The Guardian reports:
…the global threat of the coronavirus is sending today’s readers towards novels about epidemics in droves. Publishers around the world are reporting booming sales of books including La Peste (or The Plague by Albert Camus), as well as Stephen King’s The Stand and Dean Koontz’s “frighteningly relevant” The Eyes of Darkness, which has become the subject of conspiracy theories online owing to its prescience.
…Camus’s The Plague follows the inhabitants of Oran, an Algerian town that is sealed off by quarantine as it is ravaged by bubonic plague. Penguin is rushing through a reprint of its English translation to meet demand, but said on Thursday it had sold out of stock on Amazon. The publisher added that sales in the last week of February were up by 150% on the same period in 2019.
Sales of the book have tripled in Italy, reported the literary magazine ActuaLitté, putting it in the country’s top 10 bestsellers. Sales of The Plague have also risen sharply in France, according to the French books statistics website Edistat, peaking at more than 1,600 copies sold in the last week of January – an increase of around 300% on the previous year.
Yvette Huddleston in the Yorkshire Post notes about The Plague/La Peste:
It is a profound examination of the human condition, containing stark warnings about what happens if we lose sight of our common humanity while at the same time demonstrating what can be achieved through small acts of kindness and consideration when we work together as a caring community. As with all good novels, it encourages empathy, something the world needs a lot more of right now.
There is another plague raging across Europe – the rise of right-wing populism, intolerance, xenophobia and racism which we must guard against. As Camus wrote in La Peste: “What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves.” Let’s hope that proves to be true.
This is personal for me. When I was seventeen, I spent two years studying “La Peste”, including writing detailed pencil margin notes in the original French text and writing endless essays about it.
I am delighted that it is undergoing a renaissance. Ultimately I found it a charming and quite cheerful book – which is surprising since nearly everyone died in the most horrible, fetid, rat-infested conditions. It is often quoted as an allegory for the Nazi occupation of France, which indeed it was. But it was also an allegory for several other things, most notably “L’absurde” or the absurd. This was more strongly featured in Camus’ book “L’Étranger” (which I also had to read – though it is mercifully short). My paraphrase of this is that basically life is pointless so we may as well enjoy what we do and are. Er…that’s it.
Forty three years after I studied the book, my abiding memory is of a character called Joseph Grand. He was a government functionary who had trouble putting things into words, and his marriage had dissolved as a result. Ultimately he volunteered to help the suffering in the city, and contracted the disease himself (but recovered). But he provided an element of comedy in the book. He kept popping up with his idea for a book. But he was so nervous about his choice of words that he only got as far as the first sentence. He says:
I grant you it’s easy enough to choose between a ‘but’ and an ‘and.’ It’s a bit more difficult to decide between ‘and’ and ‘then.’ But definitely the hardest thing may be to know whether one should put an ‘and’ or leave it out.
Joseph Grand was determined to make sure that the book manuscript would be perfect and would result in a potential publisher reading it and immediately jumping to his feet and declaring at the top of his voice:
Gentlemen, hats off!
This still makes me laugh 43 years later. Though, of course, the poor fellow died of the plague before even his first sentence could be seen by a publisher. That’s “L’Absurde” for you, I suppose.
By the way, I’d like to thank my French teacher, Mr Baker, whose cheerful demeanour helped me to get through this tome!
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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21 Comments
Ah…………. Albert Camus. Thanks for that Paul. A great but complicated man and a hero of the French Resistance.
“Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football (soccer).” Camus Number 1. A pal of mine used to wear the Camus T shirt with the quote when we used to watch the mighty Terriers at Hudders.
Albert Camus – Interview About Football (English … – YouTubewww.youtube.com › watch
Video for youtube albert camus football▶ 1:13
30 Jan 2018 – Uploaded by Videos of Football
Rare footage of Albert Camus speaking about football the year that he won The Nobel Prize in Literature …
Thank you, David. That’s lovely!
I could make a career out of being blue/I could dress in black and read Camus
Magnetic Fields.
Daniel Defoes Journal of the Plague Year is another excellent book well worth reading at any time but especially relevant today.
I have never read Camus but can appreciate the wisdom of any man who says “Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football (soccer).”
Here is a pub quiz question for everyone except David Raw. Who was the fist English club to win the forerunner to the premier league title three times in a row?
Oooooooooooooh to be, Ooooooooooh to be a……………………….
not Brentford, Joe.
Paul, you beat me to it. When I was a student I went on series of weekends away organised by a religious community I belonged to (they were both thought provoking and fun). On one of the them a friend had brought The Plague to read. It wasn’t on his curriculum – he was an law student intent on becoming a Chartered Accountant. I still haven’t read it, though I have grasped a little about it. It came to mind as the Covid-19 situation developed.
