The Plague

At my aunt's house during Christmas 2000, not long after my mum died, I started to read l'Etranger. I never finished it, and I keep meaning to come back to it. It was different from anything I had read before, and I found that it both shocked and appealed to me.

When I saw Camus' The Plague at the library I pounced. The plague is obviously a metaphor for Nazism, and the resistance against the plague is the French resistance, which Camus was involved in. As I've said before I avoid allegory and metaphor like the plague. So I read it as if it were a real plague in a real town. The character I identified with was Cottard. I was a bit worried therefore when he went mad at the end and started shooting at people. Cottard actually liked the plague because it meant that for the first time, he was in the same boat as everyone else.

There was something else I meant to say, but it escapes me. Anyway, I've got to go and clean the house as I've got people coming round. See you soon.