Camus' masterpiece "The Plague," a sharp portrayal of the inner life of a human being faced with absurdity.
I would like to introduce a work titled "The Plague" published in 1947 by the French writer Camus (1913-60). I read the Shinchosha edition of "The Plague".
Let's take a quick look at the book.
When it was announced, it was greeted with explosive enthusiasm,
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This is Camus' second novel, following The Gentiles.
One morning in the city of Oran, Algeria, doctor Liou discovers several dead rats. This is followed by an outbreak of unexplained febrile illnesses and an outbreak of the plague. In this feature-length film, the citizens of the city, isolated and cut off from the outside world, struggle desperately against "evil" in a straightforward, chronicle-like fashion, and the various aspects of human nature when confronted with the "absurdity" that undermines humanity, as well as their experiences in the Nazi struggle that has just passed, are allegorically depicted in a manner that has evoked overwhelming sympathy.
This work has recently made headlines in Japan due to the Corona disaster.
Camus' masterpiece, "The Plague," originally occupied an overwhelming position worldwide as a masterpiece, but the Corona Disaster brought it back into the limelight, and it seems to have sold so well that bookstores ran out of copies.
I have previously written in this blog about the "plague" and how the Russian national poet Pushkin'sThe Sake Moruri during the Plague Epidemic."The work was called
I wrote the above article thinking that if Camus' "The Plague" was popular, I would like to see this one spread as well, but the bottom line is that I had never read any of Camus' works. There was no particular reason, but I somehow put it off and put it off until now.
However, one book has inspired me to read this book. That is Tony Judd's, which I have previously mentioned on this blog.A European Postwar History.It was.
In this book about the history of postwar Europe, Tony Judt had this to say
Albert Camus - who had briefly joined the Communist Party in Algeria in the 1930s and left soon after - like many of his contemporaries after the war, was a communist, socialist, and radical reformist of various persuasions. He had become a staunch adherent of the Coalition of Resistance. He wrote in Algiers in March 1944 - "Anti-Communism is the beginning of dictatorship."
Misuzu Shobo, Tony Judt, translated by M. Morimoto, Postwar History of Europe, vol. 1, p. 282
Camus had joined the Communist Party as a young man, and after the war he became "a staunch believer in a coalition of communists, socialists, and radical reformists of various stripes in the resistance. However, despite this, Camus gradually distanced himself from such radical ideas and communist thinking.
Camus first had his doubts during the postwar trials and purges in France, when the Communist Party, the very party of the resistance, took a hard line and called for the banishment, imprisonment, or execution of thousands of real or imagined "collaborators."
Thus, as the arteries of political and ideological loyalty began to harden beginning in 1947, Camus found himself increasingly suspicious of the good beliefs held by his political allies - these suspicions he had initially crushed out of habit and in the interest of unity.
He had stepped down from presiding over the Comba in June 1942, but it was no longer possible to have the political certainty and optimism of the previous three years.
In his major work "Pest" (translated by Mineo Miyazaki, "The Complete Works of Camus" 4, Shinchosha), published in the same year, Camus clearly did not appreciate the hard political realism of his political bedfellow.
He borrows a line from one of his characters, Tarroux: "I have decided to reject everything that causes or justifies death, directly or indirectly, for good or bad reasons.
Misuzu Shobo, Tony Judt, translated by M. Morimoto, Postwar History of Europe, vol. 1, p. 282
Some line breaks have been made.
I thought "The Plague" was a novel about the panic of an infectious disease, but when I heard Tony Judt say this, I understood that it was not simply that kind of story.
Just now I am studying the history of the Cold War period. I learned from this book that this work by Camus plays an important role in understanding the current of thought at the time.
So, "If you want to read it, now is the time!" and decided to pick up this book.
Now let's look at the book again.
One morning in the city of Oran, Algeria, doctor Liou discovers several dead rats. Then a series of unexplained febrile illnesses and an outbreak of plague. In this feature-length film, the citizens of the city, isolated and cut off from the outside world, struggle desperately against "evil" in a straightforward, chronicle-like style, and the various aspects of human nature when confronted with the "absurdity" that undermines humanity, as well as their experiences in the Nazi struggle that has just passed, are allegorically depicted in a way that evokes overwhelming sympathy.
Shinchosha, Camus, translated by Mineo Miyazaki, Plague, 2020, 96th printing, back cover
The setting is the city of Oran, Algeria.
Then one day, dead rats suddenly begin to flood the streets. Then, amidst a sense of foreboding, a mysterious disease begins to spread.
Soon, the mysterious disease turns out to be the plague and the town is quarantined in an emergency. The film, centered on the main character Liou, a doctor, depicts how people live in the extreme conditions caused by the plague.
The translator's commentary at the end of the book describes this work as follows. It is a bit long, but it explains the charm of this work in an easy-to-understand way.