……………….On a lighter note, a 73 year-old French book is flying off the shelves……….
On an even lighter note; it won’t be available in the US as DT has banned all flights from Europe…
BOOM, BOOM!
No, Not Brentford David. The Bees did have a good run in the 1930s with three consecutive top-six finishes. The best finish was fifth place in 1935-36 finishing ahead of the FA Cup winners Arsenal (who came in in sixth place) to become the top club in London; 2 points behind Huddersfield in 3rd place that year and 10 points behind the winners – Sunderland.
Brentford’s odds of promotion to the premier league are 5/4 at the moment, albeit via the play-offs. The club is heading back to the top flight one way or the other. If not this season, the next. A bit like the LibDems reaally – down but not out.
I always found this chilling. Manchuria 1910
Does this sound familiar
“As a result of the plague in Manchuria, trade and commerce – especially the fur and food trades – were greatly affected. One newspaper, commenting on the soybean trade, stated that ‘the plague caused a loss estimated at $7,000,000’ Chinese silver dollars.Furthermore, the plague brought additional economic consequences. One financial newspaper documented the depressing influence of the plague on Chinese stock prices and government bond prices, demonstrating its impact on China’s economy.”
Grand doesn’t die, surely? I’ve not read it since school, but it has ‘prepared me, in a way, for today.
One quote that’s stuck with me all these years:
‘Il y a dans les hommes plus de choses à admirer que de choses à mépriser.
There are more things to admire in man than there are things to despise.
I’ve recently developed a great interest in philosophy, although I already knew about Camus and so just thought that he must’ve been very consequential in the field of philosophy and its history. Turns out, as I delved deeper into philosophy and my understanding grew, I found out that this guy is just an introductory text, nowhere near as profound or important as his contemporaries like Sartre, Wittgenstein etc. He’s sort of like that chap you meet at the entrance to a great building, the man who opens the door for you, the door to the building of philosophy, where you meet the real and profound thinkers like Spinoza, Hegel, Berkeley, Plato etc.
Cassie
“Grand doesn’t die, surely”
You are quite right Cassie. He contracted the disease but recovered. I have corrected my text above. My 43 year old memory playing tricks!
Cassie
“One quote that’s stuck with me all these years:
‘Il y a dans les hommes plus de choses à admirer que de choses à mépriser.
There are more things to admire in man than there are things to despise.”
Yes, a great line which perhaps sums up the uplifting nature of the book.
Yousuf:
“…nowhere near as profound or important as his contemporaries like Sartre, Wittgenstein etc. He’s sort of like that chap you meet at the entrance to a great building, the man who opens the door for you, the door to the building of philosophy, where you meet the real and profound thinkers like Spinoza, Hegel, Berkeley, Plato etc.”
Absolutely right, Yousuf. He is a sort of light introduction. “L’Étranger” is supposed to be about existentialism but Camus disavowed the label. Of course, he was very good friends with Sartre. They both frequented the same cafes in Paris together such as Les Deux Magots and Cafe de Flore. And of course, Sartre read a eulogy to Camus at his funeral.
‘Il y a dans les hommes plus de choses à admirer que de choses à mépriser….. There are more things to admire in man than there are things to despise.”
D’accord……. Reminiscent of dear Jo Cox’s maiden speech, “We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”
Appropriate in more ways than one at the present time. Given taking a bit of time out to self isolate, might get round to reading Russell on him again.
I also read La Peste at seventeen (French A Level).
One quotation has remained with me since: ‘For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment of human suffering’. I have always remembered it particularly in the context of the suffering of children.
You could also read ‘A Diary of the Plague Year’ by Daniel Defoe.
Paul and Yousuf:
“…nowhere near as profound or important as his contemporaries like Sartre, Wittgenstein etc”.
I strongly disagree. Admittedly, Sartre has a capacity for self-important complexity, but the more effort you take, the emptier it gets. I was delighted to discover Clive James’s take on Sartre and Camus because he articulated my feelings about them. They were profoundly different people and I have little doubt that history will prefer Camus – along with every other serious human being who reads them both. For a philosophy, let me recommend Camus’s speeches around the Nobel Prize, particularly the ones that deal with Algeria. Or his essays written during the occupation, when Sartre was opining meretriciously in his cafe corner.
If Camus had lived into the sixties – and added a bit of Trotskyite leanings to his anarcho-syndicalism – he could have joined U.L.S. or N.L.Y.L..