I'm reading
The Plague. Here's the most interesting bit so far:
[T]he narrator is inclined to
think that by attributing overimportance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication,
be paying indirect but potent homage to the worse side of human nature. For this attitude
implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are
the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world
always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if
they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue;
the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and
therefore claims for itself the right to kill.
[...]
Those who enrolled in the "sanitary squads," as they were called, had, indeed, no
such great merit in doing as they did, since they knew it was the only thing to do, and the
unthinkable thing would then have been not to have brought themselves to do it. These
groups enabled our townsfolk to come to grips with the disease and convinced them that,
now that plague was among us, it was up to them to do whatever could be done to fight it.
Since plague became in this way some men's duty, it revealed itself as what it really was;
that is, the concern of all.
So far, so good. But we do not congratulate a schoolmaster on teaching that two
and two make four, though we may, perhaps, congratulate him on having chosen his
laudable vocation. Let us then say it was praiseworthy that Tarrou and so many others
should have elected to prove that two and two make four rather than the contrary; but let
us add that this good will of theirs was one that is shared by the schoolmaster and by all
who have the same feelings as the schoolmaster, and, be it said to the credit of mankind,
they are more numerous than one would think, such, anyhow, is the narrator's conviction.
Needless to say, he can see quite clearly a point that could be made against him, which is
that these men were risking their lives. But again and again there comes a time in history
when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death.
The schoolteacher is well aware of this. And the question is not one of knowing
what punishment or reward attends the making of this calculation. The question is that of
knowing whether two and two do make four. For those of our townsfolk who risked their
lives in this predicament the issue was whether or not plague was in their midst and
whether or not they must fight against it.
Anthony Fauci knows that two and two make four, and of course he has received
death threats for saying so.
Hi--long time. I've been so out of the blog loop the last few years, but have been writing more and thinking about a re-start. Was just scrolling through your blog because it's always interesting. This caught my eye--I've been on a huge Camus kick. How did you end up liking The Plague overall? (For me, it's his best novel--but that could just be the pandemic talking...)
ReplyDeleteHi! I hope you do re-start. I liked The Plague quite a bit, although I feel as though how good it is depends on how true it is, and I'm not sure about that. Supposedly the plague is a metaphor for fascism, and the message seems to be that common decency (of an active kind) is the solution. To that I want to say: I hope it's true; we'll see. But then I think: No, we won't. We can't ever know whether fascism is here for good or gone for good. Still, it's an encouraging message.
ReplyDeleteI think your point about "not knowing" is captured well in the final pages of the novel. This might be depressing, but it can also be stimulating: the boulder, in this case, is worth rolling (it is not merely absurd), because of the impact we can have on specific other people around us. That could be sentimental, so I think one has to be careful with the idea. I avoided reading the book all as a metaphor for fascism, which is a way to read it, and it's interesting that Camus seems in other places to want people not to read it MERELY as a metaphor for what they went through in WWII. (Refusing the metaphorical add-on reminds me of a very frustrating lesson I learned from a poetry professor, who politely refused to accept the students' various metaphorical interpretations of Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It took me about 15 years to appreciate fully why he did that.)
DeleteOh yes, it shouldn't be read as nothing but a metaphor. One thing I like about it is how realistic it seems about an actual plague.
DeleteAnd as for its relative value compared with his other books, I think the only other novel of his I've read is The Stranger. That was too long ago for me to remember what I thought of it.