"The Plague" by Albert Camus
Title: The Plague
Author: Albert Camus
My Grade: A-
Set in Oran, a French port town on the Algerian coast in the 1940's. This book tells of a horrific epidemic of a type of bubonic plague sweeping the area. It starts out when rats in the town are dying by the thousands in grotesque bloody ways. It doesn't take long for it to spread to the human population with equally devastating results. All hell breaks loose causing the officials to close off the town from the rest of the world. Nothing and nobody can go in or out. In the story, we meet several men. There is the overworked Dr. Rieux who must deal with the victims in close contact but can do little but watch them suffer and die. He's joined by stranded out-of-towners Tarrou and Rambert who do what they can to help in Rieux's efforts. Then there's Grande, a wannabe novelist who helps calculate plague statistics and the only person who seems to be happy about all this plague business, Grande's neighbor Cottard who before the plague hit tried to kill himself. The narrator doesn't reveal themselves until the very end but it's who I assumed it would be. I suppose it was good that the narrator wasn't known early on, so you couldn't automatically eliminate that person from being the ones that perished in the outbreak, as one can imagine not all of them make it.
This is a really fascinating character study more than anything else. I was surprised at how easily the story just flowed. It did kind of lag near the end, as the plague lasts a long time (through several seasons)... perhaps Camus really wanted us to feel how long it was, I don't know. Yes, it's a grim story but there is great examples of the goodness in people making it not a complete downer.
And with that people, I am officially caught up with all my book reviews! WOOOOOT!