the plague

the plague by Albert Camus published 1946.

Insightful character sketches of citizens in a town called Oran beleaguered by the plague.


"In the early days when they thought this epidemic much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. And all their hideous fears that stamp their face in the daytime are transformed in the fiery dusty nightfall into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom fevering their blood". - Tarrou

"Paneloux is a man of learning, a scholar. He hasn't come in contact with death; that's why he can speak with such assurance of the truth with a capital T. But every country priest who visits his parishoners and has heard a man gasping for breath on his deathbed thinks as I do. He'd try to relieve human suffering before trying to point out its excellence" - Rieux