by Albert Camus

After listening to the In Our Time podcast on Albert Camus, I decided to revisit his two most famous novels, The Stranger and The Plague.

It had been about 10 years since I last read The Stranger and although I pretty much hated it the first time around, in light of the podcast discussion I had just heard, it seemed worth a second chance--not to mention, it's really a short and quick read, so no real risk. There are few examples of the existentialist or absurdist philosophy (depending on whichever label applies) that are as accessible as this one. In the character of Mersault, Camus presents us with a man possessing an extreme indifference and arrogance toward the world and the people around him. This aspect of the novel, which repulsed me the first time around, is balanced by the equally extreme indifference of the world toward humanity. Mersault, in taking the seemingly straightforward and obvious (to him) approach of matching the world's indifference with his own, becomes outcast from human society and eventually receives the death penalty as the only just punishment (as far as society is concerned) in response to his unrepented murder of a virtual stranger on the beach.

In contrast to the protagonist of The Stranger, all of the leading characters in The Plague demonstrate a different approach to the random horrors inflicted by the world they live in. Trapped in the Mediterranean port city of Oran by an outbreak of the bubonic plague, the inhabitants struggle to deal with the absurdity and apparent injustice of the world that they are forced to confront. Although reviewers often treat the plague as anallegory for Nazi Germany and the rise of fascism in Camus' time, I don't really feel that comparison is all that airtight. It seems to me that a faceless enemy is crucial and compelling in the story Camus is trying to tell, that if one is true to oneself and one's beliefs, the struggle in the face of apparent inevitability is the only logical approach. In this sense, the struggle is not heroic. But it can still be inspiring.