Comments on: (La Peste) The Plague by Albert Camus – a review

By: john baker

john baker — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:20:06 +0000

You are welcome to your opinion, Eric. But Camus was an atheist. In “The Myth of Sisyphus”, he states that religious faith is a kind of suicide; a distraction from the real in which the individual embraces the Absurd and abandons reason and logic.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 13:33:15 +0000

I strongly disagree with your last paragraph. I think that you should read more about Camus. Camus was a believer, and for him God was never out of the equation.

By: Nanoubix

Nanoubix — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 14:25:49 +0000

@ Praiffs
Camus’s essay ‘The Myth of Sysiphe’ is about the enormous idea of suicide. The essay starts with the following:

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”

Through the rewriting of the myth of Sisyphus, Camus tries to communicate his sense that, although existence is meaningless (= absurd), it is not without hope, not without happiness.

Being aware of the absurdity of (one’s) life is ultimately a formidable success for humanity. Choosing to end one’s life would show one’s failure to comprehend and endure our human condition.

By: greggy

greggy — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 03:36:03 +0000

hi im doing a paper on this book, and was wondering if anybody knows anything about how Camus puts in his own life into the book. Such as he played soccer and liked to swim and this is in the book. any help?

By: praiffs

praiffs — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:58:50 +0000

According to existentialists we have no meaning of our lives..it is worthless,purposeless..if it is so then why dont we go for suicide.?? Is there any kind of force to live.?? I think most of people believe in two kind of ideology, idealism and materialism, materialists live for materialistic things and idealist live for emotions,feelings but when they both alone they feel the absurdity of theire live,they wanna leave this world.but they cant, they have become slavers of matter and mind..what do u think.? Am i wrong?

By: optimisation

optimisation — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:31:05 +0000

Interesting thoughts! I dont read The Plague. Is it necessary to read? Thanks.

jb says: Not necessary, but if you don’t read it you’ll be missing something quite special.

By: integration and disintegration

integration and disintegration — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:18:24 +0000

I was wondering, since the novel was written after WWII,,, then how can we draw parallels to the occupation of the french by the Nazis? or that of the Holocaust?

jb says: I think you mean to infer that the novel was written before the start of world war II, when in fact it was published in 1947. But even if it had been written before the war, from a readers point of view in the 21st century, surely its equally valid to interpret it as a metaphor for the Nazi invasion and occupation of France, or as a metaphor for any thing or concept that imprisons us and takes away our freedom or our expectations. We don’t place such limits on ourselves when reinterpreting Shakespeare. Just the other day I saw a production of Romeo and Juliet set in the 1940s. Worked fine. Doesn’t culture enable us to move about in space and time, and in so doing, to reinterpret our sense of self and memory and experience?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:49:21 +0000

Though everyone knows that life is an implacable foe that will devour him? It is a great book and perhaps my favourite Camus, but there seems a simple intelelctual error, amounting to separating oneself from the life one is a part of. We are obviously constituent parts of this life, and any notion of our being separate entities delusional. So how can we be a foe of that which is our own selves. We are part of life so how can it devour us?, us being an indivisible part of it.

jb says: Thanks, Andrew. Mysteries, eh?