The Plague
Thirty four years ago in China, I received a copy of the novel The Plague by Albert Camus from my then English Teacher, Mr Andrew Christy. Although I was only reading for pleasure at the time, the book left a deep impression on me even with my then limited English proficiency to appreciate the details and subtleties in the book. With the COVID-19 raging all over the world, the book again crossed my mind. Miraculously, I was able to locate the book on my bookshelf after all these years.
The Plague is a novel about a plague epidemic in the second largest Algerian city of Oran, which is today a major coastal city located in the north-west of Algeria. The book starts with thousands of rats staggering into the open and dying in the city. When people start to die after falling ill with a strange fever, it quickly becomes clear that the illness is the bubonic plague. Authorities has no choice but to place the city under a complete lockdown.
Quarantined from the outside world, Oran becomes a prison of death and disease, to which each character reacts in his or her own way. The book details the various human emotions and reactions including the fear, courage, calculation, and the intense longing for absent loved ones due to the sudden imprisonment. Different people react to the struggle in different ways. Some endeavor to escape Oran through illegal means, while others doggedly battle the death and suffering brought by the plague. Some even greet the plague epidemic with open arms because they no longer feel alone in the fearful suffering. As the plague continues for several months, many of Oran's citizens lose their selfish obsession with personal suffering. They come to recognize the plague as a collective disaster that is everyone's concern. They confront their social responsibility and join the anti-plague efforts. The inexplicable deaths of innocents also force people to choose between believing everything and believing nothing about God.
At the conclusion of the book, Dr. Rieux watches families and lovers reunite when the gates of Oran are finally opened. He wonders – in the wake of so much suffering and pointless struggle – whether there can be peace of mind or fulfillment without hope, and concludes that yes, perhaps there can, for those “who knew now that if there is one thing one can always yearn for, and sometimes attain, it is human love”.
As one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century, Albert Camus described human’s confrontation with death so vividly and on such an epic scale in The Plague. Ironically, Camus met his own end in a road accident at the young age of 46, not before he was recognized with the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44 in 1957.
In a way, the human reactions in Oran are not different from all the stories we read about the current COVID-19 epidemic. On the one hand, we have seen doctors and nurses from all over the world who know the risks and still, bravely do whatever is needed to help others in the fight. At the same time, behind every major death toll statistics headline is a story begging to be heard of the hopelessness and despair of the tens of thousands of individuals and their loved ones.
I will close by sharing a painting by Spanish artist Juan Lucena. Posted by Yathong Lee on LinkedIn, the painting was done in honor of all the deceased grandparents of COVID-19 who were unable to say goodbye to their grandchildren. It is emotionally beautiful yet profoundly sad. Life is truly very fragile.
Enjoy life today, yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come.
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