the novel) to figure out. I think that this is particularly clear at the end of the novel:

"le bacille de la peste ne meurt ni ne disparaît jamais... il peut rester pendant des dizaines d'années endormi dans les meubles et le linge... et... peut-être, le jour viendrait où, pour le malheur et l'enseignement des hommes, la peste réveillerait ses rats et les enverrait mourir dans une cité heureuse"

(meaning "the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good... it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests... and... perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city"). I suppose that here, plague refers to fascist ideas- they never completely disappear but hide until someone like Hitler discovers them and then "the plague" strikes again.

Of course, this is related to the metaphorical plague that Tarrou speaks of. He is opposed to the death penalty, and describes  (meaning "dirty mouths stinking of plague told a fettered man that he was going to die"). However, he can't oppose this "plague" without killing people himself, and therefore, he too has "plague". He explains to Rieux that

"des sales bouches empestées annonçaient à un homme dans les chaînes qu'il allait mourir"

"nous étions tous dans la peste"

 ("we all have plague"), and that

"nous ne pouvions pas faire un geste en ce monde sans risquer de faire mourir"

  ("we can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody"). I think this, too, refers to Nazism- perhaps the "dirty mouths" are Nazis, telling a Jew, for example (they hated Jews and many died when Hitler was in power) that he was going to die. Of course, the Allies (including the French) opposed the Nazis and fought against them. However, in order to defeat them, many Germans were killed, and so the Allies were guilty of murder as well, therefore they too had "the plague".

By the way, I might be completely wrong about this so if anyone has any other ideas please comment :)
Anyway, moving on...



A picture of Albert Camus

One of the main things I loved about this novel was the characters. They were so interesting and so well described that I felt as if I knew them myself.  I also enjoyed the mystery of the identity of the narrator, which, I have to admit, was a slight disappointment when revealed at the end of the novel, but that's only a minor criticism. A particularly interesting character, in my opinion, was Cottard, mainly because he didn't want the plague to end. This was because he had committed a crime (we never find out what it is that he has done) and feels no danger of being sent to prison during the plague because everyone is concerned with the plague itself, and not with criminals. In my opinion (going back to the metaphor for Nazism), Cottard is almost like a Nazi- he is protected by the "plague" from being punished from something which, in ordinary times, he would have been arrested for. I don't know if this argument is plausible, especially seeing as Camus does not  portray him as evil, but more as a sinister character.

Something else that I found interesting was the use of dates. At the very beginning, the dates are always stated (Rieux steps on the rat on the 16th April, etc.). However, when the plague really starts, the reader is not told the exact dates, instead, the narrator describes seasons and months. I just thought that was really interesting- it shows the time scale of the plague, and also sort of shows that no one really 'lives' any more- they drift through life not really living in the moment.

I'm not going to write any more. There's so much more I could write, but I think I've babbled on quite enough already (it's starting to become more of an essay than a review). Anyway, if you've read it and have any opinions, please share them!

Overall, I'd definitely give this novel
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

As always, please comment and share your opinions. If you haven't read 'La Peste', I would definitely recommend it!

Caitlin

P.S. I have sorted out the formatting problems :)