The Plague - Downstairs Office

304 pages

Published Sept. 3, 1998 by Penguin Books Ltd.

ISBN:: 978-0-14-027851-4

The Plague (French: La Peste) is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition. The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to show the effects the plague has on a populace.

77 editions

Richard M reviewed The Plague by Albert Camus (Modern library college editions)

Perhaps too real

4 stars

I started reading this nearly a year ago and it was just moving so slowly and perhaps was too reminiscent of real quarantines that we experienced just a couple years back.

This is one of the hardest books I've fought my way through in recent memory, but I think that's largely me, and covid that have made this difficult.

It's well written and definitely conveys much of the feel of a city shut down as happened in 2020, decades after it was written.

The characters are well described and motivations, such as they exist, are also outlined well. Some people break down, perhaps not just the weak. Situations like this where control is absent, the end is unpredictable for many.

Characters die, for no particular rhyme or reason, just as happens in life.

I'm not clear on why the narrator's voice was a big secret …

I started reading this nearly a year ago and it was just moving so slowly and perhaps was too reminiscent of real quarantines that we experienced just a couple years back.

This is one of the hardest books I've fought my way through in recent memory, but I think that's largely me, and covid that have made this difficult.

It's well written and definitely conveys much of the feel of a city shut down as happened in 2020, decades after it was written.

The characters are well described and motivations, such as they exist, are also outlined well. Some people break down, perhaps not just the weak. Situations like this where control is absent, the end is unpredictable for many.

Characters die, for no particular rhyme or reason, just as happens in life.

I'm not clear on why the narrator's voice was a big secret throughout. While I didn't guess, the answer makes sense, though any other surviving character would make sense as well.