The Plague: A new translation by Laura Marris
"We can finally read the work as Camus meant it to be read. Laura Marris's new translation of The Plague is, quite simply, the translation we need to have." --Los Angeles Review of Books The first new translation of The Plague to be published in the United States in more than seventy years, bringing the Nobel Prize winner's iconic novel to a new generation of readers. - "A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair." --The Washington Post The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation, and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, as well as a timeless story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence. In this fresh yet careful translation, award-winning translator Laura Marris breathes new life into Albert Camus's ever-resonant tale. Restoring the restrained lyricism of the original French text, and liberating it from the archaisms and assumptions of the previous English translation, Marris grants English readers the closest access we have ever had to the meaning and searing beauty of The Plague. This updated edition promises to add relevance and urgency to a classic novel of twentieth-century literature.
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Community Reviews
Having read this after COVID, I have a deeper understanding of the themes and emotions the characters endure.
A subtle telling of the power of human struggle and the necessity of it in times peril. The absurdity and romantic undertones drive a dry and haunting narrative of life in oppression and finding the way out
Reading this in a time of actual plague (or at least epidemic), I’m probably much less likely than I otherwise would have been to search for symbolism and analog in Camus’ narrative. There is a lot here (especially in the first section) that just echoes what I see in the world around me. But in the end, I do think there’s a way that the plague itself takes on a metaphorical role (as does the Coronavirus epidemic, probably).
The central threat to the characters of this book is a stand-in for any great challenge facing an entire civilization of people—pestilence, fascism, natural disaster, economic calamity, whatever. In a sense it’s the fact of being threatened that is the challenge, rather than the nature of the threat itself. The characters themselves, and the society of which they are a part, are representative of the many ways we all respond to such upheavals.
There’s something a little cynical, and a little hopeful, about Camus’ take on all this. The book doesn’t really have genuine heroes, in a mythic sense. But what it does have is ordinary people offering their own time and energy to resist. Camus celebrates the way this brings them together as a community, which I appreciate even if it’s not how we’re responding to the crisis we’re now living through. I guess I’d still like to think it’s possible that we’ll come together and discover a greater sense of solidarity in our shared resistance to a common threat. But that’s the (perhaps naïve) optimism underlying Camus’ book. Was it represented in the reality of French resistance to the Nazis? I don’t know. Is it represented in our resistance to the multifaceted threat we face? Not yet.
The central threat to the characters of this book is a stand-in for any great challenge facing an entire civilization of people—pestilence, fascism, natural disaster, economic calamity, whatever. In a sense it’s the fact of being threatened that is the challenge, rather than the nature of the threat itself. The characters themselves, and the society of which they are a part, are representative of the many ways we all respond to such upheavals.
There’s something a little cynical, and a little hopeful, about Camus’ take on all this. The book doesn’t really have genuine heroes, in a mythic sense. But what it does have is ordinary people offering their own time and energy to resist. Camus celebrates the way this brings them together as a community, which I appreciate even if it’s not how we’re responding to the crisis we’re now living through. I guess I’d still like to think it’s possible that we’ll come together and discover a greater sense of solidarity in our shared resistance to a common threat. But that’s the (perhaps naïve) optimism underlying Camus’ book. Was it represented in the reality of French resistance to the Nazis? I don’t know. Is it represented in our resistance to the multifaceted threat we face? Not yet.
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