It seems wrong to say that I enjoyed a book about the plague hitting a city and killing off thousands of people, but I did find Albert Camus’s 1957 book, The Plague, fascinating. Given horror stories stemming from the “modern day plague” of the Ebola outbreak/epidemic in West Africa several years ago, it was interesting to see a story like this set in the 1940s. We also have the COVID pandemic to hold in our minds and generate fear. The bubonic and pneumonic plagues of the book are so evocative that the names alone can send a shiver down the spine – much the way that Ebola has done in recent years. Such a awful way to die. COVID seemed a bit less bloody, but no less deadly and impactful.
Dr. Bernard Rieux is our hero in The Plague– the doctor who puts himself in danger to treat the cases of plague with few resources. He and the other men in the sanitation units experience the daily unrelenting horror of their plague and how it affected the city’s residents, as well as the overall life of the city. The challenge of trying to stay focused and maintain some level of hope while coming to terms with the “big questions” of life was not only difficult for the book’s doctor and compelling for readers, but made me think about my life as well. As we all experienced with COVID at its peak, many people were fearful and frustrated, others were looking for ways to help, and nearly all were focused on balancing the desire to protect our families with the need to engage with others. I love reading something that makes me think – even if I don’t have all the answers.
One of the striking things about this story is the way they seemed to wall up the city and let it sink or swim on its own. Even the serum seemed to fall mostly on the city’s shoulders, though they did get some assistance from the outside world. While I understand the need to quarantine, this just seemed very draconian. Fortunately, today we understand diseases and human responses better and can find policies that are fairer to those affected. Still, a pandemic makes us consider our belief in God and how we can reconcile the suffering of people with the will/presence of God. We consider how best to spend our (perhaps limited) time and resources. And we think about how to keep our heads in the face of the daily experience of death.
Today, there is more of a balance with making sure that the general public is safe and treating the infected or suspected cases. In the Ebola outbreak, physicians from around the world, governments and multilateral and nongovernmental organizations all went to help – albeit not always as efficiently as possible. For COVID, we cheered first responders and cherished our health care providers. These epidemics inspired much more of a “we’re in this together” approach than a “wall them up and cut them off” approach of the book. Though even this goodwill faded – Ebola and COVID were used as a means to separate groups of people and those with different beliefs about the illness and it’s potential harm.
Another striking feature of the book that was a bit unrelatable to me was the relative calm in the face of thousands of diseased rats! If I found rats – particularly dying and bloody rats – in the hallway of my building or lining the street, they’d be able to hear me scream in the lobby four floors down. It’s one thing to see an individual rat or two, as one does in the city, but the scenario in the book was more than ghastly. Yet, people seemed to react in a “hey, can you believe all these rats” kind of way rather than a “HOLY $%#&, WHAT IS HAPPENING” kind of way! Maybe that’s just me, though ….
The Holocaust allegory was incredibly well done – often subtle but definitely there. The train packed with bodies going to the crematorium was particularly pointed, but the neighborhood segregation, neighbors calling authorities about neighbors, etc. were all effectively evocative. There was a point when the fear seemed to rob people of their humanity, which not only happened at the time of the Holocaust but at other times in human history.
One thing I found odd in the book was that the mortality rate was about 100%, which is seemed higher than it really should have been. However, the fictional disease may have been some combination of bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic plagues and so more lethal than in reality. It was a little off to me, though, as I read it, I think these discrepencies made me consider the storylines and the allegory more strongly than the disease … and after all, it’s really the human experience that should take priority over the numbers.
