Monday has dawned gray and cold, matching my mood perfectly. Walking to my 20th Century Literature class, I feel like the sun has set and not risen for five days. I've just finished reading Camus' The Plague. This horrible morning after, what I need is refuge from my own thoughts and emotion.
When leaving his surgery on the morning of April 16, Dr. Bernard Rieux felt something soft under his foot. It was a dead rat lying in the middle of the landing.
This opening scene of the novel has been seared in my mind. The plague has just begun its onslaught on the French Algerian city of Oran. I step gingerly on the pavement, afraid that a big rodent might come toward me from the dark end of the street.
As I enter the classroom, I'm all ears, ready to hear that this haunting tale can't be all that literal. I want to be told that this story of unrelieved horror is a metaphor for something that can be overcome with human resilience. Forget the literal ganglias splitting open like an overripe fruit, men and rats dying on the street in a stench of corruption.
Prof begins reflectively, choosing his words. 'The Plague' is a representation of the philosophical notion of the absurd, a theory that Camus himself helped to define.
I lean forward with interest. I'm already loving it. Trust the European men of letters to come up with such erudite thoughts.
The announcement of death is paramount in Camus' philosophy and his novels, Prof continues in quite a different tone of voice.
Yes, I do recognize that. An uneasy feeling settles in my stomach as I recall old Spaniard M. Michel, his face livid and grayish green, his limbs spread out by tumors, breathing his last in a sudden gasp. I hear it in his senile chuckle, looking at the fleeing vermin, They're coming out, they're coming out. Camus is proclaiming the death of many people in Oran where it has become evident that a real epidemic has set in.
Folding his arms, looking very satisfied, Prof explains, In existential absurdism, the world is senseless and indifferent to human suffering which is unceasing and often tortuous.
Camus' view of life is depressing. He thinks that life has no meaning, and hence there is something deeply farcical about the human quest for such notion. My voice is feeble, as I muse. What is the point of living then if life is wildly illogical and can never have intention?
No answer comes to me. I feel deeply tricked. Stunned. And furious. I grimace at the thought of an almost empty town shrouded in darkness, palled in dust, seeming like a lost island of the damned.
Prof interrupts my languishing thoughts. Camus avers that individuals should embrace the preposterous condition of human existence while also defiantly continuing to explore and search for its essence.
I get it. Indeed, in the novel, I recall that despite the discontent and hopeless days filled with dismay and darkness, the city residents have persisted in their long, heartrending struggle to survive - content to live if only for the day, feeling the minutes go by, leaden, heavy. Endless. Alone under the vast indifference of the sky.
Prof echoes my thoughts, his voice now quiet and distant. The absurd hero doesn't despair. He clarifies, his lips slightly pursed like he's choosing his words carefully. Instead, he openly embraces the folly of his condition.
I nod slowly. Of course. Dr. Rieux sums it up in his chronicle as the contagion lets up: To state quite simply what we learn in time of pestilence: there are more things to admire in men than to despise.
Looking indifferently at my watch, I suck in a deep breath. I have to pick up my reserved copy of Lord of the Flies. All brisk and business-like, Prof notifies us, as if reading my thoughts. Next week, Golding.
I feel lightheaded. The perplexity that has settled around me like a heavy fog is lifting now. I look straight ahead to the library, stumbling slightly over my feet.
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