The Plague Book Reveiw

The Plague. Albert Camus. Vintage International, 1948. 308 pp.

The Plague by Albert Camus, is one of those odd but satisfying reads. The dialect takes some getting used to of that it is based in a French Quarter of Algeria, Africa. The book starts off more factual as it informs you the daily life and routine of this small, generic town, only to jump right in from the narrator’s perspective days before a massive epidemic shows its beginning in the town of Oran. The novel also shows readers how something so small can become something bigger, and how there’s not always a happy ending.

Camus provides for us an understanding of what an epidemic can do to a society, whether it destroys the natural order of a society, or brings opposite sides of the social hierarchy together. The beginning of the novel shows the readers what went on in the life of Oran, and the remainder of the novel represents how the epidemic changes it drastically, but in the end everything will once again return to normal despite the casualties.

You see the development of Dr. Rieux’s, the narrator, character as the novel progresses, and understand how people may overlook even the smallest of details. Readers also see how the narrator second guesses himself in some cases, but stands strong when it comes to bigger decisions. His soft spine proves to be something of interest throughout.

The novel in itself is definitely unique. It talks about as situation that has happened before many centuries ago, which allows it to be different in such way. Because it’s a more modern plague, it develops different characteristics to the environment which it was brewed. It also takes up on a newer perspective with having the opportunity to not spread with modern medicine. Although it does not kill of the city, it still vanquished a great majority of it. This book is one of that if you’re interested in biological disasters and how it affects a community.