The Plague

Albert Camus

Elon Musk

by Albert Camus


Do you react to coincidence, serendipity, an alignment of the stars? I'm half kidding, but the half serious part came across a photo of Albert Camus, a French Algerian writer, philosopher and journalist who lived from 19113-1960, won a Nobel Prize, and embraced the philosophy of "absurdism."  I kept looking at his photo and wondering why he looked so familiar when it dawned on me there was a strong likeness to Elon Musk, engineer, industrialist, and creator of PayPal and the Tesla electric car - among many other things. Aside from the similarity of looks, the two men share a quirky outlook, a unique personality, and a difficult-to-describe genius.

In high school, one of my teachers (I'm tempted to call them "Professors" a la Hogwarts, since they were far more than run-of-the-mill teachers) introduced us to Camus via "The Myth of Sisyphus," as a way of discussing the philosophy of absurdism. Another had us read, in French, "The Plague," (La Peste). It so happens that "Albert Camus The Plague" is trending third on Google search just now, in honor of Covid-19, no doubt.

"The Plague" was a book Camus was no doubt born to write, or better put, his life drove him to write. Born in French Algeria, his father died in WWI, so the young Camus never really knew him. Though his marked talents for both his studies and football marked him as outstanding, he contracted tuberculosis in secondary school - a diagnosis that would follow him throughout his life.

Camus was in many ways a contradiction: an anarchist who enthusiastically embraced the teamwork on the football field - in fact celebrated it - a revolutionary who was also a moralist (and a serial cheater in his relationships), a pacifist who tried multiple times to join the Army during WWII. Though he's widely known as an absurdist, he's also classified as an existentialist, which label he vehemently rejected.

"The Plague" is the story, told by an unknown narrator, of a plague (which turns out to be the bubonic plague) which sweeps through the Algerian town of Oran. The several main characters are all male, and all seem to be a slice of the personality of Camus himself, as they confront the plague, fear, political/civic behavior, and death, from their varying points of view and capacities as doctor, wanderer, failed writer, priest, and others.

People who have sought out the book no doubt to compare it to our own experiences as we deal with the life-altering effects of a pandemic won't come away satisfied. As an absurdist, Camus finds life and its vicissitudes pointless - other than simply, like Sisyphus, rolling your particular rock endlessly up a hill: it's your job. Another popular philosopher of modern times, Jordan Peterson, has famously suggested we "pick up the largest burden you can carry and walk forward." He doesn't explain where you'll get, or even imply that there is some end-game to the march "forward." Simply that our job is to walk forward, roll the rock up, deal with illness and death which are life, which are the Plague.

The book follows the movement of the plague as it first appears, grows in strength against people's best efforts to contain it, as the city is forcibly isolated and people begin to rebel and attempt to sneak - or fight their way - out, and finally as it ebbs and ends, leaving people damaged, ennobled, rejoicing or despairing, having been transformed or entrenched as a result of their experience.

Throughout the book, Camus own struggles with what he believes about the nature and purpose of life are played out in his various characters' reactions to their plight, and it will no doubt give those who choose to read it plenty to consider as they contrast our own less lethal but certainly transformative experience.