In the southern and not picturesque city of Oran, where pigeons do not live and gardens do not grow, disaster settled for almost a whole year. In the spring of 194... an invasion of vile rats attacked the streets of the green city. To the readers' attention is given a chronicle of those distant days, which sets out the terrible and distressing events, when the inhabitants of the market town were forced to sit for a long time in quarantine, in complete isolation of the closed borders and adjust to the new, uncomfortable living conditions.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a representative of non-metropolitan French literature. His origin in Algeria and his experiences there in the thirties were dominating influences in his thought and work. Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest in philosophy (only chance prevented him from pursuing a university career in that field), he came to France at the age of twenty-five. The man and the times met: Camus joined the resistance movement during the occupation and after the liberation was a columnist for the newspaper Combat.
I admit that I am not indifferent to nasty rodents, so scenes related to rats caused me a complex range of feelings, at times I wanted to squeal, stomp my feet and not see the vivid descriptions on the pages of the book, but it was impossible to tear myself away from these details. Sick rats crawled out of dumps, attics, and basements into the white light, bleeding and writhing in agony with a death squeal. Every morning people stumbled upon the dying tailed creatures, gathering their corpses and had no idea what this dramatically-increasing mortality was leading to. Every day the number of disgusting rat corpses was growing, the citizens were no longer surprised by this mundane sight, they were not confused anymore, they naively believed that the time has come for the city to be cleansed of filth. When the invasion ended, people breathed a sigh of relief, not implying that the phenomenon could carry a monstrous threat to humanity.
The plague began to mow people down when the rats ran out. The mysterious fever that began to afflict people did not at first glance look like a contagious disease, but it alarmed people because it quickly led to the death of the patient. An incomprehensible disease that doctors did not know how to treat, a mysterious illness that was bedridden and reduced the disease to death in just a couple of days. Everything said it smelled like a real epidemic.
Day by day, the deadly disease was making giant leaps and bounds, claiming lives. The townspeople, who at first did not believe in the plague, tried to hide their unease with jokes, but when they learned of the increasing death toll, they were hushed and even stifled. They promised to send a serum from France that could save us from the epidemic, and everyone was impatient, there was no time to wait, there were about 40 deaths a day, and the death curve was climbing sharply.
I am always amazed at the carelessness of some people and the realization that they are the ones who will not be affected by the disease. In this book, as in our days, when it becomes clear that the disease is really dangerous and highly contagious, people continue to clump together: walking the streets, gathering in noisy groups at cafes, having picnics on crowded terraces, continuing to live their usual lives, ignoring bans and advice to self-isolate, jokingly pretending that no plague can spoil their mood. Even the numbers of victims carried off by the epidemic do not frighten them or make them think about the consequences. People don't change over the years. And that's the sad thing.
In the book, I was struck by a situation involving a house call to a doctor. The doctor who arrived diagnosed the patient with the plague, and leaving the patient's home, called an ambulance to take the plague-stricken man away in order to save his family from infection. But the relatives, realizing that they would probably never see their loved one again, locked the doors of their house tightly and did not let anyone in, only not to let their sick relative out of the house, were ready to die with him, but they did not want to think about parting.
Albert Camus introduces the reader to the life of a local doctor who did not believe in God and his help, in the throes of a dying population, did not like to think, philosophize and waste time on idle chatter, because his only goal was to treat the sick, to ease their pain. Days of fatigue reduced his ability to work, he saw people die every day, he heard the moans of death every day. The serum he brought was not effective, since the local microbe was different from the French plague bacillus, so he had to create his own serum, and that took a lot of time and energy, which the local doctors no longer had.
To prevent the epidemic from spreading further, the city authorities decided to close the borders. The quarantine led to confinement for residents, separation from loved ones who were away. The city was closed, the local population did not immediately take into account the seriousness of the epidemic, but the isolation had a profound effect on their state of mind. They suffered from not being able to see their loved ones and were irritated that the city authorities were infringing upon their rights.
The narrator, who lived through the long and painful days of the plague, without embellishing the events, striving for objectivity, taking his time, dwelling on the details, told in a slightly monotone voice about the mental and physical suffering of the townspeople. The book is written in simple enough language, I did not notice any difficulties in the reading. The story was interesting and instructive, but here the characters of the characters, I thought, not revealed enough. During the reading only Dr. Rie stood out of all the others differed only by name and occupation, the characters I almost did not distinguish them. But in the background of the main characters hopelessness is described terrific and the emotional state of the population, too. The excruciating fears in the midst of the epidemic, the distraught inhabitants, the general despair, the agonies of death.
Who would have thought that the noisy commotion and disgusting rat squeaks heralding the rodents' return to the world of the living would mean the end of the disease, would begin to give hope to desperate people, that the epidemic was about to recede. The plague came without asking permission, and left, leaving behind a huge pile of ashes. It would seem that the time of suffering was over, but the pain in people's hearts did not abate. The stench of death did not let us relax. Unfortunately, the plague microbe does not die, it can quietly lurk and sleep for decades in secluded places, waiting for its time, and then it will wake up the rats again and send them to the streets to die and infect people...
This article was sponsored by Clement George
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