11 ms·

What we can learn from Camus’s “The Plague”

81 points by lermontov 7y ago

jonstewart 7y ago
I read this in college 20 years ago, and understood it as an allegory of existentialism (which it is). I’ve been thinking A LOT about it the last few weeks. Worth a read, but not for the faint of heart.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- eecc 7y ago
  Wasn’t it allegory of Nazi occupation? That’s how I understood it, might be off
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    This is the most common attribution, yes.
    - throwaway4787 7y ago
      The last time I read it (admittedly more than a decade ago) it had a preface where Camus literally admitted as such.
  - jonstewart 7y ago
    In part, yes. Good books aren’t limited to a single interpretation though. How I read it, the plague is unexplained, an uncaring force without direction or animus, and can be interpreted as a symbol both for death itself as well as the consequent meaninglessness of life. The book not only treats how society and individuals react to this existential crisis, but also how an individual (Rieux, the protagonist) _should_ react. Faced with overwhelming despair, Rieux continues to treat his patients.
- finaliteration 7y ago
  Camus actively rejected labeling his work as “existentialism”. It only frequently gets lumped into that category because of his relationship/friendship with Sartre and de Beauvoir and because some of his work contains existentialist-like themes. He was more accepting of the term “absurdism” for his work. But his work never fully aligned with existentialist thought. “The Plague” is typically read as an allegory of the French resistance to the Nazi invasion and occupation of France, and an analysis of the relationship that humans have with authoritarianism, fascism, and how we can either help or hurt each other in times of crisis. Camus was also a humanist and believed that people were more good than evil (which he comments on in “The Plague”). Source: I got my university degree in Philosophy and Camus was my main subject of interest/study for a number of years (and continues to be even now).
  - DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
    this is just fascinating for me since I picked up The Stranger last week and am mesmerized by his writing style. The Plague is now next on my list. I don't want to compare him with others since he very much has a distinct & brilliant style (short crisp and far from pretentious - sentences are clear and appeal to uneducated riffraff like myself - think I have seen this also in Orwell and Hemingway). The feelings and emotions he raises in me are nevertheless similar to those I get when reading Kafka and Dostoevsky. Truly amazing being in this man's head. I only regret not having picked up his work sooner.
    - tpfour 7y ago
      I read it in French and these words will forever live in my soul: Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. I found his writing style exquisite. He got me "in the zone" after one sentence.
    - antognini 7y ago
      It's worth noting that Camus consciously adopted an "American" literary style in The Stranger which was modeled off of authors like Hemingway.
    - 7y ago
- jonstewart 7y ago
  This gets downvotes?
  - downerending 7y ago
    Our crowd can be a snippy bunch sometimes.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
arcticbull 7y ago
Fair, although I think we need to remember in difficult times like this that: - The plague killed 50-100% of people who got it depending on which kind of plague you got (bubonic, pneumonic or septicemic) whereas while nCoV rates are still TBD we're probably looking at an upper bound closer to half a percent, or 3-4 order of magnitude lower. - The average age of folks who've died of nCoV so far in Italy is 80 and in China the mid-high 70s. - The plague took everyone whereas the young and healthy are effectively going to get a (sometimes very, very) bad cold out of nCoV. The younger they are, the less affected. I think out of the hundreds of thousands of cases we know about so far only a single child has died -- and they had serious medical conditions going in. Currently the CFR in Korea and in the USA for people under 30 is less than 0.1%. Perspective matters. It's easy to get swept up in the panic going on right now. Don't panic. Do listen to authorities and generally keep away from other folks. This will all be over in a few months. We'll mostly all get it, we'll overwhelmingly recover, and become immune. Chances are this is going to become one of the endemic viruses that shows up every year from now on. As panic sets in, if you've got some cash to invest in the markets and a long time horizon to draw on it, this may be the money making opportunity of a generation.
- jiggawatts 7y ago
  > This will all be over in a few weeks. Not likely. Many countries are still weeks away from the virus reaching the "oh-shit" numbers, effective lockdowns take weeks more, and then the whole thing is likely to reoccur at least once or twice in most places. This is going to make the entire year 2020 spicier than we would all like...
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Edited to reflect it'll probably be a few months. 2020 will be spicy.
  - ConsiderCrying 7y ago
    Which countries are closest to lifting the first lockdown? Italy is generating record death tolls every day but that could mean the pandemic will die down soon (pardon the phrasing.) I feel like that and Germany might see some improvement by the end of April, they've been taking things quite seriously.
Tade0 7y ago
"The Plauge" was one of the few books I've read during high school for a book report because I... fried my CPU and couldn't use my PC during spring break so, having nothing better to do, I sat down and read the whole thing. I could very much feel the loss of agency the characters had to endure, because computers were my whole world back then.
carapace 7y ago
"It may seem a ridiculous idea, but the only way to fight the plague is with decency." ~Camus
- sleazy_b 7y ago
  This was the great lesson of this book for me, and it is a constant inspiration to me.

