This one has spoilers, guys! If you want to actually read this book don't read this post.
The Plague is by no means a funny book. It may provoke the occasional chuckle, but overall it gives you little reason to smile. For me, one of the most heart-wrenching scenes came with the death of Monsieur Othon's young son. The boy comes down with the plague and is clearly on the brink of death. This illness coincides with the finishing of Doctor Castel's anti-plague serum. Since it is a sure fact that the boy will die if nothing is done, Rieux and Castel decide to try the serum on him.
It doesn't work. The boy dies, but instead of dying the faster death that most plague victims must face his death is drawn out and incredibly painful. Castel, Father Paneloux, Rieux, and Tarrou all sit with him as he dies. They are horrified at the process, and especially by the idea that by giving him the serum they have drawn out his suffering. As the reader, I was horrified as well. Camus does not shy away from describing the boy's death. He goes to great lengths to describe how the boy's "lips parted and from them rose a long, incessant scream, hardly varying with his respiration, and filling the ward with a fierce, indignant protest" (194). That picture is at once terrifying and heartbreaking, and the fact that the boy dies soon after did little to help.
I also found myself incredibly moved by the reactions of Father Paneloux, Tarrou, and the two doctors. Paneloux falls to his knees and prays that God might spare the child more suffering. However, the child's screams drown him out. I found that particularly symbolic - one person's prayers and good intentions can do little to help someone in so much pain. Rieux, on the other hand, quietly internalizes his misery and exhaustion until it explodes out of him. After the boy's death, he grows angry; with himself, with Father Paneloux, with the world. I can understand his distress. Even as a very capable doctor, there was nothing he could do for this one suffering child. Of course he had seen children die before, but he had never sat with them as they twisted and screamed and eventually just faded away. That experience, I think, drives him a little bit mad.
While the other characters are distressed as well, I found Rieux's and Paneloux's reactions the most moving. Both illustrate the helplessness the characters feel as the things they believe in fail them. Father Paneloux is a highly religious man, but his prayers fail to have any effect and he is understandably upset by that. Rieux, on the other hand, is a man of science. When all of his doctoring can do nothing to help the child, he grows disillusioned. The confusion that they both feel illustrated perfectly the feeling of helplessness that seemed to have taken over the town.
I think you have captured the question of the book -- what can we have faith in? When terrible things happen, how will our cries be answered? I think Camus pushes us to ask this question of ourselves.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow in Julian's Coming of Age class at church, they are talking about the meaning of faith. Can we only have faith in God or science? What about faith in love and humanity -- that people are basically good?
I'm glad you chose this book to read, and that you shared it with us!
These questions that you pose are ones that seem to be addressed throughout the history of literature. We just finished reading Frankenstein in Brit Lit, and while I disliked the book overall it did raise some interesting moral questions that are reminiscent of yours. While I like the idea of having faith in love and humanity, for that to work you must assume that people are basically good. This is one of the questions that was raised in Frankenstein. I definitely agree that Camus pushes us to question what we can have faith in, which is something that I admire about his writing. I think that if we're asking questions like these he's gotten his point across.
DeleteI read your blog and have decided against reading the book. It sounds much too grim for me.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I will bring you a book that I've just finished called Death in the City of Light by David King. Albert Camus is referenced about ten times. The story is a true crime of a serial killer in Paris in 1943/1944 during WWII's German occupation. (I can tolerate grim, but not relating to children) It is an intriguing book but may not be to your liking. But I think you will find the Camus connection interesting
Camus was a journalist on the resistance paper, Combat, and his books, The Stranger and The Plague were published about this time.
I read your blog and have decided against reading the book. It sounds much too grim for me.
However, I will bring you a book that I've just finished called Death in the City of Light by David King. Albert Camus is referenced about ten times. The story is a true crime of a serial killer in Paris in 1943/1944 during WWII's German occupation. (I can tolerate grim, but not relating to children) It is an intriguing book but may not be to your liking. But I think you will find the Camus connection interesting
Camus was a journalist on the resistance paper, Combat, and his books, The Stranger and The Plague were published about this time.
I read your blog and have decided against reading the book. It sounds much too grim for me.
However, I will bring you a book that I've just finished called Death in the City of Light by David King. Albert Camus is referenced about ten times. The story is a true crime of a serial killer in Paris in 1943/1944 during WWII's German occupation. (I can tolerate grim, but not relating to children) It is an intriguing book but may not be to your liking. But I think you will find the Camus connection interesting
Camus was a journalist on the resistance paper, Combat, and his books, The Stranger and The Plague were published about this time.
I read your blog and have decided against reading the book. It sounds much too grim for me.
However, I will bring you a book that I've just finished called Death in the City of Light by David King. Albert Camus is referenced about ten times. The story is a true crime of a serial killer in Paris in 1943/1944 during WWII's German occupation. (I can tolerate grim, but not relating to children) It is an intriguing book but may not be to your liking. But I think you will find the Camus connection interesting
Camus was a journalist on the resistance paper, Combat, and his books, The Stranger and The Plague were published about this time.
Yeah, I don't know if The Plague is quite your style. The one you recommend sounds really interesting though! I'll have to check it out. I like that it has the Camus connections in it - what a coincidence!
DeleteIronic that Jan Cox says a book is too grim. You should ask her about "Aztec"!
DeleteOops! I walked Mom through copying & pasting from Word into the blog, but some Word mysteries introduced multiple copies. But you get the gist.
ReplyDeleteI get the gist several times over.
DeleteThe Plague was certainly one of the most devastating events in middle human history. It is particularly fascinating to watch in retrospect how humans and society react to devastation. The plague spread through trade route, affecting almost all major cities, yet when the plague reached small towns, many inhabitants would move to the city to find holy relief from the plague, which only furthered the plague and the suffering of thousands. In The Plague you talk of how the doctor looked for the cure, yet he ended up he only worsening the plague. Perhaps this shows that as humans, when faced with devastation, we seek a way out of it, yet often blindly, we only dig ourself deeper into our suffer.
ReplyDeleteI do think the way humans react to disasters is quite interesting. It does seem ironic that people tend to hurt themselves even as they try to make things better. Take after WWII for example: the reparations forced on Germany were meant to help improve things in the rest of Europe, but they had such a devastating effect in Germany that the people turned to Hitler for leadership. While the reparations were likely not filled with good intentions (the Allies wanted revenge, after all) it definitely exemplifies what you were talking about with retrospect.
DeleteP.S. The trivia you know about the plague is endlessly fascinating to me.