La Peste (The Plague), Camus' second novel after The Gentiles, was published in June 1942. And although there had been expectations since "The Gentiles," the explosive enthusiasm that greeted this work is said to have been the wonder of recent years in the French literary world. When it was awarded the "Critics' Prize" within a few days of its publication, there were even people who said with loathing, "This will make this prize famous.
Moreover, this work has very few elements that appeal strongly to the imagination or emotions, as is usually the case with successful works, but rather appeals mainly to the brain. What is the reason for the explosive success of this work, which would normally be difficult for the average reader to grasp?
This is because, according to Camus scholar Albert Maquet, the work's concise realism has a very clear symbolism from various angles, and each reader can find in it something that satisfies his or her immediate interests.
Well, that is certainly the first and most important reason. In this story, which takes the form of a record of a group of citizens fighting against a plague in a city completely cut off from the outside world, the blight of the plague can be perceived as a symbol of all kinds of life's evils.
One can substitute for it the fundamental absurdities of life, such as death, disease, and pain, or one can find in it symbols of internal human vices and weaknesses, or of political evils such as poverty, war, and totalitarianism. This is certainly how the work is written, and above all, the vivid experience of the war that has just ended makes the symbols so powerful that they hardly seem symbolic to the reader, which is undoubtedly the reason for its great success.
However, it should not be overlooked that Camus' stylistic charm, cultivated through extraordinary literary training, also played a major role.
This compressed, clean style of writing is at first glance very objective and unaffectedly descriptive, but behind its brevity, the beauty of restrained emotion is everywhere, as if it were shyly lurking.
For example, the life of an old bailiff, Gran, is told in simple strokes and without any qualifications, but the beauty of the hearts of the narrator and the person being told the story is conveyed to the reader's heart as if a deep impression is being felt. It is thought that there has never been an author with such a beautiful style of writing that can convey the subtle feeling of heart to heart contact.
The nature of the work is different, but this is an early essay andThe Gentiles.This is a characteristic of his writing style not seen in his previous works, and it is here that we can see his great growth as a writer. It is not an unfair result that he has become a world-class writer all at once with this one work, and his recent popularity can be attributed in no small part to the clean beauty of his writing style.
Shinchosha, Camus, translated by Mineo Miyazaki, Plague, 2020, 96th printing, p. 463-465.
My impression of this book is,I think the disease of the plague is just "the setting for this work.This was the case.
As I mentioned earlier, I had assumed it was about the havoc wreaked by the plague, but as I read it, I didn't get much of that vibe. It is quite unaffected.
Of course, the harrowing illness and death from the plague will also be told. The sense of entrapment and despair of the quarantined city is also told.
The spectacular death of a child in the middle of the film is particularly horrifying.
However, it seemed to me that the death of this child was also depicted as an opportunity to portray the inner life of the doctors, priests, and other relatives who were involved with him.
The problem is not a plague-induced disaster.
Rather, it is about how people face the absurdity that suddenly strikes them.
You can read more about this in the commentary at the end of the book, and I am sure that if you actually read the book you will get that.
I will not discuss that specifically in this article, but the work also gives us a sense of what Camus was feeling in the unstable postwar world situation.
It seemed to me to contain the antithesis of Nazi and Stalin's totalitarian "all is forgiven for the sake of an ideal" philosophy.
And one last thing.
My strongest impression of this work.
It was, "What did other people feel when they read this book?
The Corona Disaster put this book in the hands of an amazingly large number of people. There was news that the number of copies in circulation exceeded one million.
I am sure that the book sold well because of the parallels between Corona and the plague, but I am sure that the story was not what many people imagined it to be. This book is not simply a panic play about a city quarantined by a plague epidemic. As I have said, "The Plague" is a work that questions the human psyche and how we should live relative to absurdity.
If so, at least nearly one million people who would have picked this up would have been confronted with these questions.
I am sure that each of us will have our own answer that we will come up with. There must be a million different answers.
Through this work, Camus attempted to raise the issue of man and absurdity. What will we feel and how will we live our lives after reading this work?
The other day, a clerk at the Starbucks I always go to said to me, "You read 'The Plague' the other day. I like it too". I wish I could have immediately asked, "What do you like about it?" I wish I could have immediately asked her, "What do you like about it?
However, I am sure that there must be something that comes to each of us like this shopkeeper. The most important thought that came to my mind was that I would like to hear what it is. What did people think when they read this? That's it.
I could not say much about the contents of the book, but I would like to encourage those who have not yet read the book to pick up a copy. If you haven't read the book yet, I hope you will pick up a copy and let us know what you think.
The above is a summary of Camus' "The Plague" - a masterpiece that sharply portrays the inner life of a human being faced with absurdity.
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