As the title suggests, The Plague is about just that – a four-part novel about a sickness afflicting the French-Algerian town of Oran, and the resulting lockdown that takes place (sound familiar?). Part I was a bit slow, but it’s needed, because Parts II-IV really ramp up in both story and overall tone. Part III was probably my favorite – there were some beautifully written passages, and it is here that I really started to sympathize with the characters in what they were going through.
An interesting note on tone: while the town goes through the horrors of the plague, the unknown narrator takes on quite a calm voice, an interesting choice by Camus. But I think it helped to understand the narrator better – for example, in the absolute depths of the plague, when the town had to burn bodies instead of hosting funerals (due to the sheer volume of deaths each day), the narrator essentially keep their cool when in the depths of it all – but it stuck out to me as more of a defense mechanism than indifference:
“True, one could always refuse to face this disagreeable fact, shut one's eyes to it, or thrust it out of mind, but there is a terrible cogency in the self-evident; ultimately it breaks down all defenses.”
It's a dense book, and while it may seem like there is a lot of filler in the novel, it is necessary to understand each of the characters, as this book is just as much of a character analysis as it is a novel. As such, the plot will take a backseat at times to go in detail of what characters are thinking, feeling, and how they are reacting to the events unfurling around them – something that I did not appreciate until I finished the novel.
The primary reason for reading this play was to complete what Albert Camus termed ‘The Cycle of the Absurd,’ a trio consisting of The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, and Caligula. In this play, the Roman Emperor Caligula, after the death of his sister Drusilla, essentially goes mad and makes life a living hell for all of his constituents. This is the side of Caligula that those invested in Roman history are familiar with. But, in Camus’ version of events, Caligula suddenly obsesses over the impossible, wanting to “transcend God” and “truly be free” (it is truly unhinged behavior).
On the actual play: it wasn’t bad. It was definitely more violent than I expected (I guess I really shouldn’t have been surprised; the play is called Caligula after all). A good number of scenes are just Caligula getting someone to admit they should die, often through some faulty logic. There are interesting conversations happen between Caligula and Scipio, who seems to give Caligula a taste of his own medicine. This play probably had the most on-the-nose absurdist imagery, as there really is no plot to the play itself, it’s just a series of scenes used for philosophical debate.
What I did love was realizing the imagery in all of these works were connected. Caligula is obsessed with the impossible, as seen in the task he assigns one of his patrician: he wants the moon. In The Stranger, Meursault was obsessed with the sun, and of course Sisyphus had his boulder. Whether intentional or not, I was enamored by the symbolism provided by these three natural elements (sun, rock, and moon).
“ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That's what you think.”
Although this play was famously described as one in which “nothing happens, twice,” any book or work that plays with the concept of time always piques my interest (this isn’t exclusive to time-travel). Time and memory are a large part in this play, but without spoiling, it only really works when you put together both acts. Act I was a bit boring, though it had some pretty funny dialogue, but reading the second half with the knowledge of the first half is a treat, because I wasn’t quite sure what to believe.
Quick sidenote: plays are meant to be seen in person, though, so I have a feeling that seeing this performed live (especially with Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart) would turn this into a five-star play.
As a quick summary: the two titular characters, Estragon and Vladimir, are waiting for Godot, who is supposed to arrive soon. That’s all you need to know going into the play. With lots of references to absurdism and religion, you can really study this play as much as you want. On the surface level it works fine, and the conversations are actually pretty funny and witty, but as you read more into the dialogue and characters, you can really have fun with analyzing and speculating on what is truly going on.
“The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.”
"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
It would be unfair to give this anything less than four stars, even though at times it felt like a three-star read. But that would be my own fault, since Camus pretty much assumes you know a good amount of many philosophers before him. Does this mean the book is not worth reading? I certainly don’t think so. I just knew that I needed to have my phone at the ready to get a quick history lesson in case Camus name-dropped someone nonchalantly.
As far as content, though, it really does an excellent job of getting to the point (eventually). By that, I mean I would find myself reading a few pages, wondering where things were heading, only for it to all click at a later point in time. The first section and the last section were probably my favorite, with being a little drier in the middle. Overall though, a great read to get to the core of Camus’ ideas, and the best way (other than maybe reading The Stranger) to understand absurdism at its core.
It seems odd to review The Stranger only now, since I finished this book months ago. But this review has been sitting in a word document on my desktop this whole time, and all this time has helped me compile and organize my thoughts. In my review of Kafka’s The Trial, I mentioned how the absurdity lies mainly within the relationship between the main character and the elusive governing body that is accusing him. In The Stranger, it seems like the absurdity now exists between the main character, Meursault, and a plethora of social norms, all portrayed by different characters. Death (his mother), marriage (Marie), friendships (Raymond, Salamano, Masson), and religion (the pastor) are all life experiences that Meursault is confronted with. And what I saw a lot of in The Stranger was Meursault’s conflict with a society who viewed him as someone who did not abide by these norms.
But I even hesitate to call this a conflict, because Meursault seems at peace with himself throughout the book. Maybe it’s one sided? He may be scared or upset sometimes, but he never doubts what he believes. And this (to me) is the main theme of the book and Camus’s philosophy – Meursault is ‘free’ in this sense, and by accepting that these different experiences are meaningless to him, he is not bound to any sort of ground truth (by religion or other means) and is free to create his own meaning in his life.
This sounds great, but this line of thinking doesn’t come without conflict. The other characters do not share his views, and the conversations between Meursault and the pastor (one of the best dialogues I’ve read) perfectly exemplifies this. The pastor seems to be saying what everyone around him was thinking when presented with Meursault’s odd way of life.
This was one of my favorite books this year, and I would recommend to anyone wanting to either step more into the philosophical side of fiction or just read a modern(ish?) classic without being intimidated by a large page count.
I’m still collecting my thoughts on one of my favorite books this year, Albert Camus’ The Stranger (and hopefully I’ll post them sometime next week), but in the meantime, it might be appropriate to comment on The Trial by Franz Kafka – one of the earliest pieces of absurdist literature. And this book certainly fit the bill – there was no shortage of odd and sometimes creepy situations for the main character, Joseph K. (referred to as K. throughout the book).
While The Trial does hold its rightful place in absurdist fiction, I argue it’s also a great authoritarian novel as well. George Orwell’s 1984 may be the quintessential work of that genre, but The Trial tends to focus less so on the large-scale dystopian/totalitarian society in 1984, and places more emphasis on the asymmetric/authoritarian relationship between K. and the Court that is accusing him. And it’s this Court that he is consistently trying to understand.
Even though this book is certainly dense in some parts (I’m suddenly reminded that K. goes on a 16-page internal tirade against his accusers and the systems that allow it), the ending chapter seems to occur fairly abruptly. The main plot cedes, but there are some loose ends. Throughout the book, K. has riveting conversations with other characters such as his lawyer, a whipper, a painter, a tradesman, and lastly a preacher (side note: a great parallel to The Stranger), but there really seems to be no convergence or closure of these side character plot lines.
However, these issues are likely there because Kafka never actually finished this book, and it wasn’t even published until after his death. It certainly doesn’t ruin the experience, just leaves you wanting a bit more. But even though we will never have the full book, The Trial is 100% worth the read.