81 points by lermontov 7y ago

I read this in college 20 years ago, and understood it as an allegory of existentialism (which it is). I’ve been thinking A LOT about it the last few weeks. Worth a read, but not for the faint of heart.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
eecc 7y ago
Wasn’t it allegory of Nazi occupation? That’s how I understood it, might be off
- arcticbull 7y ago
  This is the most common attribution, yes.
  - throwaway4787 7y ago
    The last time I read it (admittedly more than a decade ago) it had a preface where Camus literally admitted as such.
- jonstewart 7y ago
  In part, yes. Good books aren’t limited to a single interpretation though. How I read it, the plague is unexplained, an uncaring force without direction or animus, and can be interpreted as a symbol both for death itself as well as the consequent meaninglessness of life. The book not only treats how society and individuals react to this existential crisis, but also how an individual (Rieux, the protagonist) _should_ react. Faced with overwhelming despair, Rieux continues to treat his patients.
finaliteration 7y ago
Camus actively rejected labeling his work as “existentialism”. It only frequently gets lumped into that category because of his relationship/friendship with Sartre and de Beauvoir and because some of his work contains existentialist-like themes. He was more accepting of the term “absurdism” for his work. But his work never fully aligned with existentialist thought. “The Plague” is typically read as an allegory of the French resistance to the Nazi invasion and occupation of France, and an analysis of the relationship that humans have with authoritarianism, fascism, and how we can either help or hurt each other in times of crisis. Camus was also a humanist and believed that people were more good than evil (which he comments on in “The Plague”). Source: I got my university degree in Philosophy and Camus was my main subject of interest/study for a number of years (and continues to be even now).
- DyslexicAtheist 7y ago
  this is just fascinating for me since I picked up The Stranger last week and am mesmerized by his writing style. The Plague is now next on my list. I don't want to compare him with others since he very much has a distinct & brilliant style (short crisp and far from pretentious - sentences are clear and appeal to uneducated riffraff like myself - think I have seen this also in Orwell and Hemingway). The feelings and emotions he raises in me are nevertheless similar to those I get when reading Kafka and Dostoevsky. Truly amazing being in this man's head. I only regret not having picked up his work sooner.
  - tpfour 7y ago
    I read it in French and these words will forever live in my soul: Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. I found his writing style exquisite. He got me "in the zone" after one sentence.
  - antognini 7y ago
    It's worth noting that Camus consciously adopted an "American" literary style in The Stranger which was modeled off of authors like Hemingway.
  - 7y ago
jonstewart 7y ago
This gets downvotes?
- downerending 7y ago
  Our crowd can be a snippy bunch sometimes.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

arcticbull 7y ago

Fair, although I think we need to remember in difficult times like this that: - The plague killed 50-100% of people who got it depending on which kind of plague you got (bubonic, pneumonic or septicemic) whereas while nCoV rates are still TBD we're probably looking at an upper bound closer to half a percent, or 3-4 order of magnitude lower. - The average age of folks who've died of nCoV so far in Italy is 80 and in China the mid-high 70s. - The plague took everyone whereas the young and healthy are effectively going to get a (sometimes very, very) bad cold out of nCoV. The younger they are, the less affected. I think out of the hundreds of thousands of cases we know about so far only a single child has died -- and they had serious medical conditions going in. Currently the CFR in Korea and in the USA for people under 30 is less than 0.1%. Perspective matters. It's easy to get swept up in the panic going on right now. Don't panic. Do listen to authorities and generally keep away from other folks. This will all be over in a few months. We'll mostly all get it, we'll overwhelmingly recover, and become immune. Chances are this is going to become one of the endemic viruses that shows up every year from now on. As panic sets in, if you've got some cash to invest in the markets and a long time horizon to draw on it, this may be the money making opportunity of a generation.

jiggawatts 7y ago
> This will all be over in a few weeks. Not likely. Many countries are still weeks away from the virus reaching the "oh-shit" numbers, effective lockdowns take weeks more, and then the whole thing is likely to reoccur at least once or twice in most places. This is going to make the entire year 2020 spicier than we would all like...
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Edited to reflect it'll probably be a few months. 2020 will be spicy.
- ConsiderCrying 7y ago
  Which countries are closest to lifting the first lockdown? Italy is generating record death tolls every day but that could mean the pandemic will die down soon (pardon the phrasing.) I feel like that and Germany might see some improvement by the end of April, they've been taking things quite seriously.

Tade0 7y ago

"The Plauge" was one of the few books I've read during high school for a book report because I... fried my CPU and couldn't use my PC during spring break so, having nothing better to do, I sat down and read the whole thing. I could very much feel the loss of agency the characters had to endure, because computers were my whole world back then.

carapace 7y ago

"It may seem a ridiculous idea, but the only way to fight the plague is with decency." ~Camus

sleazy_b 7y ago
This was the great lesson of this book for me, and it is a constant inspiration to me.